But they can install a hard drive and utilize it if they wish.  That's just simply what you get for buying the cheaper model of anything.  If you want the better options, spend the money to get a hard drive. 

At least with that option people don't have to spend all their money at once.  They buy the cheaper 360 and then buy the hard drive when their wallet has regenerated slightly.  Yeah, that method is more expensive, but again, that's how things work.

And developers can utilize hard drive installs on the 360 now because of this.  The difference between the PS3 and 360 now is simply choice.  You have to deal with it on the PS3 and you can choose to install or have load times on the 360.  It's up to the player (and believe me, opinions are varied enough to justify that choice).

I prefer the install over excessive load times so good for 360.

Upgrade your HDD for 120GB. 120GB HDD are cheap second hand.

Well lets see... one is an option and the other is jammed down your throat

And the long-time PC gamers in the crowd just sorta shake their heads and wonder why *anyone* complains about installing games.

Lol, yeap, thats all... but come on, it would be great to have an option, do you want to install?? o do you want to play right now??? And about the install, it will be interesting the next wave of multi platform, we will see if the 360 can catch p with load times...

I am at a loss on how people can complain about mandatory installs (unless they are envious of such a feature which allows their system to respond faster). I could see a problem if a mandatory install was larger than the free space available on the smallest system (i.e., whatever the 20 GB PS3 had free). And how often are the installs more than a few gigabytes? Like it or not, creating two types of installs makes two testing branches to pay for, and PS3/360 games cost enough to develop now.

The new DVD install feature for the 360 is a great improvement, but it isn't as good as a well thought out install by the developer. Think of the install as being basically a cache for the most frequently accessed data; now, what the new 360 process does is copy all data on the DVD even if 80% is rarely (ever?) accessed. Add to that the vast majority of 360 owners have 20 GB drives, and using this feature will make the Wii storage look spacious (relatively, given the size of WiiWare titles).

Don't get me wrong, it is an excellent solution for the 360, but mandatory installs is a more efficient use of one's hard drive.

The issue with an optional install is that the developer cannot really take advantage of them if they want to make a game run better, as many users will have to do with substandard games.

The main issue with the mandatory installs is that the developers can get lazy and just rely on the HDD to get them out of jail. I will forgive GTA, since there are basically no load times, but something like DMC, where it only decreases load times a little are more pointless

The point here is that it is OPTIONAL for all games...

The complaints of the PS3 install games is that it was a nessecity to play the game, and it wasn't even a full install (Thanks to the oh so great Bluray a full install would take at least an hour and a shit load of space).

Here, we're being offerered super quick loading speed for all our old games, that didn't really need an install in the 1st place but will make everything just that bit smoother :)

Also...here's a big one...

GAMES LIKE GTA3 WILL NO LONGER HAVE POP-UP...WITH AN INSTALL

The Xbox 360 version can then officially be declared the superior version, but thats another story ;)

Eseentially, your thread fails, because the complaint wasn't with the Install, it was with it being FORCED UPON THE OWNER so nobody is being a hypocrit by being happy with it :)

Before it was take a 2nd job to buy it, now it's buy second hand wares for it?