What would you rather have: A Hard Drive or Backwards Compatibility?

[Dodece]

Honestly I have been gaming fine without exorbitant use of a hard drive. Technically my Wii does not have one. I could probably get by with relative ease on my 360 as well. Games do not need to use a hard drive. Further more consoles without hard drives can still play online with other players. There are ways to work around not having a hard drive. Having memory cards or small system storage should suffice. Even if the machine cannot support them directly there is always the option of integrating a reader into a controller such as in the 64 console.

Further more downloading arcade games while useful could be accomplished with compilation discs. Thats what the industry did before the introduction of online connectivity. Most consoles can play movies, and most cable companies seem to possess on demand services. Even ignoring those you can get greater value from movie mailers like Netflix. So the convenience is actually more expensive. While if you are patient you can get a greater value. Even the demos were easy enough to get through magazine offers, or simply registering your console. Who here still has that old Banjo Kazooie tape?

A hard drive is hardly a necessity unless a developer chooses to make it so. We got by fine without them until the current generation, and the fact that you can still buy consoles without them means they are still not necessary.

Backwards compatibility though brings a lot of value. You gain a larger library to choose from with many titles that can be purchased at a bargain. You can afford to do away with your old console, and as a added bonus you will always have more games at your disposal to play. I could not image losing the ability to play my Kotor, or up until recently my Halo 2, or even my Ocarina of Time. That would be a tragedy. I love all those games, and come back to some of them three or four times a year.

For my backwards compatibility is king. Technically I do not need a hard drive. I would however consider a console without backwards compatibility half of a machine. Good games withstand the passage of time in the hearts of those that love them.