In the near future, many Xbox 360 titles will require HDD. This is probably a good move, so they can put more data on the discs. This new move probably will not affect too many gamers, considering I have no clue why you would want a 360 without a hard drive.
At this point, there’s absolutely no reason to have a Xbox 360 without a HDD unless you never play online. In that case, I really don’t see a point in spending that much on a system that you don’t take online. Once the new games start rolling out that require HDD, they will be visibly marked with the requirement to avoid any confusion.
While many were surprised by the fact that MS was planning to drop the Core from it’s SKU line-up, it finally helped XF make sense of something we stumbled upon late last week. Recent rumors regarding games being “dumbed down” abound, coupled with word from our contacts last week that the the Core was being discontinued had lead us to believe MS was about to make a big change to the way 360 games are made.
As many people will remember, the original XBOX was capable of some very large games that contained great AI and graphics for the time. To put it simply, this was possible because the data on the DVD was able to be compressed quite heavily, because it was then streamed off the disc and uncompressed in the HDD that every original XBOX had. This allowed for shorter (and less frequent) load times and also allow for much more data to be placed on the DVD.
XF has learned that MS has plans for the 360 to do the very same thing. Games requiring the HDD will initially have a “HDD required” logo clearly viewable on the front of the case [seen above], as well being listed as requiring the HDD on the back info panel of the case.
Via Xbox Family
5 Comments to Future Xbox 360 Games Will Require HDD
by: Norbit
On August 2, 2007 at 2:21 pm
“I really don’t see a point in spending that much on a system that you don’t take online”
Me neither but less than half of 360 owners have registered for Xbox live (they have 7 million registered but that includes xbox account holders who don’t own 360′s as well) and only around half of those registered have downloaded content. This means at most there are only a few million playing online with gold memberships. To an extent he same seems to be true with the PS3. When they reached 1 million sales in the EU only around 50% had registered to play online.
I would love to know the sales figures for the core system. I read a while ago that it accounts for about 20% of total sales. If so that cold be a few million people about to be shafted.
by: jay
On August 2, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Its the way forward for the 360…I suspect the PS3 will do the same to work around its slow read speed. As the price comes down it matters less and less.
How about servers runnung the game and we log on to play? or pop in a install disk then a game disk to play…this would be way better than the current setup with the disk turning at such a high rate all the time. Games would run better and the 360 would be quieter..win win
by: William
On August 2, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I think install disks are a great idea, but Microsoft will only let that happen when required out of their paranoid fear that everyone will pirate the games.
by: Suzie
On August 3, 2007 at 5:03 am
I’m sure a lot of people buy it just because they want the ‘latest’ games console, rather than actually wanting to go online with it.
But then, these people are silly, and should be penalised ;P
by: ken j
On August 3, 2007 at 1:13 pm
it shoul have a hdd as standard like ps3