Grand Theft Auto 5 is promising to be a massive game when it is released September 17, and that fact, coupled with the ability to switch between the game's three main characters, will cause gamers to have to download a sizeable portion of the game into their console's hard drive.
Developer Rockstar recently stated that, no matter if you get the game on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, users will have to install about 8GB of data on to their console's hard drive. The Xbox 360 will have a separate disk that they will have to put in to install the game before putting in the actual game disk. The PlayStation 3 version of the game will come on a single disk, but will still force users to install the game before letting them start playing.
In addition, Rockstar detailed how switching between characters in the game will work. Specifically, they revealed that each character will have their own agenda when not in use, and switching to them may reveal that they are in the middle of some dangerous missions:
"Michael, Franklin and Trevor have their own separate lives with their own sets of friends and acquaintances, and even their own preferred ways of spending their free time. When you're not on a mission, you can freely switch in real-time to any of the three characters to drop in and out of their lives letting you see what they're up to. And because they have their own schedules, you'll never know what they might be doing - you might drop in on Michael in the middle of a family dispute, interrupt Franklin chatting up some ladies, or Trevor on the run from the law - or whatever else these guys do in their free time... How and when you switch between characters when you're not on a mission is completely up to you."