the reason the dev is complaining about this is because Microsft original xbox came with a standard HDD, and now the 360 doesn't, and the HDD is very useful especially when it comes to streaming large amounts of data that HD games of today require.

It's funny.

Every time a PS3 developer puts a mandatory installation onto the PS3 hard-drive people whine and complain saying they don't want their console's hard drive used up in a PC-like fashion.

Microsoft preempted third parties by not having a hard drive in all its SKUs so third parties can't rely on it and now developers are whining.

What lame developers... if they want to make a freaking PC game, they should make one and stop whining about how the console isn't a PC.

it allows for more varied textures seeing as they can be moved faster from the HDD then they can from the DVD drive, but of course the biggest thing is reducing the load times as well as allowing for fast background loading to allow the game to have more detail/geometry on screen.

"I'm not dead... "

OT while I agree with his point that's the way the situation is - look at all the complaints over loading with PS3: no matter which way you go you can't please everyone.

So you buy the console with games/spec closest to what you want and that should be the end of it - and if it wasn't for internet forums it probably would be, but instead most of us have to endure fanboy's arguing over every opinion just like this one.

How much greater would all the press conferences be if everyone was loaded on hilarious amounts of beer! I think you're onto a winner here.

 installinga game on a PS3 is nothing like installing a game on a PC, on the PS3 you put the disc in and it installs it's self practically, a monkey could do this, and the benifits are seen almost instantanuously while on the PC side, installing a game requires the users attention as they accept/read the terms and conditions and then wait for a long time before the game is installed, far longer than DMC4 20min install time in some cases, only then to be faced with a load screen each time as their game loads for them to play.

Clearly the people complaining are not PC gamers seeing as PC gamers have it much worse than what console gamers have in terms of installing a game, so I welcome game install on the PS3 if it almost eliminates load times and texture pop up.

While I agree with WoW's post about not allowing third parties to force installations on users there were better ways of going about it. First off simply say to develop a 360 title any installation must be purely optional.

Or keep the premium/elite with their bigger HD. They should have at least given the Core/Arcade a small HD like the original Xbox. Not enough to dl a lot of stuff to but enough that devs can cache certain resources for faster access like the original xbox. Heck even 2-3 gigs would be enough for that and the rest of the HD however small it is could be partitioned for user storage like DLC.

Yeah it took me at least an hour to install Medieval TW2 Kingdom expansion. 360 would benefit from a HHD more than PS3 since it has to spin it dvd in warp drive to read fast. So I agree with the OP is was a bad move on Microsoft part.

 I was wondering can the HHD on consoles be uses as extra memory (virtal memory) when you come up a little short on ram like a PC does?  

 Oh dear god, you're right-PC gamers have to be absolute geniuses and not be monkeys in order to install games onto their hard drive. Your post shows you haven't played many PC games and writing out of ignorance. I've installed many PC games onto my computer, very rarely do they more than 30 minutes.

To be fair there is a little more to it than just installing the game on the PC. Sometimes you got to updates drivers as well which isn't required on a console since everyone has the same hardware.