Tag Archives: hard drive

The latest in Project Cafe rumors have the console hitting the market minus a hard drive, and instead supporting 8GB of onboard flash-based memory.

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Nelson’s confirmed that unMicrosoft 360 storage devices won’t work with the machine when its November software update goes live.

“One of the changes is that unauthorized Memory Units will no longer work with the Xbox 360,” said the exec.

“If you’ve moved your profile or saved games onto one to ‘back it up,’ you’d better move it back onto an authorized Xbox 360 storage device prior to taking the update.

“If you continue to use an unauthorized Memory Unit after the update, you will not be able to access your stored profile or saved games.”

Nice.

For a look at some of the update’s features in action, take a look at this.

According to a post on Digital Foundry, testers of the upcoming Xbox 360 update are finding that their installed games have lost a few MBs.

“The new King of Fighters XII game from SNK drops from 3.4GB to a sub-demo sized 703MB (!), while Raiden Fighters Aces drops from 3.4GB to 484MB (!!). Left 4 Dead is another example of a solid saving, with the original NXE install occupying 5GB while the new install drops 1.3GB to a mere 3.7GB,” the site explained.

Our 20GB hard drives just got a new lease on life.

More through there.

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida has told VG247 that Sony looked at Microsoft’s choice to make Xbox 360′s hard drive optional and decided against it in an effort to be able to provide “seamless gameplay” and solid digital distribution.

“It’s one of the things we really supported when the hardware specification was decided for PS3,” he said when asked if having increased hard drive space made a difference to PS3′s development plans.

“Like Microsoft did, we could have had an optional hard drive and settled for cheaper combinations of hardware, but if we had done that – from a [development] standpoint – we cannot rely on every consumer to have a hard drive.

“So that really helps us to focus on [the fact that] every consumer has a hard drive. Now we can cache data so that gameplay is seamless.”

Yoshida pointed at one game specifically that relies on PS3′s hard drive to cut down on loading times.

“One example is the Uncharted game we did last year,” he said. “You don’t this, but the game is constantly caching the data in the hard drive so that you don’t have to wait for loading.”

The exec also pointed out that a compulsory hard drive was important for the firm’s PSN plans.

“Also having the space for consumers to download stuff allows us to create games only for digital distribution that are a couple of gigabytes in size,” he added.

Yoshida was speaking at Games Convention last month.

SCEA boss Jack Tretton said this morning that the company is still mulling over whether to implement an internal storage device to PSP.

“I think we definitely thought about it,” he said. “I think that’s the trend moving forward.”

He went on to say that as the cost of memory continues to diminish, the chance that PSP’s next hardware revision will contain a hard drive of some sort is increasing.

Thanks, Kotaku.

By Mike Bowden

According to this GI story, Nintendo of Europe marketing boss Laurent Fischer has confirmed that a Wii storage solution is on the way – but it’s not going to be a hard drive.

“We definitely detect that they [gamers] are serious and we know there is an issue in this, so it’s something that we’re working on,” he said.

“Definitely there’s no plan to issue hardware, an external hard drive, but we know that we have an issue in that area,” he added. “It’s very obvious and we’re perfectly aware of it, but there’s nothing we can say beyond this.”

More through the link.

David Jaffe loves Nintendo. But he doesn’t love Laurent Fischer, especially after the Nintendo marketeer claimed the only people that cared about Wii storage were “geeks and otaku”. The God of War creator tells us so on his blog.

“This statement, especially coming from a marketing person, reeks of one of two things:

“A – Arrogance at a level that should make Nintendo – if this statement reflects the core of the company – very ashamed.

“B – A marketing person who has no real clue about games and thinks she’s being cute and coy by dissing the ‘geeks’ cause she thinks the mainstream loves them now. If this is the case, she really needs someone to sit her down and explain to her which side her fucking toast has been buttered on for years and will eventually get back to being buttered on.”

Laurent’s a man, David, but we get the sentiment.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

Nintendo of Europe marketing boss Laurent Fischer has said that only “geeks and otaku” would want a hard drive for their Wii, writes cubed3.

So there you have it. Want more hard drive space for your Wii? Then you’re a geek: from the man himself.

Thanks, Nintendo.

By Mike Bowden

Sorry, we’re a bit late on this, but MTV got an analyst to break the cost of a 120Gb Xbox 360 hard drive down, and found that it actually costs Microsoft around $100. There’s a bit of a difference between that figure and the retail price of $180.

And if you think that’s funny, Americans, you’ll be glad to know that the same drive in the UK costs £130 or $254.

Alternatively, you could just buy a PS3 and swap the 40Gb drive with a 250Gb SATA drive for about £80. Just a thought.

Speaking to videogaming247 at the SCEE PlayStation Day in London yesterday, SCEE president David Reeves said that PS3′s hard drive is staying at 40Gb in Europe for the foreseeable future.

“I don’t know that any other hard drive configuration is even planned,” he said when asked when an 80Gb SKU – so popular in the US – would release in Europe.

Continuing on the topic of PS3 hard drives, Reeves went on to indicate that those looking to get involved with PlayTV in September are likely going to have to buy a new one.

“I think eventually, yes, it will be,” Reeves said when asked if hard drive size was significant to the consumer SCEE’s trying to reach in Europe.

“I think the person that wants to be multimedia – and when we bring out PlayTV, they’re going to find that 40Gb is too small. But it’s not proprietary. You can go out and you can just buy another hard drive and just plug it in.

“You know, hard drives are a commodity. Sony says, ‘OK, we’ll go with 40, we’ll go with 60, we’ll go with 80,’ but Seagate, who produces hard drives, they might find that next year, for example, the cheapest hard drive is 120Gb. I’m not saying we’re launching it, but they might say, ‘We’re putting a zillion 120Gb hard drives into Vaio and Toshiba laptops,’ right? And they say, ‘That’s the cheapest one. But if you want a 40, that’s prehistoric and you’ll pay twice as much.’

“That’s honestly how it is. It’s a commodity.”

SCEE announced a new MGS4 bundle last night, which includes the 40Gb machines. Now you know why.

Read our full coverage of the SCEE PlayStation Day, including all the announcements, media and impressions so far from around the web, here.

Speaking here, Peter “The Dog” Molyneux has said he believes that Microsoft’s decision to bring out an Xbox 360 with no hard drive was the right one, and that he’s supporting with Fable 2.

“Given the choice, I’d obviously choose a hard drive every day of the week,” he said, “but the balance to that is you’re supporting a system which is an awful lot cheaper.

“What I’m trying to address with Fable 2 is say ‘Look, anybody can play this game.’ That’s what I really want. So supporting the cheaper price is really important.”

Molyneux is hot stuff at the moment, especially after last night’s keynote presentation of Fable 2. Watch for more on Xbox 360′s big 2008 hitters later this year.

The Xbox 360 version of Burnout Paradise can’t be played without a hard drive, according to this. Which is a bit of a shame if you have an Xbox 360, Burnout Paradise and no hard drive. There’s an email from EA’s tech support on the matter here.