Not completely, but somewhat of a waste in terms of the way they have been utilizing it, but has great potential. I don't think it hurts them by having it, but there's so much more that they can do with it than what they have done so far. The free downloads are a nice start, but they are way too infrequent and paltry. Also most games don't seem to use it for quicker load times as they promised, the GC still beats the pants off of it in terms of load times without an HD. The customized soundtrackss is great for sports games (if you like them), and it was really underused at first but now seems to be used more often.

My point is that it has its ups and downs, but so far hasn't had that "wow, this is great that they put this here" moment. The biggest users of the hard drive are the people who have modded their x-box to save copied games and play movies on it. I am thinking that this was just a test, and next generation they will try to implement it more than just a memory card replacement.

Where would you find 8 GB hard drives? ("Inside my Xbox" doesn't count.)

Actually the standard Dreamcast memory card (the VMU) had a built-in LCD screen and as such required batteries. However Sega made an official "4x" memory card that stored four times as much as the VMU and had no LCD screen (and thus required no batteries).

As I remember it, the Dreamcast memory card only needed the battery if you played on-the-go. Otherwise, it still saved games as long as it was plugged into the controller and the system was on.

The DC VMUs did use batteries as they actually had a display screen. However, for the save function to work it did not matter if the battery was toast as far as I know. The other functions needed the battery.

I have one xbox for MAME, one for live, and I just bought the other from my brother for $125.00 with 2 controllers, and 5 games, so I will probably swap out the HD in that one as well, and then I have a music server and over 5,000 games in my car

I don't think it's a waste. As Outlaw stated, they haven't used it to its full potential yet.

No memory cards. Nuff said.

No²

The hard drive "looks nice" but like someone else said I'm not sure if it's a feature that really grabs the more casual or random gamer. I have a brother ( who I'd classify as a "random gamer") who doesn't own any of the current consoles and I said to him that "on the XBox's version of GTA you'll be able to put some MP3's on the hard drive and customize the music". His answer was a rather unimpressed "Oh yeah".

No memory cards must be nice but I'm not sure if it's a "make or break" feature for alot of the casual gamers.

Not at all, while sure some developers could bother taking advantage of custom soundtracks at least Xbox owners don't need memory cards, which was a Godsend while playing Knights of the Old Republic, for every point where the story could branch I just made a new save. Must have about 20 something

I think it has been a big waste. I mean, I've got 77 free gigabytes on mine. How am I ever going to use that?

You are right about the PS/1 they don't use batteries. On the Dreamcast I used sega memory cards/w VMU. On each console I ran into memory corruption. On the Xbox I have yet to run into any corruption. Although I do own two memory cards for the Xbox they are used only for backup and portibility.

So to me the having the hard drive is great.

I don't agree with ya buddy. It's like saying the in-game DD is a waste being as some people may never use DD in-game. It's been used allot for downloaded levels less load times and game saves and CD saves too. I got no idea where you got the idea it was a waste. Also saw you post this at teamxbox I wonder how long it will be before your ripped a new one for even saying something on xbox was a waste. Them people over there are a little goofy over xbox.

PS.
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread...5&pagenumber=1

I told ya HA HA read this people it's funny to see fan boys attack someone on line about dumb stuff. Man this forum is pretty bad ass when you got like %90 of forums on line being like that one.

The responses there on this question are actually pretty restrained, and most actually give an answer (or a list of them).


I still don't see the point of pasting the same silly question in multiple forums, then not following up anywhere when people respond. It's like a drive-by posting.

New sig material

I don't know why I reply to a trolling, but let me ask:

Do you enjoy memory cartridge management? Do you like having to spend 5 minutes every new game you get finding a memory card with enough free space? Do you like the fact that every time you want to play animal crossing, or your madden football dynasty you have to use a seperate memory card? Do you want consoles to be limited by the size of their save games? Star wars uses 1600 blocks per save. Thats over 25MB each. Do you mind having to load every bit of data from the CD when it could easily be cached and retrieved much faster on the HD? Don't you think the ability to store firmware updates and game patches on the HD may be useful? Do you even know the full capabilites of an xbox with a HD?

The seamless (almost) transitions between areas on Halo make it worthwhile by itself. It was great being able to play a level for hrs without ever stopping to wait for the next part of the level to load. Compare this to Half-life on the PS2, that has some painful delays.

In my first post I said I didn't want to comment but I can't look at your post without commenting.

1. Yes sport games take up alot of space but the GC 251 memory card is fine for them. PS2 doesn't have a problem either as far as I know.

2. No game or console this generation as far as I'm aware has been limited because of the save file size.

3. Star Wars:KotoR is a PC game that was ported to the Xbox without optimizing the save file size. It's true deal with it.

4. If your hard drive fails on the Xbox you get to ship it to Microsoft to get it replaced(and possibly pay out the rear end too). If you used a memory card you would head to a store the same day and buy a new one if it failed.

5. Gamecube doesn't use a HD and load times are minimal. PS2 has horrible load times on some games. Some games are streaming though so it's not a huge deal. Plus the PS2 tech is older so it's gonna be slower.

6. Game patches are the number one reason I don't like HD's for consoles. I have to deal with lazy developers on my PC and I don't want that shit on my consoles.

Someone mentioned downloadable content. The problem with that is less than 10%(don't have an exact figure) of the Xbox user base has Xbox Live to take advantage of that and I personally don't see that number going up a huge amount next generation either. Unless the Official Xbox Magazine is gonna put every single piece of downloadable content(not fix patches) for every game released that has downloadable content, which I don't see happening(although I would imagine they will put the majority out). Downloadable content may not have been a waste to you personally but to the Xbox user base as a whole it has been.

With that said, downable content is not necessarily a bad thing but it could and will split the Xbox market between have and have nots with extra content. I just don't see them putting downloadable content on the demo discs as much next generation because they are essentially giving away something free that they will be touting as a major feature of their console's online services abilities.

*Not trying to single out Microsoft or the Xbox. I'd have the same problems if and when Nintendo and Sony has a HD.

2. No game or console this generation as far as I'm aware has been limited because of the save file size.

This is a opinion. Only software developers can answer this statement.


3. Star Wars:KotoR is a PC game that was ported to the Xbox without optimizing the save file size. It's true deal with it.

Then why was the Xbox version release first??????




6. Game patches are the number one reason I don't like HD's for consoles. I have to deal with lazy developers on my PC and I don't want that shit on my consoles.

Someone mentioned downloadable content. The problem with that is less than 10%(don't have an exact figure) of the Xbox user base has Xbox Live to take advantage of that and I personally don't see that number going up a huge amount next generation either. Unless the Official Xbox Magazine is gonna put every single piece of downloadable content(not fix patches) for every game released that has downloadable content, which I don't see happening(although I would imagine they will put the majority out). Downloadable content may not have been a waste to you personally but to the Xbox user base as a whole it has been.

With that said, downable content is not necessarily a bad thing but it could and will split the Xbox market between have and have nots with extra content. I just don't see them putting downloadable content on the demo discs as much next generation because they are essentially giving away something free that they will be touting as a major feature of their console's online services abilities.

Software bugs are in every game ever made. The more complex system get the more likely bugs can get into the system. Bugs fixes are a fact of life.


Downward loadable content is great (I have live), but you can get some content from OXM and some demo disk (Rainbow 3 demo came with download content for Rogue recon and Splinter cell).

And I think that is a bonus, they got to spend time making the game great, instead of putting in time to condense the save file to the lowest common denominator of a console.

I don't think that spending time getting the save files to fit on a memory card is optimizing, it would be compensating. In this case, since it was an X-Box exclusive (as far as consoles go) they didn't have to mess with it.

Your not honestly saying you think Star Wars:Kotor was developed for the Xbox specifically and the PC version was an after thought are you?
PC version announced 7/25/2000
http://www.lucasarts.com/press/releases/21.html

Xbox version announced 2/28/02
http://www.lucasarts.com/press/releases/46.html

And the reason the Xbox version was released first is here:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starw...s_2851710.html
Of course it was delayed again but so was SW:Galaxies. Of course that isn't the only reason the Xbox version was released first, but there is no reason to get into that discussion...



Yes there are bugs in all games,but at least on the console side they usually try to minimize them before release. I'm talking game stopping games, or the kind that totally imbalances the gameplay. Bug fixes are a fact of life in the PC market not the console market. There have been numerous PC games released where they were completely unplayable until a patch was released.

Your going to spend time at your friends house over the weekend and he happens to have an Xbox and Kotor as well. You wanted to play your save but your save won't fit on a Xbox memory card, so instead you either not play or you get to lug your entire system over to his house. That is just stupid in my book. With that said, hopefully Kotor is the exception rather than the rule for upcoming games on the Xbox.

And how many offline games have been patched so far because of the presence of the hard drive which allows it?

Tough to use that as an example of the evils of its presence when the answer is zero.


Funny how ESPN NHL players are literally begging for a patch, though. There's nothing truly buggy with the game, but people want the goalies to play on their Pro level skill while the rest of the CPU team's AI plays on their All-Star level... the superhuman goalies made it back into the game again this year.

One of Kush's programmers had asked everybody at the various hockey forums what else they could look into, if they made one, to improve the game now that hundreds of thousands had played it.

But, since patches are totally a bad idea migrating from PC-land, it's clear they everybody should instead wait another 11 months to get the product they hoped for.

I'm not sure what your getting at since. Games have already been patched to fix problems on the Xbox, doesn't matter if it's the online portion or offline portion of a game it still has and will happen again, they have set a precedent. I wouldn't be surprised to see a patch fix with the upcoming Kotor downloadable content for Kotors numerous bugs.

And fix patches are a bad idea migrating from PC-land as you put it. There is a huge difference. If there is a patch issued for a PC game for it's single player mode and you don't have internet access you could get someone to burn said patches onto a cd for you and patch your game.

With the Xbox you possibly have two options 1. you happen to be part of the 10% of the user base that uses Xbox Live. 2. You can take it up the rear and pay for a demo disc that has said patch on it, if they actually put patches on the discs. Sorry if you wanna pay for fix patches for games that's your choice but there is no way in hell anyone should have to since the dev was to lazy to fix it before they shipped the damn game.

You don't know what I'm getting at?

You're essentially saying that developers will intentionally rush out non-finished, broken games that will require a patch that the hard drive will then allow. Yet there are zero console games so far supporting that belief, despite the fact that there are some which could use it. (Bethesda, alone, has two efforts which could benefit from patching... Pirates of the Caribbean is widely regarded as one of the buggiest console games ever released, and sales went in the toilet when word got out.)

As for there being no difference between updates/patches to fix online issues versus offline issues, most would clearly disagree.

So, until some developer strolls down the path you fear, there are only real benefits and hypothetical costs on this issue.

Well, honestly I either take the box with me to play via system link for the types of games that I play with other people, or I'd play them over live.

I get your point, but you have the same issue with a PC, so I'm not quite sure that it is really an issue. Again, I'd rather have the developers focus on game play (as well as start building in save anywhere functionality) than figuring out how they are going to build in save points in a game and how they are going to fit those on a memory card.

Now I will say that USB thumb drive support in addition to an HD as a standard would be great, since those are higher capacity and transferrable between PC, etc. But I'd still want the HD.