Bethesda (Oblivion 4) responds to HDD news

and apparently they\'ve known since the beginning.

Ever since Microsoft\'s announcement of the Xbox 360\'s pricing structure, gamers everywhere have been wondering if developers will take full advantage of the hard drive since it\'s not a standard accessory with every system. After all, why would a developer want to risk excluding a large segment of the 360 gaming market?

Bethesda, maker of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for Xbox 360, has previously boasted considerable use of the hard drive for its massive RPG. Many gamers are wondering if they can still play Oblivion if they purchase the hard drive-free Core System. We contacted Bethesda directly to find out.

"We\'ve known since day one that there would be versions of the 360 without a hard drive, so Oblivion will still work on every 360," assures Todd Howard, executive producer at Bethesda. "That being said, Oblivion takes full advantage of the hard drive and uses it extensively, so we\'d certainly recommend that everyone gets one."

This indicates that the hard drive can be tapped for more than just MP3 and photo storage. It seems developers are not afraid to utilize the hard drive for optimizing load times and streamlining their games much like the original Xbox.

Game Informer has also heard rumblings that Microsoft mandated all Xbox 360 games be playable without hard drive assistance (MMOs are excused from this requirement). It\'s up to the developer to choose how much hard drive optimization to include in their games from that point.

Link

Be sure and pay close attention to the bold part.

My Xbox I bought on launch day finally crapped out a couple of weeks ago.  Well actually just the HD did.  My bro is into that damn Live service and downloaded all this stuff onto it.

A poor excuse for it to get damaged (and even worse that we had to buy a whole new Xbox), but it\'s nice to know we won\'t need the HD to play most games.

meh, i\'d love to see every dev make changes to thier game to allow use of the HHD "if" present

Originally posted by mm
meh, i\'d love to see every dev make changes to thier game to allow use of the HHD "if" present

Making games hard drive aware isn\'t bad.

Originally posted by THX
My Xbox I bought on launch day finally crapped out a couple of weeks ago.  Well actually just the HD did.  My bro is into that damn Live service and downloaded all this stuff onto it.

A poor excuse for it to get damaged (and even worse that we had to buy a whole new Xbox), but it\'s nice to know we won\'t need the HD to play most games.

Consider yourself lucky

Originally posted by mm
meh, i\'d love to see every dev make changes to thier game to allow use of the HHD "if" present

Apparently you\'re selecting some of the information and then twisting it around so you can make it a negative.  

Bethesda says they\'ve known since the beginning that to make the game functional without the HD.  There are obviously advantages to having one and we\'ll have to see how developers make use of that.

Microsoft said a LONGGGGG time ago not to count on the HD always being there.

negative?

it\'s reality.

every dev for every xbox game is going to have to say "wait, we can\'t do that cause some jackass with the core version might not have a hard drive. do we put this content in still?  how behind  on schedule are we?"

there is NO advantage to be seen, microsoft is fucking up badly

Truth be told, we won\'t know whether they\'ve messed up yet or not.  I guess we\'ll have to wait and see.  I\'m certainly not taking any stock in your fortune telling.

then use your common sense

Originally posted by mm
then use your common sense

My common sense is telling me that you know exactly zero about business, much less the console business.  I\'ll wait and see what happens, thanks.

please do the shut up part at least, we thank you

mm, you\'re pathetic.

you\'re not shutting up

Originally posted by mm
you\'re not shutting up

won\'t happen.

[Evi]

:thumb:

Now let\'s move on to happier conversation.