Game DVD hard drive installs coming to Xbox 360.
A minor annoyance on the PS3 will soon be coming to an Xbox 360 near you - installing DVD game data onto the 360's hard drive.
Seriously - is this really necessary?? The benefits are barely noticeable on most PS3 games that you have to install...
http://gizmodo.com/5035379/installin...-is-easy-peasy
Do note that this is -completely optional-. You don't have to do this unless you really want to.
I consider it kinda pointless, not because of the speed issue, but because of the size of whatever files the 360 is creating. If we could use our own hard drives, then that wouldn't be so bad, but what's the biggest drive available? 120 GB? That won't hold that many games...
eBay Auctions / GameTZ profile / DP Feedback / Youtube / Twitter / RateYourMusicOriginally Posted by Edmond Dantes
120 gigs would hold quite a few 360 games, I bet you could load up 5-10 of your favorite games and have a ton of room left over for other stuff, I think 360 games only average 4 gigs or so.
This is a nice benefit for a few games that can last for a long time, such as games like Mass Effect and Oblivion, even if loading isn't that improved, saving wear and tear on your 360's drive makes it a nice option. Not to mention the reduced heat the system is putting off that benefits other components, and the reduced noise (A lot of the noise is from the disc drive working, though its never bothered me, but the noise the 360 puts out annoys many others)
Not sure I'm going to bother doing it for most other games like the Call of Duty titles, unless your addicted to online play, they're over relatively quickly anyways.
Last edited by Leo_A; 08-11-2008 at 06:15 PM.
I wonder if this will make Oblivion load faster? Other than that, I can't see the advantage of wasting so much hard drive space (I have the 120 gig...but still). You still need the game in the disk drive.
"One of the ways I gauge a DS game is by recharges. "...Tycho (Penny Arcade)
We can't really tell at the moment what the speed improvements are going to be like, but if you compare it to PC games where loading is always much faster than it's DVD reading console counterpart, it has the possibility to make a big difference. However I'm not so sure about heat improvements. For steaming games you're trading off a DVD constantly spinning for a hard drive constantly spinning. I may be wrong, but I would think the hard drive is going to create a lot more heat.
For some social commentary... I can't wait to see all the PS3 haters come out of the wood work who up until E3 thought installing games to the console was the stupidest idea ever, but now that they have the option, it's better news than FFXIII on the 360. Well maybe not that good, but you get my point. The fickle life of a fanboy I guess...
I'd be all over this if I didn't have the 20 GB version
But what about videos? XBox Live Arcade games? Downloadable content? Maybe it's a good idea for games that load tons and tons of stuff all the time, but I still don't see much point to this. But I speak solely as an outsider, since I don't own a 360 (and won't until I move to the US, or M$ Mexico gets its act together and starts giving us some decent store items!)
eBay Auctions / GameTZ profile / DP Feedback / Youtube / Twitter / RateYourMusic
What about them? I bet ten Xbox 360 games saved to a hard drive won't be more than 50 gigs or so.
I have 60 XBLA titles, 3 Xbox Originals (Average around 3.5 gigs or so it seems), tons of DLC including such large things as Shivering Isles, many game saves and patches, 'Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown' (Around 75 minutes or so long I think, and is just shy of a gig I believe), the preloaded Titanic video, and I still have space left on a 20 gig hd (Although very small, just room for another XBLA title or two which is why I plan to upgrade to 120 gigs).
I bet I'd still have fifty gigs left when I upgrade to a 120 gig hd if I include all that content and install ten of my Xbox 360 games. Plenty of room for expansion and a ton more videos.
Unless your paying a big mark up and buying full season sets piece by piece over the video marketplace for several different television series rather than doing the sensible thing and buying it on DVD or Blu-Ray, or want to install dozens of 360 games to the hd, you'll never have space concerns.
I can't imagine the hard drive would cause heat concerns, I notice the system is much cooler when running XBLA titles and Xbox Originals, and its basically a external hard drive, its not wedged in with the system's components adding to the heat issues like the disc drive is.
Last edited by Leo_A; 08-11-2008 at 08:40 PM.
Does anyone else think we may be getting a 360 redesign soon, adding all these features? Knowing installing games to a limited 20 or 60gb HD will fill the drives up quickly? Even a 120gb will tend to fill up quick, on a hardcore 360 players rig.
I have a feeling they'll do what Sony did, on a redesign - make the 360 hard drive's a simple notebook hard drive.
lt always used notebook hard drives, and they already just changed the hd size. Which isn't a system redesign imo.
Back in 2000, the prototype Alpha Xbox1's had the ability to save games to the hard drive as well. The feature was removed after publishers complained.
I think it's a cool idea. I've got a 20 GB drive and can see me totally using it. I'd love to speed up the load times in GTA. And when I've beaten that I'll install Orange Box or something.
Time will be when the broadest river dries
And the great cities wane and last descend
Into the dust, for all things have an end
I'd be much more interested in this feature if Microsoft would release a 1st party drive at a price more reflective of the cost of an ACTUAL 120 Gig HD (Around $75)
"And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"
Well considering you still need the disc in the drive and all that jazz, i'm not that interested. If my system will be more quiet by having it on the HDD....I'm all for it.
Part of the #Vbender Crew
As someone mentioned, they're laptop HDs, not PC HDs, but I'm totally on board with you. I was at a game store yesterday and they wanted $200 for the 120 GB and $120 for the 20 GB (no typos here...). WTF?
Time will be when the broadest river dries
And the great cities wane and last descend
Into the dust, for all things have an end
Yup. While slightly more expensive than standard drives, even laptop HDDs aren't THAT expensive per Gig.
"And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"
POINTLESS! If you're gonna do that, why not just switch to PC gaming? You can get much bigger hard drives for much less, and much cheaper games too!
I think its a pretty nice feature that isn't causing a bit of harm by having. I think its more pointless to give us a hard drive, and not let us take full advantage of it in ways such as this if we so wish.
Spending 10 minutes having the disc rip itself on to a hard drive hardly erases the differences between console gaming and PC gaming, and installations don't make PC gaming, its just something you must do before playing a game. The experience of the games are what makes the difference between PC and console gaming.
Last edited by Leo_A; 08-12-2008 at 09:38 PM.
I wish you could use any standard 2.5 inch SATA drive like the PS3. No way in hell I'm paying $180 for a proprietary 120GB HDD when I can buy a 320GB drive for my PS3 for $100.
Sounds good to me, will save my disc drive some wear. That's the only peice of hardware I've had issues with thus far, so the paranoia factor is high for me in that department. Will also increase load times, I'm sure.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
