As if to prove that PC games these days are so self-absorbed and narcissistic that they can't imagine that you might want to play other games, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" has a ridiculous specification requiring up to 213GB of storage space. Yep, according to the game's minimum requirements, you need 213 GB of SSD storage.

Yes, 213 GB. Now, there is a caveat to this number. If you just want to play the multiplayer version and are willing to forgo the full visual experience minus the "high-res" assets, the minimum installation requirement is 79GB. Adding the single-player campaign without the hi-res assets would bring the total to 149 GB.

In other words, a full multiplayer and single-player install, including hi-res assets, would be 213 GB. SSD prices have dropped dramatically over the past year or so; even popular products like the WD Black SN850X are relatively affordable at around $150, and special offers You can often get them for even less if they are at a special price.

However, one still needs a huge amount of space for a single game. Even if you had a 2TB SSD, you probably wouldn't install more than one 213GB game at a time, given that it's never a good idea to cram an SSD full, given the OS and the files and media on the drive.

Heck, even with a 4TB SSD, if all your games are over 200GB, your installed library of games would probably be 15 or so at most. In other words, if you really need a large installed library, such games will tip things over into multiple SSD areas.

Then you have to consider several 4TB drives, and suddenly the "cheap" SSDs are not so cheap. Nor can you go back to the old magnetic hard drives; the minimum requirements for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 explicitly call for SSD storage.

Of course, it is not exactly news that big-budget games consume a lot of storage. But smashing the 200GB barrier seems a bit silly, and one wonders how much thought developers have given to the hardware realities that gamers face. Or do they imagine that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is the only game in the world? Yes, it is.