"Aside from making lload times quicker is there anything else a hard drive can do to help developers? Just curious."

It's good for streaming, you won't be able to get big levels into memory at once so you have to stream textures and models as they are needed. Its good to have a buffer for this since access times on the disc are much worse than on the HD.

jake_the_fake1 said: Words Of Wisdom said: 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. 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.

Are you kidding?  Have you installed a PC game recently?  You plop in the DVD, autoplay runs, and you begin clicking next a few times maybe entering a key.  Boom, done.  Installations usually take a good 5 or so minutes and that's for solid installations of several Gb.

Unless you're running a low specced PC from the mid 90s which has trouble just booting the OS it runs, PC gamers don't have it much worse than console gamers.

Smidlee said: totalwar23 said: jake_the_fake1 said: 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.

 Do you realize how easy it is to update your drivers? The first time I've updated my driver was last year and at that time, I didn't know what a driver was. Again, the people saying how complicated PC gaming is don't play many games on PCs. I could go on...but I gotta study right now.

 

If microsoft felt this was a huge issue I'm sure they would offer a 90 dollar game package with a game that needs a hard drive + hard drive. But developers have been able to make it work without so I don't think this is a valid argument. It would be nice to have a turbocharger come stock on my car too...but sadly I have to buy one.

It is very strange to me as well because the Xbox last gen was the only console WITH a mandatory hard drive. Way to take a step back MS.

What I don't get is that Microsoft is touting around that everyone should get GTAIV on the Xbox360 because of the huge exclusive DLC content it will get.

Won't you need a hardrive to actually download that content or did I miss something ??

Ail said: What I don't get is that Microsoft is touting around that everyone should get GTAIV on the Xbox360 because of the huge exclusive DLC content it will get. Won't you need a hardrive to actually download that content or did I miss something ??

 well then u go to the store and buy a $60 20g harddrive :D

"They did it with the original Xbox. I'm not sure why they decided to not require a hard drive on the 360. From what I understand they don't move many [Core/Arcade] units," added McGuire.

 It is pretty easy to figure out why they did it.  MS can sell a version with a hard drive for at least $50 more (even though it cost them more like $10) and loss less money or make more money on the higher end system.  I guess the developer was just pretending to be stupid. 

 

FreeTalkLive said: "They did it with the original Xbox. I'm not sure why they decided to not require a hard drive on the 360. From what I understand they don't move many [Core/Arcade] units," added McGuire.  It is pretty easy to figure out why they did it.  MS can sell a version with a hard drive for at least $50 more (even though it cost them more like $10) and loss less money or make more money on the higher end system.  I guess the developer was just pretending to be stupid.

Same can be said for Sony and rumble shock controllers. And nintendo and their lack of wii price cut even though they are making atleast 100 bucks on the damn thing. Sometimes developers say stupd things to get noticed...

Dear Microsoft,

It is appearent your Xbox 360 isn't the perfect console. Therefore, I sugguest the following things to be featured on the Xbox 720:


#1. A HVD DVD Drive, capible of no less than 500GB of drive space. Certainly enough to satisfy even Metal Gear 5.

#2. Waggle controls that aren't to waggl-y

#3. A 5 TB internal harddrive. Preferably very fast read times so if there is installation, it's instantaneous

#4. A mind reader for the UI. Preferably something that isn't very intrusive to my everyday life.

#5. Hardware that is not only very, very fast (like 30 general purpose CPUs, ect), but very very easy to work with. Infact, I want a dev kit that I can think up the games, and it creates the games for me.

#6. A very fast selling console. See #7.

#7. A $49.99 USD pricetag to ensure #6 happens.

Kthxbye,
Developers