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Xbox360 hard drive usage
VoodooV
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I was thinking about how there are a handful of people who seem to think we shouldn't make fun of Sony even though they've been extremely arrogant and now they're getting their due. It made me think of how a majority of us also believed that Microsoft's dual SKU approach for the 360 would flop and how we were ultimately right. I also remember that one of the worries about having a core version with no hard drive is that developers would cater to the lowest common denominator and not take advantage of the HD for swap files and the like to boost performance.
Now to the meat of the question. Now that it seems that the core version is officially a flop and most 360 owners have the hard drive and the bigger hard drive of the Zephyr on the way. How soon before we see games that require the HD, or does it matter?
Now to the meat of the question. Now that it seems that the core version is officially a flop and most 360 owners have the hard drive and the bigger hard drive of the Zephyr on the way. How soon before we see games that require the HD, or does it matter?
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And I thought MS was very strict in that developers could not require the HDD to be used.
And FFXI 360 required the HDD.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
As for the Zephyr, yes, Microsoft has stated that it was just a prototype, but so far, everything we've seen in the past suggest that while Zephyr was just a prototype, something like it is definitely, definitely coming down the line soon, and at the very least, we WILL see an upgraded drive. You don't announce downloadable HD movies and HD DVR functionality on a device with a capacity limit of 20gb.
As for (regular) games requiring a HDD, I don't actually think it'll happen. XBLA games WILL eventually be allowed to break the 50mb limit (Castlevania apparently already has), because that's a huge barrier and piece of prohibitance on the console.
But the thing is, with the 512 mb of RAM, and 12x DVD drive, HDD caching is no longer such a huge advantage. And since the only thing it affects is load times, you know? So it's not that major of a thing, and it's not at all advantageous for developers to block out that segment of the market, no matter how small it may be, because hell, if someone doesn't want to get a hard drive for their 360, it's not the developer's problem if they don't care about load times.
What we WILL see, on a related note, is games so optimized for the hard drive, that a gamer not using the HDD will experience absolutely atrocious load times. But not a total blocking out.
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So in a situation like that, the core starts to make more sense.
It was the only way I could get one at the time. Add an extra hundred for the HDD addon (bringing it up to the same exact price of the premiums) I have the same goddamn thing minus a wireless controller and some stupid chrome bits.
Well, the HDD can also be real handy when it comes to streaming large amounts of data. Mind you, from the looks of the games already out there, the 12x drive is doing a good enough job so far....
Especially when the user is only allowed to access ~13GB of it.
And what fucking balls they have charging people $100 for a 20GB hard drive.
Using a non-HDD equipped SKU to get a product to market quicker in larger numbers is really, really going to bite Microsoft in the ass in the next couple of years. Well, actually, it's going to bite Core owners in the ass, since once HDD penetration is large enough, developers aren't going to give a shit about HDD-less consoles. MS has already gone against their previous statements concerning no game being allowed to require the HDD, even if you only count the Soccer Sim (a non-MMO retail game).
Also, even though only a few of games require the HDD to operate right now, how many games have been released so far that have required patching to fix buggy code?
So, basically, if MS plans to use the Core to make it's way into emerging markets, they're going to be introducing these markets to games that are buggy as hell, with atrocious load times. Way to make an impression.
One SKU with a HDD and one without was a really, really stupid idea. But they had to be out by Christmas, and they had to be out in force, right?
There is a reason people called it the 'Tard Pack.
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And they should make a new HD, at around 100 GB or some sort, charging $100. Shouldn't rape us up the ass for low storage capacities.
Then again, this is Microsoft.
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I got the Core on black friday at circuit city, and used the $40 off $200 coupon, plus it came with a free game, which I got gears of war, and since it was black friday, I got a free shitty digital camera with my purchase. So, $260 for a core and gears of war, then I sold the camera for $50.
I did not have an hdtv, but I had a monitor, so I would have had to buy the VGA cables regardless. My brother gave me his original xbox, I traded that in towards a harddrive at eb, and got a wireless controller with credit I already had. I then bought a live gold pack with 3 arcade games, the vision camera, and a headset with a year of live for $80, which I used in free gift cards.
All in all I made out like a fucking bandit.
Because they, themselves, are 'tards?
Sure the Core seems silly to us, because it is silly, but you can always add the HDD later if you want it. Core systems aren't screwed over but why anyone would buy a Core and a Memory Card instead of a Premium is beyond me (outside of at launch when you bought whatever you could find).