| Leynos said: Eh, we were saving plenty on PS1/Saturn/N64 and several SNES games, however. The HDD was a big deal for consoles. Even of others planned to add an HDD but could not due to a shortage of cash (Hi SEGA) Xbox pushed it forward. While US PS2's had the option. Japanese first-run PS2's did not. the HDD was an external box. So Xbox having an HDD set the standard for future generations. |
That's the 5th generation of consoles already... But yeah save games became big in the 90s.
Save games worked perfectly fine on memory cards. The HDD was a bit of a step backward at first, locking your save games to your console. Memory cards were much easier keeping the save games with the games while going to a friend. No faff with exporting and importing.
HDD standard made some things better, some things worse (lengthy installs, release now, finish/patch later) It's still a joy to put an older game into a retro console and just play without installing and downloading patches. And I've never lost save games until both my 360 and PS3 failed :/
Auto-save also gives me anxiety in games, never knowing where it saved and where I'll end up if I 'quit' to continue later. It felt much better saving myself at the end of a game session, like closing a book with a bookmark to continue next time. But at least you don't have your friends overwriting your save games anymore! (Well not true, they can still start new game on your profile, argh)
HDD standard did change a lot in combination with online (delivery), they kinda go hand in hand.
Amiga 500 and MSX 2 also had HDD add-ons, but I guess not technically consoles. Sold as home computers.
