Ask HN: Why do Nintendo and AAA games take so long to load?

I would also ask why are patches and updates take long to download and install on PS3 and PS4 (don't know if it improved on PS5). If you install Gran turismo 6 on PS3, it starts with patching it for 10 hours (really, not a typo and not exaggeration). And PS4 is not much better - base games usually are downloaded at a reasonable speed, but patching takes forever.

At the same time any free linux distro will pull gigabytes of updates so fast that I'm scared that it will melt my ethernet cable - but sony, a huge corporation can't

Probably depends on how the patch is applied. Is it a file by file update inside the game image. Is it a block level transformation. I could also imagine developer nuking the image and download it all again fresh “just to be sure”.

Talos Principle 2 opens in just a couple seconds.

My gut is people don't have a good appreciation for how big assets on modern games are?