@petelero: for your comments on point #5, testing has been done to compare the HDD speeds between external on Xbox One and PS4. There's really no difference with a standard drive installed in the PS4, and marginal difference with a SSD installed. As is, an external drive used on Xbox One is in fact faster than using the internal drive that comes with the console, although Microsoft did use a sluggish HDD to begin with.
@jamesbr27: would be nice. I see 1 and 3 as being the most likely, but we probably won't even get them. Folders has been requested from the get go with no acknowledgement, same with external HDD support for game installs. They really don't seem to actually listen to feedback.
@IanNottinghamX: Again, research. This is 2016, just about anything can be found on the Internet. There's no excuse for rehashing your talking points when you're wrong. For a publisher looking at the bottom line for every unit sold, even if it was only $1 added cost for using a solid state/SD for the medium would be a turn off. We're almost there, but fact of the matter is that a company can save millions by using Bluray over SD cards. Nintendo may in fact use cartridges for this platform, I'm not saying that they won't. But as usual they're flipping off the third party devs. If Nintendo are subsidising the extra cost for storage then that's another discussion.
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