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Windows 8 tablet integration!!!

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Surprised no one here posted this yet:

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Always On, Always Connected... like LIVE.... :shrug:

Or are they saying you can't play a game without having an internet connection and being connected to LIVE?

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I think this spells more trouble for MS than it does for GameStop.

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Also, Kinect was a "New Way to Play" so... that seems to be a popular tagline for a bunch of different things.

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Especially if they insist on proprietary hard drives again. With mandatory BRD installs, we're looking at 15-50GB per game. If the thing ships with anything less than 2-3TB, it's a terrible blunder. Ideally they'd have a SKU that has a bundled HDD (or, realistically, two SKUs) and then another that requires you to add your own.

Christ... now that I think about it, they're moving us more towards such massive storage that RAID-esque implementations could start being ideal. What happened to cloud gaming? Getting rid of the local hard drive should be the goal, not increasing it and utilizing it, as a requirement, to the point where libraries can't be permanent.

Who wants to bump up against a ceiling and decide now which 25GB install that you still use because you've already made so many cuts that you've got a skeleton crew actively installed just so you can play the new Bioshock?

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This reminds me, one of the panels I sat on at PAX this weekend was about games journalism. One of the questions these guys answered was what the worst part about gaming is. Justin McElroy from Polygon said that the worst part for him is that everything gaming is not. He means like the time you get the box opened to putting in the system, installing it, patching it, signing up/into shit like EA's crap or Ubi's crap ("It's a 25-character code, I don't want to type that in! There's a camera on the system! Take a picture of the code for me!" - sounds familiar ;)), it's already like an hour he's sat there - not playing.

It's going to get so much worse.

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Sweet! The thing I hated the second most about the PS3 is back!

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Let's wait and see how much data games actually use. The BD drive in the PS3 was supposed to be a great bonus, but most games didn't use much space. If these consoles aren't a big leap in technology, they may not need that much space (with a few exceptions like Metal Gear Solid: Revenge of the Cutscenes).

Besides, if Nintendo's system really attracts (and keeps!) third parties, major multiplatform games may have to be made with DVD in mind anyway. That may have been partly why PS3 games didn't use much space. The PC is also a factor, and even though they've almost eliminated discs you can't expect gamers to download 25-50GB games (especially with the bandwidth caps major ISPs have implemented).

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I imagine not only cross platform considerations, but BD-ROM read speeds as well were pretty slow on the PS3. They should be faster now, but I was hoping that would avoid game installations. I'd care less if SSD's were cheap enough (and reliable enough) to put a big one in these systems to eliminate load time :(

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That's one reason why I really hope they don't use proprietary drives. SSDs are getting to the point where they would be reasonable for a console, at least if you're willing to uninstall and reinstall games as space allows. But if they're proprietary, a SSD wouldn't be an option, or would be very expensive.

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I'd like to see two separate drives in the system. A decent sized SSD for lightning quick booting, dashboard & marketplace stuff and a huge standard drive for content.

That way years down the line the OS isn't bogged down by an outdated hardware design. They keep them separate and whatever dash they introduce 5 years from now is still quick and functional as launch day.

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The Wii U uses a proprietary disc that holds 25 GB (it's basically Blu-ray).

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First off, most wouldn't need a 2TB or 3TB hard drive. The OS for the 360 is fairly small, less than 512MB. I don't imagine the OS for the next-generation being much larger. Look at the iOS, still under 1GB. Then again, I forgot we're also talking about Microsoft. Windows 8 is how large again?

I don't think most games on the next generation would actually go over 15-20 GB. There's only two games on my 360 that I have installed that go over 10GB (without DLC): Battlefield 3 and Halo 4. Those two being probably the most graphic intensive games on the system to date. Look at the PC realm of things, most mainstream games clock in around 8-15GB and have far superior graphics to their 360/PS3 counterparts. The only game I remember being surprisingly large on the PC was Rage which clocks in at over 25GB.

Think of it like this. If every game requires 20GB, you'd be able to fit 50 games on a 1TB hard drive. I'm confident to safe the average consumer doesn't own 50 games for their console. If Microsoft was smart, they'd allow the system to keep track of the games you own <i>forever</i> a la Steam allowing you to download/install/uninstall at any time you please. It should not be tied to the machine like Nintendo's eShop and the WiiU.

To be honest, I don't give a shit about being able to sell/purchase used games as long as the price is right for the game. I've made a lot of purchases on Steam simply because the price was right and I haven't even touched half of the games I've bought through them. Again, I can't remember when I sold a game or purchased a used game for any of the current-generation consoles. Everything I have purchased was brand new.

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You're giving them a lot of credit when they're on a track to treating the consumer like a criminal*.

*Allegedly

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I would have loved to have a 500GB or 1TB drive for this generation due to all the download items, and room to install some games.

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You're also forgetting that numerous multi-disc 360 games broke the 12 and 18GB barrier already, granted a lot of that is duplicate security measures and game engines and assets, but the fact of the matter is developers always find a way to fill discs. You give them 25GB to fill, they'll fill it. That goes on your hard drive now. Maybe they'll be conscious of it, maybe they won't. They don't care how many games you have installed as long as theirs is.

We'll see how long your estimate of "50 20GB games per TB" lasts when they're pushing 4GB patches a la Steam, "Season Passes" consisting of 4 pre-planned expansions each weighing in at 3-4GB (I assume since they're 2GB today), extra DLC that wasn't part of the "Season Pass" (character classes, retro map packs, that 5th we-just-thought-of-it DLC campaign), and this doesn't even include whatever the successor to XBLA is.

Defend the idea all you want, my point was that if they keep giving proprietary hard drives at ancient sizes for astronomical prices, they're dead in the water by forcing installs.

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If they just model themselves after Battle.net (except for the Diablo III launch) and Steam, they'll be fine.

DRM can be acceptable, when done right.

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I don't have a problem with DRM. Hell, I never sell my games anyway. Lending and borrowing, yes, but when I buy it, I keep it.

I just want the freedom to expand my storage as I see fit and the need arises. They're forcing me to use more storage now, so I want to find the best price.

Stop comparing this to Steam and Battle.net. Last I checked, PCs and Macs didn't rely on proprietary Microsoft hard drives available in 3 sizes: S, M, and XM starting at 50-cents/GB.

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Maybe I missed something, but how do mandatory game installs affect the used game market? Unless it's a one-time install with a key, which would be a really idiotic route for them to take for a number of reasons.

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I imagine that's exactly what it is. The disc only saves bandwidth for the mandatory game install. The license stays with the user and/or machine.

They may even start selling games on flash drives or enable kiosks at retailers to reduce packaging and waste all whilst saving the consumer's bandwidth. It'll be like digital movie theaters receiving the feature but instead of showing it to a packed house, people just authenticate for a fee at the kiosk and take a copy home.

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I don't buy used but sure as hell want the option to unload some crap ass game. Keep in mind, the first year of a console sees a plethora of mediocre, titles. The kind of games that are trade/resell fodder.

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Wow. I'm sorry for shitting in your cereal this morning.

And to open your horizon, Macs don't allow you to upgrade the hard drive. If you don't select enough storage at the time of purchase, you're stuck using externals if you don't have enough storage. Yes, there are ways around it. However, they void the warranty if you should screw up.

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Macs are pretty bad about it.

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But they suck for games anyway, so its ok. :)