Report: SSD Hard Drive Improves Loading in Gran Turismo 5; SSD Mandatory for Next-Gen?

It appears that installing a solid-state hard drive in a PlayStation 3 can halve load times for Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 5, reports Digital Foundry citing data from the Beyond3D forums.

The two systems being compared are an old-body PS3 with a Corsair F120 SSD HDD and a stock slim PS3 with the Sony-installed HDD. According to the user doing the testing, the initial loading of time of 55 seconds can be reduced to 29 seconds. The user also hints that the menu navigation is faster, but does not provide concrete data.

Similarly, track load times between 30 and 50 seconds are reduced to around 20 to 25 seconds. Now, throwing an SSD in your PS3 requires a significant money investment, but it brings up the issue of what should go into next-generation consoles. If developers are going to continue to use local storage for caching and quicker loading, when compared to optical drives, I think solid-state drives are mandatory for any next-gen console.