Xbox 360: 512MB Memory or HDD

[BlueTsunami]

Several? Think you will find it was much much more than that (and just as much on xbox). Streaming off dvd is very easy and very wide spread. Also easy to optionally use HDD but why bother.

The (director?) of Rogue Galaxy (a PS2 game) is actually trying to do away with loading all together. I'm not sure of what techniques will be used, but it will be interesting when the game comes out to see if 1) it worked and 2) if it did...his comments on the process. Check it out in the Console Games Forum.

 

[Arun]

With development times and cost rising, developers are going to take the path of least resitance - in otherwords they are going to code for the base platform if there isn't any fundamental benefits to them

I think you're forgetting the majority of the cost increase is related to the higher number of artists required. Yes, programming costs are rising, but not anywhere as fast afaik. Furthermore, if you buy an engine such as UE3, it's likely that streaming will be implemented in it.

I don't know whether UE3 currently supports HD streaming, but considering it's also a PC engine, I'm sure Epic will bother implementing it soon enough, no matter what. Indirectly, this also affects the HD support of a few PS3 titles, since such engines will also available on that platform.

(and its probably not going to be the difference between a 70% to an 80% in a game review - and reviews are what are going to really influence game sales).

Probably not, but I'm sure many reviewers hate *long* loading times as much as we do; if Oblivion often stopped you in the middle of a fight because you move forward slightly and it activates the loading code, I would assume that to have a negative influence on its reviews. That's an extreme example of course, but you get the point

Uttar

 

[Ty]

I thought that Live was important in MS strategy.
If true then they should accept to lose what ? $25-$30 per console in order to push Live.
I mean,the customers would have to buy a $40 to buy a memory card so why not slighty increase the price of the console to avoid them to buy a memory card and to enable them to easily take advantage of Live ?

Does Live require a HDD? I'm a bit fuzzy on this myself. But yes, I'm sure it's important to MS. Naturally it's all a matter of priority for them and they've decided to not risk losing so much money upfront even if this hurts their long term success.

Really ?
What about the Intel CPU and the Nvidia GPU ?
Last time i check MS is unable to reduce cost on any of these components.

Well the situation with the GPU is a matter of licensing. The CPU? Not sure, I hadn't heard they getting screwed on this either but I'm sure it's possible as well.

Memory, however, is different since the supplier can likely be from a variety of sources. Therefore you have the market working for you to provide lower costs.

<Snipped other stuff I can personally agree with>

Well as I read it, this poll was from the perspective if we were MS executives and had to make a choice for the company. Sure, I would have loved for the HDD to be a standard but given the choices, RAM or HDD, as a pretend executive, I vote for the RAM.