No HDD in Core 360 a "mistake", says dev

via Computer and Video Games


The decision not to include a hard drive as standard with every 360 was a "mistake" by Microsoft, Bourne Conspiracy's lead game designer has told us.

The Core and Arcade versions of the Xbox 360 come without hard drives, meaning developers have to make sure their games can work without a HDD to cater for those users. But this restricts their freedoms with hard drive use, Rory McGuire explained.

"In retrospect I wish Microsoft had made the choice to have [mandatory] hard drives like Sony did with the PS3," he 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.

"Developers certainly benefit [from a hard drive]," he went on to explain, adding: "if you have a hard drive, the whole game loads faster. Obviously you'll be facing a short install time, but the developer benefits from it and you definitely benefit from it as a player.

"So I think that was one of the mistakes that Microsoft made with the 360," addd McGuire.

The Bourne Conspiracy is coming along nicely, and you can check out our hands-on feature here.

The dev later said "Making a system that frequently stops working for seemingly inexplicable reasons also a mistake". lol

When the original Xbox had a harddrive people complained. When the 360 didn't have a harddrive people still complained!

It was a bigger mistake on Microsofts part for them not to include a HD DVD drive in the 360, who cares about the harddrive, if you don't use it you lose it.

It was a mistake by microsoft not to include both the harddrive and hd-dvd as mandatory components for every model. Furthermore it was a mistake not making every game region free.

They still have the greatest gamepads, online service and games.

Sony made the mistake of releasing non-rumble controllers. Sony made the mistake of cuttin' out the backwards compatibility - I never even got a chance to get a hardware backwards compatible console as I am in Europe (and I want to play my existing games on the PS3 - not re-import american ones - so NO - I did not have the chance).

Ahh why won't anyone cater to my console needs. Everybody needs to bitch around and piss me off.