There is still a PS5 and 100 GB BD discs. Without such an option i guess the industry would not nearly hit 100 GB on quite a few games already. Consoles still make sense, they are not "out of date". Because for those unable to afford a high end system or with bad internet... it is a good option.
Yet i still do agree that some devs are becoming lazy because of the new possibilities, so there might be the lack of optimizations and some games tend to become unnecessary data hogs. However, it is totally possible that some highly optimized games still require around 100 GB, dependable on the quality used. In the past it has not been used because simply to huge to tackle, not because it would have been useless.
I still think, making great optimization, a awesome quality can be done using no more than 100 GB, so if it goes way beyond that limit, most likely there is lot of laziness involved.
rtcvb32: A while back reading up on how Morrowind was developed, the devs opted for fewer models, and then you mix match and overlap to make new ones effectively, huge world with only 80Mb ESM file and like a 300Mb BSA archive.
Not so fun with modding, because as soon as you mod a certain "global model" it will be added to near endless NPCs and whatelse. Those "refreshed models" was used in order to save up on space, not because it is the most supreme thing ever made.
With more space you can create way more unique stuff and no need to recycle models, textures and whatelse all the time... so it makes sense having more space.
Even Skyrim was pretty much "nailed" on the available space because it was released on the Xbox360 with a DVD and a HDD, so they was trying to cut down data size purely because of technical limitations, not because there was no need for any more space. The newest Skyrim version, upgraded to 64 bit is way bigger in size than the original release-version; and yes, it looks way better.
There was 2 versions of Final Fantasy 13: One for the PS3 and one for the Xbox360. On the PS3 they had a BD with 50 GB space and on the Xbox360 they only had around 9 GB space, multiplied by 3 discs. On the Xbox360 they was using different sequences and even a lower resolution and the game was clearly inferior. Now i dunno how many "worse optimization" was involved but it surely was more challenging to them and even the lower data size was decreasing the possible quality.
Sure, you can say "Those lazy devs simply should put in even more work for even better optimization", yet, the costs can be immense and it is not always economically possible at a certain point... unless you have some super franchise which can generate coins out of the broken window.
Indeed... Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk got around 50-60 installed GB and top notch graphics. However, they was working on its optimization for years and it was very expensive. They was able to afford it because it was a cash-cow; if the success would have been any worse... it would have been impossible, simply to pricy to execute such a optimization for years.
Sure, on the Switch Witcher 3 is about half the size, but is it the same game? You may judge...
https:/.../www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVmaupufOrQ