If the game does require the hard drive, it will suck for those that got the core and haven't gotten a hard drive yet, but it might be good for the xBox overall. The more games that take the plunge and require the drive, the more people buy them, and the more third parties can feel comfortable making games that utilize it.  I wouldn't be suprised if GTA4 ends up requiring it too.

I've never understood how people can complain about choices? Does it hurt your brain to have to make a decision once in your life? If rumors about memory unit inclusion with a price drop to $199 for the core... it suddenly doesn't suck so much now does it?

My brother picked up the core x360. He has no desire to ever use live and pretty much just plays his sports game like he always used to on sega systems.

I think the Core has the right idea. Hard drives will always remain expensive and the core allows for the Xbox360 to reduce in price quite considerably and in future I see the Core sku selling at a much higher rate as more and more people buy the cheaper version.

However, one thing MS really needs to do in order to increase sales is to stop ripping people off with regards to memory cards. If you have a core you need a memory card, so basically if the price of Core + memory card is too close to the price of a premium, it's not worth it. I can't believe it costs AU $50 for a 64MB memory card. That's just bloody ridiculous. I bought a 128GB microSD card (about the size of my fingernail) 6 months ago and it cost $15. There is no reason why the memory cards should cost this much.

If you drop the price of a memory card to $10/$15 suddenly there is a much bigger difference in price between the core and the premium. After a couple of price drops that difference looks much larger and suddenly people will be much more interested in the Core SKU.

Hard drives are cheap....you can pick up a 160Gb internal for a PC for around $60, so I'm pretty sure a bulk buy of millions of them could be picked up for $'s by MS or Sony.

I have the feeling that GTAIV will require a HDD, just going on the comments for Rockstar about the lack of HDD in the Core 360 is creating problems and would limit the full functionality of the game. So at the very least I would expect a somehow cut down version of GTAIV without the bells and whistles for Core owners with the full version requiring the Premium or Elite.

Now this would certainly annoy me. You have a console and it should play the exact same regardless of what model you have. The Core IMHO is a waste and it WILL be phased out sooner rather than later...although I reckon MS will keep it going in the meantime to allow for as many sales as possible especially after a price cut.

Can you not just use a USB cord with a over the shelf hardrive for the 360/PS3?

If you think about it, it's not nearly as big a hassle as games that needed the RAM expansion on N64 if by storage it includes memory cards. If it means a HDD then it's a kick in the crotch of Core owners.

PS3 - yes and no.

On a PS3, I don't believe it has the attachments for a simple USB drive. It does, however, accept normal internal HDDs as far as I know (the real big large ones).

The 360 on the other hand, does accept USB HDDs readily, but they won't interact with the X360 as readily as an MS unit. It's basically a storage device and not an intergrated storage solution (ie, you'd pretty much always have to select storage drive>USB drive>save rather than just 1 click).

For HDDs: The issue is, aside from flash memory, creating an actual HDD is expensive. There is a minimum cost a company will incur (around $30-$40) to make a hard drive, due to raw materials. MS, Sony or anyone, cannot avoid that price. The issue is that from a 20gb model to 120gb model, the price increase is very very small vs. the initial cost to build a HDD.

I bought a 80gb HDD (standard) a few months ago @ $50. To buy a 160gb, it would cost $70 at the same timeframe, or $120 or so for a 250 or even 320.

yeah that's a 3.5" HDD. As far as I know, the Xbox has a 2.5" laptop hard drive, which costs more. Something in the order of $80 for the cheapest (a 60GB) off the shelf.

The important thing about hard drives is that they don't cost reduce well. Rather than being cheaper, they just get bigger. Which means a 20GB hard drive will cost MS the same amount in 5 years as it does now. When you're talking about bringing the console down to $100, that extra money makes a big difference. And it doesn't drop.