Xbox 360 to get save-to-HDD feature
A MAJOR feature that Microsoft has announced at E3, and reported in the official Xbox 360 Gamerscore Blog, is the ability to copy games to your Xbox 360 hard-drive.
This seems to be have been missed by the majority of hacks reporting from LA.
A major feature listed on the blog states:
"Play from hard drive. Copy your games from the game disc and play directly from the hard drive. Not only will the drive not spin, but load times are quicker, as well. Of course, you will still need the disc in the tray to prove you own the game. "
Though the games may load faster, it's a shame you still need the DVD in the tray - it means the INQ will have to find other devices to use as beer coasters.
This feature has been found in the majority of PS3 games since launch, and has been a significant advantage for Playstation 3 owners who wish to speed up their loading times.
Unfortunately, unlike Sony's PS3 customers, not all Xbox 360 owners have a hard-drive, thus Microsoft has been unable to force any hard-drive installation onto its punters.
Less useful is an upgrade to accessing your Xbox Live Marketplace - this will now be available over the standard World Wide Wibble, allowing you to purchase new games and downloads from the comfort of your PC.
At least the save-to-HDD feature may put an end to the ridiculous din that comes from the 360's DVD-drive. µ
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Points you're missing on this one: 1.a: PS3 installs where required are mandatory, new 360 ones are optional 1.b: Mandatory PS3 installs were required because the blue-ray drive was too slow to stream data live. Installs were forced on PS3 owners due to hardware drawbacks, while 360 owners get the option to trade increased load speeds by some install time, but only if they want to... Inc: please at least try to keep some vague sort of impartiality to your reporting please? articles like this make me place you no higher than ranting like the daily mail over some nonsense biased piece of news
many ps3 games, despite their installation, were still slower than their 360 counterparts. the orange box, portal specifically, is one example. get your facts right, or hire someone that actually plays games.
a not-spinning HD will keep the overall temperature down as well in the box. Less red-rings to look forward to ? (let's hope so, mine has given a red ring a couple of times lately...)
....now all we need are some decent HDD's in our 360's to actually use this feature. MS strategy (if you can call it that) on HDD's in the 360 just isnt cutting it. Either bring out a cheap large capacity drive (160Gb+) or let us put our own in (maybe a formware change would allow this?) ala PS3.
Perhaps a crap port like orange box is slower...but pick up Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and compare the load times between the 2 consoles. As an owner of the ps3 and the xbox360...I'm happy to hear that they are doing this.
As the above have partially covered. The PS3 allows parts of games to be installed, to improve load times, sometimes mandatory. The 360 installs THE WHOLE GAME, its available on all games too, and because of the arcade, this wont be mandatory. Theres a couple of games i play all the time, so this will be a great boost to me. Or would be if i had a huge HDD. Hopefully Microsoft will reduce the price of the HDDs hugely, and start selling some very high capacity jobbies.