Luckily that won't be happening again as they've implemented differential patching.

Would take me longer on my connection, and I'm actually quite happy with the one I got now. Now imagine someone with a slow connection even attempting this. :/

I wonder if this would be a legitimate reason to ask for a refund. Is this patch even mandatory, or is it up to the users to decide if they want it? Sounds like it doesn't do much good anyway.

On the Xbox 360 all patches are mandatory as long as you are connected to Xbox Live. It refuses to let you play the game until the patch is fully downloaded and installed. The only way to avoid a patch is to always play the game offline. The situation is probably the same on Xbox 1.

13 GB...after reading the comments on the Eurogamer article, I wonder if Capcom really did just do a dump of the entire game under the guise of a "patch".

The main advantage of consoles to me is that they can play games right off the disc (well, the PlayStation has mandatory installs). Whenever I feel like playing a new game, I can just put the disc in the tray instead of having to wait three hours for the game to download as I do on Steam. If they had actually removed the optical drive on the new consoles, as they were seriously considering, there would have been almost no reason to buy a console anymore.

for me 13GB is 30% over my monthly bandwidth allowance & it would take me more than 32 hours to dl that "patch"

I miss the days when people actually knew how to properly patch files instead of making users download replacement files as patches

Well that's not the difference between PC and console, but rather between physical copy and digital download, and either is more or less readily available, on either platform. If you go for physical console games, you still have to go out and buy them, or wait for the delivery, just like you have to wait for a download and installation.

Regardless, while I don't know for sure, I wouldn't be surprised if the PS4 and XBone both had mandatory game installations for physical copies, since it was often required for PS3 games, and preferable for many 360 games, due to faster loading times.

Not to mention the days when patches weren't even necessary, because developers still took the time to properly test and polish the game, instead of being rushed by some greedy publisher.

And before someone says it: Yes, there really was a time like that. Back before everyone had internet access; not to mention old console games, which were pretty much impossible to patch once they hit the store shelves, and yet they worked. ( Most of them, anyway. )

To be fair, game complexity and the size of development teams has greatly increased since, but still...

Just wait until 4K screens really take off. Can not even imagine the texture sizes that will be required to not look blurry at those resolutions, and imagine how big video files will get to eliminate artifacts. Hundred plus gig games are not that far away.

It's true that this isn't the defining difference between PCs and consoles, but physical games have almost become console exclusive. If you go to a store these days you can barely find any PC titles on the shelves anymore, and the ones that are there are mostly old and budget titles. Very few PC games are released on physical discs anymore. I usually order a bunch of console games at a time and play them whenever I feel like it, which often takes months (but then the games are immediately available).

Physical game copies are still more common over here. The main problem is that most new physical games are tied to Steam, which is just... idiotic. If I wanted to use Steam ( which is all nice and well, if one is into that sort of thing ) I would not bother with physical games to begin with. And then some even require additional online services. ( All of that is actually the reason why I ended up using GOG instead. It's nice not to have to worry about DRM and online services any more, even if it means a smaller selection of games to choose from -- of course I still end up with more games than I have time to play. :P )

I imagine if someone has a slow connection, but a physical games store nearby, getting games there could actually be a lot faster than going for digital distribution. ( At least if it wasn't for the various aforementioned problems. )

Will probably be a while... ( Seems like the "next-gen" consoles can hardly even handle full HD at decent framerates. ) Either way, I do have faith that some clever game developers will come up with more efficient solutions, rather than just increased texture resolutions. Procedurally created texture detail or shaders or something along those lines. Seems like things have slowed down a bit in recent years, so it would be nice to see some true innovations in game development and computer graphics again. Then again, current games hardly seem to be using even half of the technology that's already out there. :/