http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3162176

" Following a demo presentation at Games Convention in Germany today, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford confirmed to 1UP that Borderlands -- his upcoming "Indiana Jones meets Mad Max" sci-fi four-player co-op first-person shooter -- will require a hard drive if players choose to play it on Xbox 360.

Because of the way the game procedurally generates everything from weapons to armor, Borderlands has different requirements from typical first-person shooters. "If it weren't for where the 360 and the PS3 have gone, with big hard drives, and lots of memory, and powerful processors, there's no way you can conceive of this as a console game," Pitchford said.

When asked about recent mixed statements from Microsoft about whether a game that requires a hard drive will be allowed on 360, Pitchford confirms that such a release is possible. "I don't know if [Microsoft is] gonna complain about that, and I don't want to be in the middle of a controversy there, but you need space," he said.

Borderlands is also heading to PlayStation 3 and PC, and is tentatively set to ship in late 2008. Check back on 1UP soon for more on the game."

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This isn't a 'your game will be degraded if you don't have an HDD', but an outright 'You need the hard drive to even play this game'.

I'm wondering how Microsoft will spin that seeing how they've done the recent hard drive claims. Anybody else thinking that this might bring the reality that more games like Borderlands, GTAIV, and COD4 will be seeing the 'hard drive required' sticker?

It's probably better for us all if developers decide to force Core owners to get hard drives, rather than gimp all future games due to the lack of any kind of internal memory.

If the game sells well enough, and therefore encourages more developers to require the HDD, then we may see a major price drop for the HDDs, before the Core is discontinued.

Yet keep in mind, just announcing one game won't be enough to prove the Core is a mistake.

This is a no brainer really. Current games won't need the hardrive but when it does become an issue the 20 gig drive will be affordable that those 5-10% of 360 owners will upgrade or just be assed out. Some people complain about the core users being screwed but it was their choice to buy a 360 without a hardrive. I am sure in those 5-10% many could care less about going on xbox live and just wanted to play their favorite game like gears or a guitar here etc without spending the extra cash. Again this will be a non issue in terms of slowing the 360 down in the future. Basically if a developer can get away with just a disk then they will try their best effort to make it fit and if not then it will be multiple disk or downloadable content but bottomline is games will continue to be made for the 360 thanks to its install base.

Microsoft could likely offer the 20gig harddrive at cost sometime in the future. Somewhere between $20-$30 probably wouldn't be a bitter pill for Core/Arcade owners to swallow since they still would have saved money compared to other Xbox 360 owners.

I just thought about it, dropping the 20gig HDD's price will mean they have to lower the memory card's prices as well and those things are already fairly expensive.

LOL@thread.

Who ever even heard of this game. Irrelevant.

And of course what you guys really want is MS to stop selling the core. Otherwise, who cares if the HDD is required? You just have to buy one if you want to play the game and you dont have one. No problem. As long as MS continues to sell the Core system, it's fine with me.


BTW, CODIV and GTAIV dont require the HDD, it's confirmed.

So currently, the number of 360 games that require the HDD after 2 years is: 2. Both non-selling games. One an MMO, which is ok to require HDD.

Maybe next year you guys get that elusive third game to require the HDD LOL.

Borderland does NOT require the hard drive:

http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=65447

Ummm. Borderlands just got announced sharky, are you just trying to flamebait the thread?