New Xbox360 Game To Require Hard Drive To Play

[mckmas8808]

As to whether the casual consumer knows this, who can say, I don't know what the salesmen are telling them nowadays, seems like the HDD's are selling regardless though. Bottom line is, almost all games will not need the HDD, for the few that do, there will be a small fraction of gamers dissapointed, big deal.

My biggest and imo the most important question will be, "how many X360 owners will have the system but no HDD?"

 

[GB123]

Think of it this way.

In the last generation nobody forced consumers to by a memory card but you can't really play a game without it, so people had no choice.

If PS2 had been launched as 2 sku's one with 2 controllers and a memory card and one with just a controller, does this mean that they have split the market?, some people unable to play 2 player games or unable to play games that require a memory card to save your progress?

My point being is you wanted to play 2 player games you would buy an extra controller, just like if i want to play football manger or FFXI i would get a hard drive.

 

[scooby_dooby]

My biggest and imo the most important question will be, "how many X360 owners will have the system but no HDD?"

publishers will look at that information, analyze the userbase, and make a decision whether or not to require a HDD. As the percentage changes we will see more or less HDD-only games. i.e. if the attach rate stays at 90% we will see more hdd-only games, if it drops to 50/50 we will see very very few hdd-only games.

 

[Synergy34]

So far I'm thinking this isn't a big deal for some because the 2 games discussed are not 360 exclusive games. What do you guys think the reaction would be if Halo 3 is announced to work on HDD 360's only?

 

[GB123]

I would be scratching my head wondering why Bungie would want to put themselves in a position that could lose sales.

The only reason for Halo 3 to use the hard drive would be for extra maps and content, an option the core users wouldn't get.

 

[expletive]

So far I'm thinking this isn't a big deal for some because the 2 games discussed are not 360 exclusive games. What do you guys think the reaction would be if Halo 3 is announced to work on HDD 360's only?

It wont be becuase Halo 3 is a sure-fire system seller. MS will want the $300 AND $400 console buyer to be able to buy H3 and a 360.

 

[mckmas8808]

publishers will look at that information, analyze the userbase, and make a decision whether or not to require a HDD. As the percentage changes we will see more or less HDD-only games. i.e. if the attach rate stays at 90% we will see more hdd-only games, if it drops to 50/50 we will see very very few hdd-only games.

But the reason for higher attach rates today is due to early fanbase correct? Even you said that the casuals want a $299 console.

 

[Synergy34]

It wont be becuase Halo 3 is a sure-fire system seller. MS will want the $300 AND $400 console buyer to be able to buy H3 and a 360.

Thats not an answer. What IF a big named game is announced for the 360, exclusive, but only HDD 360's could play it? How do you think gamers would react to it?

 

[expletive]

Thats not an answer. What IF a big named game is announced for the 360, exclusive, but only HDD 360's could play it? How do you think gamers would react to it?

Its tough to answer becuase anything is just a guess and i think theres no way it would ever happen because these huge titles generally exist to drive console sales. So i dont think a system-seller would ever see the light of day where it requires a peripheral that makes it a non-system-seller.

But to your point:

What if WoW came out as a 360 exclusive and required an HD?

What if GTA:SA required an HD on the PS2?

Theres really no way to answer it. I'm trying to think of a precedent historically where a hugely popular game was released and required a $100 peripheral to play (steel battallion?) and how it impacted sales. I think the obvious answer is that the game sells MUCH less among people without a hard drive. Obviously people that own an HD arent impacted by such a thing whatsoever.

 

[mckmas8808]

What if GTA:SA required an HD on the PS2?
.

It wouldn't have sold as much, because people wouldn't want to pay $100 (stating if the PS2 HDD was that much) and then pay $50 just for San Andreas. It probably would have sold less than half of what it ended up saling.

 

[tcrews]

I don't see what the problem is. You want a game that requires and HD and you have a core, buy the HD. Simple as that.

You gain the ability to play that game, you now also get backwards compatibility and have a place to download XBL Arcade games and trailers/demos/etc...

It's not really a problem. If you bought the core more than likely you didn't care about the other features (besides the HD) that comes with the premium package. Component cables, wireless controllers, etc...

Tom Crews

 

[Synergy34]

Its tough to answer becuase anything is just a guess and i think theres no way it would ever happen because these huge titles generally exist to drive console sales. So i dont think a system-seller would ever see the light of day where it requires a peripheral that makes it a non-system-seller.

But to your point:

What if WoW came out as a 360 exclusive and required an HD?

What if GTA:SA required an HD on the PS2?

Theres really no way to answer it. I'm trying to think of a precedent historically where a hugely popular game was released and required a $100 peripheral to play (steel battallion?) and how it impacted sales. I think the obvious answer is that the game sells MUCH less among people without a hard drive. Obviously people that own an HD arent impacted by such a thing whatsoever.

I wouldn't get into certain games, I think you can throw any title in. As long as it's exclusive. I agree that you probably can't give an exact answer to that. You will have a bunch of different reactions, pissed off, people who will just not give a dam, people will go buy the HDD, etc..

But the point is you still are going to limit your sales to some degree. Even if that number is as small as 100k, times 50, that is a ton of cash to pass up. Some people like scooby don't see this as a big deal though, I'm just not seeing how they can think that.

 

[NRP]

So far I'm thinking this isn't a big deal for some because the 2 games discussed are not 360 exclusive games. What do you guys think the reaction would be if Halo 3 is announced to work on HDD 360's only?

Actually, I think this is easy to answer. People would buy a hard drive just to play the game. At least MS is providing that option to its customers. No one will be prevented from playing a HD-only game because they can upgrade their core system.

Look how many people now regularly upgrade their PCs to play the latest games. I don't think console people are that much different, especially when MS's target audience is the "teen to 35ish" crowd. This demographic has disposable income.

I remember the same type of drama back when John Carmack released a game that required a hardware video accelerator. Everyone freaked out at first, but ultimately I think consumers benefited from his decision. We got better games.

 

[scooby_dooby]

But the reason for higher attach rates today is due to early fanbase correct? Even you said that the casuals want a $299 console.

That's true, that's why I think MS's pricing on the HDD is pretty integral to keeping the high attach rate. It has to drop to $60 so even the casuals will buy it over the $40 memory card.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I wouldn't get into certain games, I think you can throw any title in. As long as it's exclusive. I agree that you probably can't give an exact answer to that. You will have a bunch of different reactions, pissed off, people who will just not give a dam, people will go buy the HDD, etc..

But the point is you still are going to limit your sales to some degree. Even if that number is as small as 100k, times 50, that is a ton of cash to pass up. Some people like scooby don't see this as a big deal though, I'm just not seeing how they can think that.

It's not a big deal because the decision whether or not to require a HDD will depend on the current install base. So even IF a huge blockbuster was released and required a HDD, that would only happen if the attach rate was vastly lopsided like 80:20 or 90:10, in those scenarios it's not really a big deal.

Even with that said, I still can't see it happening, like expetive says a system seller will always cater to the base model, it's simple business sense.

 

[expletive]

I wouldn't get into certain games, I think you can throw any title in. As long as it's exclusive. I agree that you probably can't give an exact answer to that. You will have a bunch of different reactions, pissed off, people who will just not give a dam, people will go buy the HDD, etc..

But the point is you still are going to limit your sales to some degree. Even if that number is as small as 100k, times 50, that is a ton of cash to pass up. Some people like scooby don't see this as a big deal though, I'm just not seeing how they can think that.

Well i think it becomes a much bigger deal if the userbase was 80% with NO hard drive instead of 80% with, as is the case for the 360. As it stands now youre only possibly losing a percentage of the 20% without a HD.

This why i feel that with the 360, theyve handled this really well rather than really poorly. The 360 is positioned now, and can can continually be driven with pricing, to have a huge % of the userbase installed with an HD yet still maintain a price advantage/competition with the PS3/Revolution.

EDIT:scooby beat me to most of this....

 

[chroniceyestrain]

Is this worse than a game that takes up an entire memory card? Lets say FM2006 did take up an entire memory card. Unless it's the only game you own, you're going to need another memory card, which comes to 80 bones on memory cards.

 

[Synergy34]

Well i think it becomes a much bigger deal if the userbase was 80% with NO hard drive instead of 80% with, as is the case for the 360. As it stands now youre only possibly losing a percentage of the 20% without a HD.
EDIT:scooby beat me to most of this....

I think this is where the disagreement is, I think that ignoring that 10%-20% or whatever the number turns out to be, is a big deal. Business wise it makes sense to hit that full 100%. Considering what we have been hearing about development cost etc...I can't see the reasoning to make an exclusive game for only part of the market when you can make it for everyone.

 

[expletive]

I think this is where the disagreement is, I think that ignoring that 10%-20% or whatever the number turns out to be, is a big deal. Business wise it makes sense to hit that full 100%. Considering what we have been hearing about development cost etc...I can't see the reasoning to make an exclusive game for only part of the market when you can make it for everyone.

Well its all relative isnt it? Yeah 100% is ideal but developers are making decisions on installed base not a percentage.

Lets say theres 10 million 360s sold and 8 million have hard drives. On the other hand youve got 7 million PS3s sold. From a business standpoint, even at only an 80% attach rate, the 360 with a hard drive is the more attractive platform.

Yeah that extra 10-20% would be nice, but in the end companies are making business decisions on the installed base number of hard drives, not the percentage of 360s that have them.

Of course, theres other factors that will come into play as well. Developers of MMORPGS may figure that their target customer is hard core and has an HD anyway. In that case they may figure they arent losing sales on the core owners, since they wouldnt have bought the game anyway.

 

[weaksauce]

But but teh ps3 is so expensive!