Only hard drive size holding 360 back

By Games Industry.biz Published 23 June, 2009

New GOD service a worry for retailers.

Digital releases of Xbox 360 titles are only being held back due to the storage capacity of the console's hard drive, according to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter.

He also said that retailers will have no choice but to accept a service offering digital releases day-and-date with the High Street, as Microsoft's publishing partners are likely to back such a service.

"I don't see the timing between new release and digital download being a function of anything other than hard drive sizes," offered Pachter, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz. "I think as soon as we have large hard drives - think the rumoured Project Natal 'new' Xbox 360 with a terabyte of storage in 2010 - we'll have day-and-date downloads."

Microsoft is due to launch its Games On Demand service in August, but will initially limit the series to best-selling older titles including Crackdown and Assassin's Creed rather than new releases.

"I don't think that the publishers care at all if downloads are day-and-date, and in fact, my guess is that many publishers favour such a model. It's true that retail partners wouldn't like it, but it is not necessarily true that they would have much to say about it," added Pachter.

Suggestions that retailers may be unhappy to sell the hardware without software are off the mark, said Pachter, who highlighted Apple's iPod business as evidence of such a market being lucrative for both.

"I don't see how they could scream too loudly about day-and-date downloads, unless the price for the download was lower than the packaged product price," he offered. "I don't see any retailers refusing to sell iPods, even though all the content on an iPod is distributed digitally.

"Much in the same way, while retailers may baulk at the possibility of day-and-date downloads, I don't see too many refusing to carry Microsoft product in retaliation. Should a retailer boycott Microsoft, I think that the full force of the publishers would be brought to bear on that retailer, and they would find themselves starved for product."

Microsoft has promised around 30 titles for the launch of Games on Demand with new games added every week.

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Comments (72) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • penhalion #1 3 years ago

    I would have thought that download sizes and speeds would also be a factor. It's one thing having enough space to download a title, it's quite another thing to have to wait 3 hours for it to download. Then of course there is the in-ability to re-sell the game after you get bored of it.

  • dllord #2 3 years ago

    I can see it now "NEW Natal 360 with 1TB HDD at a bargain price of £1200" get it while stocks last! LoL!

  • TheRealBadabing #3 3 years ago

    I could have a huge HDD for my 360 but it wouldn't matter a bit so long as publishers insult our intelligence by offering products through digital distribution at full RRP.

    "We didn't want to offend our retail partners by reflecting the massively reduced distribution costs in the price. All that extra profit is lovely though, thanks for a cracking excuse guys."

  • laudy #4 3 years ago

    "Selling a £20 HDD for £130, like they are at the moment just isn't on."

    Is that for real?? it simply doesn't make good business sense if folk know this sort of thing!

  • danathjo #5 3 years ago

    'gee i feel like a bit of old school Halo 3....shit, no disc drive'

    i'm very interested in Sony is going to handle to the discless PSP regarding older games

  • Agent_Llama #6 3 years ago

    I wondered when this issue would dawn upon Microsoft and co. I'm sure many 360 owners are, like myself, stuck with an original 20gb hard drive, with no wish to fork out £100 on hard drive capacity that would cost many, many times less were it for my home computer. If they want to move digital distribution forward, they will have to address the issue of the prohibitive costs of hard drives etc.

  • kangarootoo #7 3 years ago

    Me too. I'm on an original 20GB HDD. The idea of spending money on a 120GB replacement makes me baulk when I would be able to get 500GB for the same money if I could shop where I wanted.

  • FHUTA #8 3 years ago

    the ipod argument's a bit of a fudge though as most highstreet places that sell electronics don't sell much in the way of music.

  • schnide #9 3 years ago

    Next week, Michael Pachter predicts dominant species on planet to be humans - likely to have "two legs, on average, possibly with hair of varying lengths."

  • bioreit #10 3 years ago

    @ evilfoxhound

    "Selling a £20 HDD for £130, like they are at the moment just isn't on. They should release:
    "

    I assume you mean a 20GB HDD, in which case it hasn't been that for years - 60GB is £60, with mic, 3 months Live and ethernet cable:

    [link url=Selling a £20 HDD for £130, like they are at the moment just isn't on. They should release:
    ]Xbox Live Starter Kit[/link]

    Still far too expensive for what you get though - if that was the 120GB drive in there, that would be better, but they need to start upping the capacities . By all means keep the pricing the same, but Microsoft should keep increasing the sizes - they should sell 120GB (or 250GB tbh) and then a 320GB or 500GB for £100-120.

    Also, I'm very very wary of these digital downloads. IF it means prices are brought down a little to reflect the far lower costs (and the fact that you don't have suppliers, distributors and retailers taking their cut), then all well and good, but I can all too readily envisage full RRPs for months after physical discs have been discounted by 20-50%. Which also have resale and lending value.

    And digital downloads will pretty much spell the end of cheap bargains after Christmas or when Play or Amazon have huge crates filling up warehouses they need to get rid of - no competition and no stock issues means no price drops.Yes, Microsoft may be able to convince publishers/devs that fewer sales at higher prices will be roughly equal in terms of monetary gain, but it also means smaller communities, which will die off sooner, resulting in fewer future DLC opportunities and fewer sequel sales.

    /rant

  • Figgernaggot #11 3 years ago

    No he didn't mean 20Gb Bio. He means they're selling the 120Gb which should cost £20 for £80+.

  • TopKatt #12 3 years ago

    I'm gonna hold off on buying games digitally for as long as I can. For some of us cash strapped gamers, the only way we can afford the latest releases is part exchanging some of our old finished games!

  • GreyBeard #13 3 years ago

    Small problem, not everyone has a fast, uncapped internet connection.

    Downloading gigabytes of data is not a problem for many us, but that's not to say all of us.

    And honestly, when people moan about the 15 min install times on PS3 games, how are they going to take to spending a far greater amount of time downloading the latest blockbuster from XBL or PSN ?

  • stevetuck #14 3 years ago

    I still have the 20gb hard drive... and im not gonna spend any more money getting a bigger one

  • reelbigkris #15 3 years ago

    ""I don't see how they could scream too loudly about day-and-date downloads, unless the price for the download was lower than the packaged product price," he offered."

    Why on earth will anyone want to buy a digital copy at the same price as a a physical copy? the only way digital distribution is going to work is if it is cheaper than gamestation and GAME. I do buy alot of my games for PC on steam because they have pre purchase savings and gifts while also being generally cheaper than retail high streets. If Microsoft follow this kind of business model, perhaps it will work but i do not think digital distribution will ever be a replacement, just an alternative.... except for the new PSP which quite literally blows my mind with its complete lack of a UMD drive!!!

  • DutchDemons #16 3 years ago

    I'm surprised to see so many gamers not even bothered by this development.

    I for one am a happy bargain hunter; i carefully explore all known and trusted websites within and outside of the EU and then choose the cheapest game from there. This way i have managed to buy almost 60 games for the 360 often 30-40 euro's cheaper than 'RRP'. In some cases i could buy new and sealed games for a mere 13 euro's while RRP was still standing firm at 49,99 or something.

    With digital distribution i can't see that happen anytime soon (judging by the prices at XBLA right now). also..though i never do it, selling your games second hand is also out of the question. Now i know a lot of gamers here like to sell their old games and get some cash back for new purchases. ...not possible this way (at least, that would be my guess).
    Edited by 1 at 23/06/09 @ 18:00

  • jaguarwong #17 3 years ago

    In whatever shape or form it takes Digital Distribution is an inevitability - for games AND films.

    Scary first steps for the industry though - look what happened to the Dreamcast when it tried to do the online-console thing before the world (and the infrastructure) was ready.

    Edited by 1 at 23/06/09 @ 18:04

  • lambtron #18 3 years ago

    Can't wait for this to be a reality since I have quick internet and no download limits. As for download times I don't see how it's massively slower than going to a shop and buying it. I don't buy second hand games or trade them in so that won't bother me either.

    As for the people seriously suggesting that the reason for high digital download prices isn't retailer pressure I think you're smoking crack.

  • SniperZoz #19 3 years ago

    They should simply allow ppl to store games on their external USB drives!

  • Retroid #20 3 years ago

    I'll still be buying physical games cheaply for as long as I possibly can (£5 boxed games FTW) but alongside? Yeah, go with it; might mean some overlooked games get sales they otherwise wouldn't have.

    And yes.... cheaper HDDs please, MS!

    /Managed to get a 120GB drive for £70 over a year ago

  • Darren #21 3 years ago

    You can pick up a 1 TB HDD for around £50 for the PC, granted they're the more common 3.5" type not the 2.5" sort the consoles and laptops use. With the 120 GB HDD for the 360 selling for £100 at GAME etc I dread to think what inflated price Microsoft will slap on it. In fact, I don't want to think about it. :?

    Sony did the right thing by allowing the PS3 to be easily upgraded with third party drives. I picked up a 320 GB one over a year ago for around £50. That's almost three times the capacity for less than half the price of the 120 GB HDD from Microsoft (it was £130 RRP at the time). For a company so keen to promote a future of digital distribution they seem oddly keen on making the storage as expensive and unattractive as possible. Even a 120 GB HDD is looking very small these days if you download the larger XBLA games and install games to the drive.

    Maybe Microsoft should consider selling an HDD shell for the 360 which allows people to slot in as big a third-party HDD as they can afford? Knowing Microsoft they won't because they'd lose out on official HDD sales.

  • Ryze #22 3 years ago

    Nope - I can't see MS bundling a 1TB HDD with the 360 anytime soon. It'd be ideal, but I reckon they'd massively overcharge for a disk this large.

  • Ninou #23 3 years ago

    I'm not holding my breath expecting digital distribution to give us lower prices seeing how expensive the movie rentals on Xbox Marketplace are.

    The price in MS points here in France means that renting a "premium" movie is more expensive than buying the same movie on Play.com (if you wait a couple of months). And you have to watch them with crappy French dubbing (and not in the original language which even my French-speaking friends would prefer...)

    So much for choice...

  • kungfool #24 3 years ago

    I'd buy a new 360 hard drive if they were reasonable money, no problem. I love digital download, XBLA, all that jazz. Can't be arsed to move from my sofa, frankly. But as many others here are saying, £90-ish for the 120GB Xbox drive just looks ridiculous these days. I recently bought a 1TB Buffalo external USB drive from Amazon for under £80.

  • kentmonkey #25 3 years ago

    "I don't see how they could scream too loudly about day-and-date downloads, unless the price for the download was lower than the packaged product price,"


    No, but I would. Download MP3's are cheaper than retail CD's, so why the heck can't download games be cheaper than retail games...because the stores wouldn't like it. If an MP3 album can be approx £3-4 cheaper than a CD bought in the shop at £10-12 retail price point, why can't games be £9-12 cheaper off of the standard £35-40 retail price point?

    If it's the same price, frankly I'm not interested. In the time it takes to download a full retail game, I could have gone to the shop, bought it, done a weekly grocery shop and played about an hour of the game. I would also have a game that I could either trade in or sell on afterwards, meaning that the game actually ends up costing me about half of the price I actually paid for it.

  • AphoticCosmos #26 3 years ago

    IMHO, the 120GB needs to be bumped down a LOT in price. I'm glad to have one, but frankly it should be the basic 360 HDD. 200GB, even 400GB HDDs should be a priority, I mean it's not as if HDD components are anything but dirt cheap these days.

  • makeamazing #27 3 years ago

    MS do seem intent on pushing digital downloads and movies, but the cost of disks is pretty prohibitive. I purchased a PC HD 1 TB for about £80 a couple of months ago. Just taking a quick look on amazon and 120GB is around the same price (not sure of MS price). So there is ALOT of scope to drop the price, just wonder if there is any will to drop it.

  • miiiguel #28 3 years ago

    Can't be arsed to move from my sofa, frankly.
    That. That's one reason I like this service. Sometimes I like to browse through Marketplace and buy *almost* random stuff. It's nice to have the option.

  • StooMonster #29 3 years ago

    kentmonkey: MP3 or AAC is lower quality audio than CD, ergo it is cheaper.

  • Zomoniac #30 3 years ago

    Nope - I can't see MS bundling a 1TB HDD with the 360 anytime soon.

    Neither can I, given such a thing doesn't exist yet.

  • Zomoniac #31 3 years ago

    I assume you mean a 20GB HDD, in which case it hasn't been that for years

    No, he means a £20 HDD. Although a slight exaggeration. What he means is they're selling a HDD which can easily be bought for under £35, MS are retailing at £129.99 (although it is available for

  • peterfll #32 3 years ago

    Hmmm... not sure about the iPod comparison. I mean as draconian as Apple gets called out with DRM etc, I can move my iTunes purchases from one PC to another PC to Mac to different iPods etc and rip CDs from my purchases. Microsoft does allow you to transfer purchases from one 360 to another 360 but what happens when they have their next console ready. Will they still honour your purchases with backward compatibility and free transfers?

    Hmmm....

  • miiiguel #33 3 years ago

    "Microsoft does allow you to transfer purchases from one 360 to another "
    Yes, they do. If I swap the discs between my consoles, as long as I login with the account which bought the content it is available. The only diference is that in that 2nd 360 only that user can access. And, if you just change 360's - and just have one - you can permanently transfer all the content licencing to that *new* 360, via xbox.com, that way, all the users will be able to access.

    (I hope I made myself clear, though I kinda doubt it...)
    Edited by 2 at 23/06/09 @ 20:02

  • mattigan #34 3 years ago

    Don't feel too sorry for poor old Mr Retailer, remember that he's been quite happily raping us all on the 2nd hand games market for well over a decade now.

    "used Halo 3?, I'll give you a tenner"

    30 seconds later

    "used Halo 3?, that will be £25"

    Kerching!

  • MightyMouse #35 3 years ago

    I must be missing something, because if MS bundle Natal with a 1TB hdd then surely we're talking well in excess of £400 and this would seem totally at odds with their pricing strategy. The launch games would have to be a generational leap for people to consider early adoption.

  • local_celebrity #36 3 years ago

    Pachter must have been out on the golf course too long, the sunstroked idiot. As long as you can trade in your disc, and recoup half your initial outlay, there's no way I'm switching over.

    BTW, have you seen the prices of games recently? £55 RRP on Modern Warfare 2? Even with Amazon, you're going to have shell out a galling £45 to preorder it. Thanks v much, Activision. I now know that it feels like to be anally shafted with a broken bottle.

  • Widge #37 3 years ago

    I'm all for choice. The option for digital download won't hurt anyone, I can't see it radically changing the industry in the next couple of years. People who want to buy physical will still be able to buy physical. Everyone stays happy.

  • Xerx3s #38 3 years ago

    "Selling a £20 HDD for £130, like they are at the moment just isn't on. They should release: "

    I don't know where you do your shopping but that's just utter rubbish. You'd be hard pressed to even find a 20 gb hdd, let alone for 130 quid. Especially when 120gb HDD's go for about 60 to a 100 euro.

    It's the top end of the laptop HDD market but not abnormal for propriety hardware. A quick look at tweakers shows me that they go from 30 to 110 euro with most of them being at 40-60 euro mark.
    Also, ms have never hidden the fact that their peripherals is a very lucrative market for them. MS suckers people in with a cheap console and then sells some peripherals, sony just sells the whole package. All in all, they even each other out.

  • Alkeno #39 3 years ago

    I also have the 20GB drive... I don't use it for downloading many demos or multimedia, so I had plenty of room and thought I'll never need more... But then XNE arrived it gave us the chance to install games on the hard drive. It is just a must for me now: faster loading, quieter and cooler (less prone to hardware failure, after all). DLC makes the issue much worse as the tendency towards heavy downloads increases in time. We need bigger drives but most people (including me) won't pay MS overpriced drives.

    Sony decition making on PS3 has it's ups and downs, but 2 things they got just right was making online play for free and allowing people to upgrade the hard drive freely. MS should do just that, any other option is bad for their market approach of "digital distribution is good".
    Edited by 1 at 23/06/09 @ 21:23

  • Miths #40 3 years ago

    Meanwhile why do I have to pay more for many new games on Steam than I do in not particularly cheap stores like GameStop?
    Other than avoiding a few daily disc changes there still often seems to be preciously little advantage - and sometimes the opposite - to digital distrubution of games for us consumers.

    No disc, no case, no printed manual - surely they could cut a few bucks off the price, or at the very least avoid the tempation to add them instead?

  • kentmonkey #41 3 years ago

    StooMonster, that's not why they're cheaper at all. Vinyl can be more expensive than CD, but (in terms of pure 'quality', as I actually prefer the sound of Vinyl over CD, but in terms of actual audio quality) the CD is far superior.

    MP3's etc. are cheaper due to the format. That and because they needed to be to try and get people legally downloading them rather than pirating them.

    If something is cheaper to produce (as digital downloads are; no printing costs for manuals, no cover printing, no boxes, no DVD/Blu-Ray disc and no third-party taking a huge chunk from the sale of the game (usually a distributor and a retailer, taking about 40-50% minimum of the final sale price) then why shouldn't at least part of that be passed on to the consumer.

    If I could purchase a game knowing that 100% of the cost (or as close to as possible) went to the people who actually made it, and that it was a few quid cheaper to acknowledge the fact that they're making a lot more of it, I'd do it. I'm not paying the same price for something that is going to be an inferior product though (no manual, no re-sale value, no ability to loan it to a friend, no ability to take it around a mates house, nada).

  • Praetorianer #42 3 years ago

    Does anyone really doubt that in the future there won't be any packaged games at all? There will only be games available on download and I bet that for most of them you'll need a steady internet connection just to fight piracy, and the publishers will maximize profits by keeping the retailers out of the line while minimizing production costs. It's inevitable, just like Mr. Smith always said.

  • ronuds #43 3 years ago

    You all realize that they can't hardly sell their HDDs for less than the price difference between consoles, right?

    So, if they were to drop the price of the HDDs, the 360 itself would have to drop as well. I'll let you all do the logical maths for yourselves. :)

    Do this maths while you're at it - difference in price between an 80gb PS3 and a 160gb PS3. Amazingly, they charge about the same price per 80gb as MS!

  • kentmonkey #44 3 years ago

    I'd like to think that it will only be that way if people allow it to be that way. If people continue to purchase games from online (or even high street retailers) for the same or cheaper price than digital download content, they'll have to lower the price in order to make it attractive.

    I'd actually rather buy a digital download if the price was right, as there's less packaging and it's more environmentally friendly. But I'm not paying the same RRP for something that I know has cost a lot less to get to me.

  • ronuds #45 3 years ago

    How would MS look to retailers if they were to charge less than RRP for their GOD program? They have to sell other stuff through them, you know.

  • aphexstwin #46 3 years ago

    i, for one, hope that i can still buy physical media for my consoles and music blur-rays, whatever.

    mainly because they make up a large percentage of the gifts santa brings people on my behalf. i can see the divorce now, when i say to the missus: 'hey babe i got you a shiteload of downloads for chrimbo. sorry theres nowt to unwrap!'

    my point in the ipod thing is, the ipod has been marketed as being THE thing to have, its been that way for years with walkmans and discmans etc. i cant ever, except for handheld gaming devices, see home consoles being seen as a must have accessory outside of our circles. and finally, what of those with no consoles? if this download larky happens to film, how are they going to get movies? whether ms like it or not, physical media is here for a long while yet.

  • kentmonkey #47 3 years ago

    (in response to Ronud) It wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. As already mentioned, MP3's are cheaper. Some retailers get bigger discounts than others due to their buying power and can therefore discount the product more; it doesn't stop other retailers buying games.

    What people are missing as well is that they're also totally different products. At the end of the day one is a retail boxed product, and therefore carries a premium. The other product is a digitally distributed product. It may be the same game at the end of the day, but the actual product is entirely different, thus the price should be.

    If they sold the retail boxed game from Microsoft.com at less than RRP, retailers may (and only may, as online retailers tend to be cheaper anyway) have a point. But they're not.
    Edited by 1 at 23/06/09 @ 22:37

  • Xerx3s #48 3 years ago

    I highly doubt that boxed retail would ever disappear. It would simply alienate a far too large a user base. There are plenty of people like me who are perhaps willing to spend small amount of money on small things but won't ever consider buying full games over DD.

    I reckon that DD will eventually end up with a healthy but 3rd place in sales, behind stores and webshops. It's nice for those into it but the masses couldn't give a rats arse or even know about it's existence.

    And then there are the obvious legal and technical problems that can't be solved that easily.

  • Praetorianer #49 3 years ago

    I think so, too. The only way you could convince me to buy a game as a download would be through the save-our-environment argument...or not making it available in packaged form. But then again, what about all the energy costs for servers running, using possibly toxic materials etc...jeez why can't anything be simple and easy nowadays :)

    By the way, never trust HDDs, because that's why Panzer Dragoon Saga's source has been lost :)

  • SixFootHalfling #50 3 years ago

    "Microsoft is due to launch its Games On Demand service in August, but will initially limit the series to best-selling older titles including Crackdown and Assassin's Creed rather than new releases. "

    I thought Crackdown couldn't be installed to HDD?

    "It's the top end of the laptop HDD market"

    The problem is, if Microsoft allowed 3rd party 3.5" HDDs, then you could buy a <a href ="http://www.overcl ockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-270-WD&groupid=701&ca tid=14&subcat=1279">1.5Tb HDD</a>, for only £5 more than their <a href ="http://gamestation.co.uk/ Xbox360/Hardware/Accessory/~r406566/Xbox-360-Hard-Drive-120G B/">120Gb</a> one

  • kentmonkey #51 3 years ago

    Totally agree xerx3s
    Edited by 1 at 23/06/09 @ 22:53

  • Miths #52 3 years ago

    "The problem is, if Microsoft allowed 3rd party 3.5" HDDs, then you could buy a 1.5Tb HDD, for only £5 more than their 120Gb one"

    Sony did that (well, 2.5" disks, but they aren't much more expensive than the 3.5" models), why can't MS?
    I hadn't had my PS3 for long before I upgraded the 40 GB disk to a 250 GB model - and now you can probably get a 750 or 1 TB for the same price as I paid a year ago - while I've held back on a much needed upgrade of the 20 GB disk in my 360 because of the exorbitant price of the 120 GB disk (although admittedly if I still used my 360 much I probably would have shelled out the money by now).

  • Praetorianer #53 3 years ago

    That's the same price policy as Apple's. If you want to upgrade the HDD of a Mac mini, you'll have to pay a ridiculous price...or do it by yourself and loose the warranty.

  • mkreku #54 3 years ago

    You lose your warranty if you switch hard drive in a PS3?

  • smelly #55 3 years ago

    A full game takes up 4 gig (give or take). So therefor to need 1TB - you'd have to download around 250 full priced games.

    Now - come on....


  • The_vorlon_man #56 3 years ago

    The current XBOX hard drive range are hideously overpriced. I can get 1tv of storage for half the price of a 120gb 360 hard drive now, and well over 1.5tb for the same price.

    Yeah, I know it's not exactly the same, but there's still one helluva lot of markup in there for the sake of a bit of DRM.

    As for downloads - well, it's inevitable, but it wont cannibalise the high street sales for a long time yet, as given the option, people will still buy physical media.
    iTunes and the like have been around for years, yet CDs and DVDs are doing a swift business. Heck, sales may be down, but they are not out by any measure.

    As for pricing, well, ask yourself this - why are Steam games more expensive than high street versions of the same game?

  • cyber_nicco #57 3 years ago

    One of the few nice things about digital distributions is that is not having to get up to change discs. Yes, I said it. I don't know how many times I have played the game in the machine instead of the one I most want to play simply because I would have to get up and change the disc. It's funny 'cause it's true!

    That being said, I can't stomach downloaded media at full retail (box) prices.

  • chessboxer #58 3 years ago

    @ Mithis

    500GB is the biggest you can get at the moment for a 2.5" SATA. I've had mine for nearly a year in my PS3 and I've got just under 3GB free. Not impressed that manufacturers haven't moved on in 12 months.

  • citizenHUNTER #59 3 years ago

    I think in the long run MS are simply going to HAVE to lower the prices of their HDDs, especially since if digital distribution is how they want to go, and therefore start making serious money from, then it'll benefit them in the end. Plus of course since the current prices are totally overblown, when they bring them down to realistic pricing it's not like they'll be making a loss or anything, but able to reap far more from the digital downlading of films, games etcetera which people will 'finally' be able to actually FIT onto their 360. At long last. Bring it on.

  • Vordred #60 3 years ago

    much like others, i bougt mine back when 20gb was the only option, and im notforking out for a hugely over priced HD, and not going to download a load over 5 or 6gb games with a tiny HDD.

    i would love to get a bigger HDD but im not paying that price

  • Raziel #61 3 years ago

    I refuse to be dependent on my internet connection for my gaming needs.

  • mingster #62 3 years ago

    Umm you know you can upgrade your Hard drive to a 120gb for cheap following these instructions...
    http://ww w.pcworld.com/article/150970/up...

  • Praetorianer #63 3 years ago

    It should be noted, that the XBOX360 only supports HDDs as big as 120GB and only Western Digital ones, afaik. Also, it is against M$s EULA to use other HDDs than the original M$ one. Furthermore, you'll risk getting banned off XBL as a result, especially if you're using a wrong hddss.bin file.

    @smelly
    There are many games that use more space than 4 GB. Looking at the PS3, 4GB is a joke and looking at the future of gaming, it's even more of a joke.

  • zedzee #64 3 years ago

    This obviously means that Microsoft has no intention of ever including a BluRay player in the X360 console.

    A shame really, as I personally prefer something tangible and I can read manuals/instructions for in various locations, not just glued in front of a screen or on a tiny display that does my eyes in!

    In addition, physical media also means that you have a back-up of your games and if you treat the discs well, they'll last you for as long as you find the game interesting to play.

    With DLC, the second-hand market will die, so no more selling old games on eBay or to your friends etc.

    Also, one other aspect that I'd be worried about, if X360 games became completely digital, is the fact of security. If you want to retire your machine, give it to a younger sibling or pass it on or even sell it to a complete stranger, you'd need to keep the HDD content intact, right? Because your games are all DLC on the HDD.

    So that means everything else you have will have to remain on there as well, unless you laboriously wish to go through it all and delete it 'by hand', which for a big drive may be a complete nightmare to do!

    And would this content delivery method also mean that the subject of DRM would raise its ugly head once again?!

    Think about it...

  • Praetorianer #65 3 years ago

    @zedzee

    Imo that's exactly what publishers would love to see. They receive no royalties from the second hand market, so imagine the profit they'd make by keeping the retailers out of the line, minimizing packaging costs, minimizing costs for reproduction (no media, e.g. Blu-Ray needed), minimizing costs for the console hardware itself (no expensive drive needed, e.g. Blu-Ray in the case of Sony), and forcing the customers to buy a brand new copy of the game, because there will be no second-hand copies of the game, and fighting piracy as well. The customer pays for the infrastructure through his monthly internet provider fees. While the required infrastructure may not be available at the moment (sometimes slow connections), this will change rapidly. Over here in Germany there are already a lot of 100 Mbit private connections available in big cities and there's no doubt that those type of connections will spread rapidly over the next years and until the next generation of console will arrive.

  • Simonkey75 #66 3 years ago

    Well after my first 360 did its best Jack the ripper impersonation on several of my games, optical media ain't all that in my eyes, but since my 20gb drive can barely fit one game on it what with DLC demos etc as well and my 1mb connection is big balls at the best of times i can't see me joining this wonderful DD revolution anytime soon :(

  • Bravestinsane #67 3 years ago

    I already have a 1tb hard drive in my computer, and i can't fill it up and i have plenty of games. So this will be a lasting drive if they do this.

    However they have a hope in hell if i will be buying these games unless they are around £10 Cheaper than store prices. With a disk i don't need to go through the hassel downloading a game when i run out of space.

    Of they are the same price they can fuck off, i will run down to the shop buy a disk, with a box a little book and whatever other goodies it comes with and save the hassel of a day of downloading, in which time i wont be able to play online because that will pause downloading, and when i buy it and find out its shit i can trade it in and get a handful of money which isn't possible with this.

  • etherfiend #68 3 years ago

    Another boundary to this is the fact that the X360 doesn't recognise NTFS formatted drives at all and FAT32 (at least in terms of Windows ability to format FAT32 drives) is severely limited in terms of the capacity limit, certainly not the 500GB or 1TB sizes.

    Yes there are ways around it, and don't say "use linux" (we get it you're special and superior in every way for going the way of the penguin, bravo. I bow to your smugness. No really.) as realistically most people can't be arsed with it just to format a drive. I formatted my external 550GB USB drive using third party tools so I could connect it to the Xbox for music playing or when I feel flush, streaming it via the laptop (a complete waste of electricity though). But your average user won't know the methods for doing it, you still can't store games on it and the fact the playlist is chopped to 100 songs when you enter a game is such a let-down.

    So back to the original problem. MS could release a patch that adds in NTFS support and some way of locking an external or internal drive to the machine (similar to BIOS Locking an OEM OS I guess) or an HDD formatting utility that again locks it to your Xbox (done to avoid just taking your HDD to a friends Xbox and copying games). Or they are banking on broadband speed increases so that they hold the games you buy or rent from them over XBLive in a cloud-based server cluster and you can 'play on demand' with a short download time. That way you keep 5-10 games you regularly play and just remove and re-download from 'your cloud account' the ones you fancy every now and again.

    Until they resolve the disk format issue then I don't think you will see larger drives being made available for the X360. Knowing MS when that happens it'll be in a big update (next NXE overhaul??) and promoted as a new feature (as opposed to it actually being a limitation - probably done to keep OS below a particular size I imagine). There is a few sites online that offer a method of obtaining a 120GB laptop drive (may have to be a specific model) for standard retail price and then going through a process for making it Xbox360 compatible (i.e an 360 elite HDD) but of course that invalidates the warranty.

    MS though as always will exploit the hold they have over their end-users and whilst waiting for stocks of HDDs to run out and deciding the next step forward (i.e. everything online or increasing storage locally) they'll keep overcharging as they know users have no choice. The minute that changes this is a lost revenue stream.
    Edited by 2 at 24/06/09 @ 13:56

  • autogunner #69 3 years ago

    /strokes 500GB RAID setup on PC

  • Darren #70 3 years ago

    @Gaz40 - "I dont think blu-ray is the way to go for games anyway. What you need is to find clever and innovative ways at reducing the game size."

    Yeah, by overcompressing all the assets so you have blocky looking videos, low fidelity sound and blurry textures. Sounds great! :p

    Seriously though, take one of the HD movies Microsoft have as an example: the picture quality is nowhere near BD quality when comparing the same movie and the sound quality is inferior. A typical HD movie is under 4 GB, that's a lot less than the 20+ GB of a typical BD movie with HD audio. There are also no subtitles, not a big deal for some people but for those of us with hearing difficulties it's an insulting omission. Not everyone will be bothered about inferior A/V quality but if they aren't then why are they downloading HD videos in the first place? Doesn't downloading an HD movie mean you *are* bothered about A/V quality? :?

    The Video Marketplace is nice for those that like to rent movies rather than buy them but it's lacklustre for those of us who want the best quality, like to collect movies and love extras and subtitles!!! That's why I don't believe that digital downloads will ever replace the disc entirely. Besides what would people give each other for Christmas if the disc disappears completely. A voucher for a three day download isn't quite the same thing is it?

  • neonxaos #71 3 years ago

    Just make the damn 500 GB drive and get on with it. MS would make money off such a move in the long run, even if they sold the device at no profit or at a loss.

    Obviously, I'm a godlike expert in this matter. My will be done!

  • MARKIV #72 3 years ago

    I wouldn't take this digital download stuff too seriously, bascially it's an easy add on for the 360 as they already have the Xbox originals. I think it's mainly aimed at the impulse or late night drunk purchaser and not someone who crawls the net for best bargain price. The PSPGo will determine in future whehter the download only model actually works...

  • dr_zoidthrob #73 3 years ago

    I got my 120GB for Xmas - didn't have to pay a penny for it (although my girlfriend did, even then it was only £80).

    Still too expensive though.
    Edited by 1 at 24/06/09 @ 17:43