Is the Core line holding the 360 back?

quad_red

Reading the news of the delay in GTA, this reminds me of a story I read that Take2 were having serious frame rate problems with the 360 version because of MS's insistence that all games function without needing the hard drive.

Hence, they cannot be optimised to use the hard drive. One of the main reasons Oblivion on the PS3 has longer draw distance, steadier frame rates and lower load times is because they can optimise it to use the HD for cacheing.

Is the requirement for all games to function without the HD something that MS will eventually phase out? Will it seriously handicap the 360? Would MS be willing to sell of 20 gig HD's in order to get 'core package' gamers in on the act and allow devs to optimise for a hard drive?

mickoneill30

I'm not a games programmer but could the developers not use the HDD as cache if it was available and just load from the HDD if it wasn't there. Longer loading times for the Core but it would work on both. Doesn't sound like rocket science to me and not a hell of a lot extra coding.

quad_red

mickoneill30 wrote:

I'm not a games programmer but could the developers not use the HDD as cache if it was available and just load from the HDD if it wasn't there. Longer loading times for the Core but it would work on both. Doesn't sound like rocket science to me and not a hell of a lot extra coding.

Well, I'm not a programmer at all but it is apparently a rather troublesome issue. I've seen it mentioned in a few articles about a few different games.

kensutz

First i ever heard of Microsoft insisting that games run without the need for the hard drive considering there are games released which need the hard drive. So in all, the core isn't delaying anything belong to the 360 or any future title releases.

Ciaran500

quad_red wrote:

Reading the news of the delay in GTA, this reminds me of a story I read that Take2 were having serious frame rate problems with the 360 version because of MS's insistence that all games function without needing the hard drive.

MS has no such insistence, there are already games out there that require a HDD.

quad_red wrote:

Hence, they cannot be optimised to use the hard drive. One of the main reasons Oblivion on the PS3 has longer draw distance, steadier frame rates and lower load times is because they can optimise it to use the HD for cacheing.

Oblivion does use the 360 HDD for cacheing. Longer draw distances and better frame rate comes from the extra year in development and faster load time are cause they had to replicate data across the blu-ray cause they couldn't load from the disc fast enough.

flogen

I don't think they insisted on not using a HDD, they just encouraged devs not to rely on it if they wanted the game to be playable by everyone.

By the looks of things the Core is being phased out as a product with the arrival of the Elite - what will happen next is a AAA title will come out that demands a HDD for a critical aspect of it (let's say Halo 3's online multiplayer - they'll release a big map early on in its life or something).

After that the devs will be able to assume a HDD is present - as it stands those without the HDD are in the vast minority anyway (as many people who bought a Core only did so because there were no Premium's available... they probably bought a HDD seperately afterwards).

quad_red

I thought that MS insisted all games work without the HD. If a game had to have save features, they were allowed to insist on a memory unit.

However, seems like I was wrong.

mcgovern

That was a common misconception, basically it was a rumour started by Sony fanboi's that everyone took to be true.
Football Manager 2006 was the first game that needed the HDD I think.

flogen

quad_red wrote:

I thought that MS insisted all games work without the HD. If a game had to have save features, they were allowed to insist on a memory unit.

However, seems like I was wrong.

I think it's fair to say that MS leaned on devs about it but they wouldn't have made demands.
Basically they told devs not to rely on the HDD being part of every console, as it wouldn't be... they were basically made aware that if their game required a HDD they could limit their market (and the more games that did it the worse it was for MS as they would be selling a console type that had very few compatible games).

Anyway here's an interesting article to kind of counter the OP's suggestion that the delay of GTA is the 360's fault... it's only an analysis' point, but still:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=80785

Analyst Michael Pachter believes Rockstar has delayed the release of Grand Theft Auto IV because it is struggling with development on the PlayStation 3, GamesIndustry.biz is reporting.

And the Xbox 360 version of the game has suffered at least a six month delay as a result, due to contractual obligations that will have prevented the publisher from releasing the game first on Microsoft's machine, says the analyst.

hairball

quad_red wrote:

Reading the news of the delay in GTA, this reminds me of a story I read that Take2 were having serious frame rate problems with the 360 version because of MS's insistence that all games function without needing the hard drive.

Hence, they cannot be optimised to use the hard drive. One of the main reasons Oblivion on the PS3 has longer draw distance, steadier frame rates and lower load times is because they can optimise it to use the HD for cacheing.

Is the requirement for all games to function without the HD something that MS will eventually phase out? Will it seriously handicap the 360? Would MS be willing to sell of 20 gig HD's in order to get 'core package' gamers in on the act and allow devs to optimise for a hard drive?

Kinda on topic:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=80785

'Analyst Michael Pachter believes Rockstar has delayed the release of Grand Theft Auto IV because it is struggling with development on the PlayStation 3, GamesIndustry.biz is reporting.

And the Xbox 360 version of the game has suffered at least a six month delay as a result, due to contractual obligations that will have prevented the publisher from releasing the game first on Microsoft's machine, says the analyst.'

Just on the note of GTA IV being delayed..interesting speculation but i wonder if there's basis for it or is the ops own suggestion closer to the bone?

thebman

I think devs assume users have a HDD. I think most do. I don't know anyone not using a HDD.

It doesn't make sense as its memory cards are bad value for money over the HDD. I think most core owners buy a HDD later but just don't want to fork out 400 euro in one go. I know thats what my brother did.

I think the core is a benefit to Ms as it allows an cheaper product that can be upgraded after purchase when the user has the time/money. I think the 120GB HDD will make the core a more popular purchase if the only other option is to buy the elite to get it.

Fnz

Yeah, I'm concerned that developers could be omitting some interesting, hard drive dependent, 'next gen' features in order to provide all Xbox 360 owners with a similar experience.

flogen wrote:

By the looks of things the Core is being phased out as a product with the arrival of the Elite

Microsoft are phasing out the core? Says whom?

Podcasts inform me that Microsoft were planning on the Core pack becoming the biggest selling Xbox 360 system later on in the product's life cycle. Presumably people would buy the core, instead of another full system to (eventually) replace their knackered 360s.

Ciaran500

Fnz wrote:

Podcasts inform me that Microsoft were planning on the Core pack becoming the biggest selling Xbox 360 system later on in the product's life cycle. Presumably people would buy the core, instead of another full system to (eventually) replace their knackered 360s.

You're assuming MS knew there was going to be problems with the 360. Much more likely they are planning on selling the cores by the bucket load once they get very cheap compared to their competitors.

savemejebus

Don't get me wrong, i love my 360 but i think MS were fully aware of the issues the hardware had before releasing. They probably hadn't forcast on the publicity that the failures would gain but i think that if you look look at the track they've taken with software over the years, release buggy, flawed code and then and then fix later on, it's like they just extended that line of thought to their hardware.

Reminds me of that scene in fight club where Jack explains his job

I'm a recall coordinator. My job is to apply the formula.
Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X...
If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one

I hope when falcon comes out they have a hdmi enabled core that, i'd buy

flogen

savemejebus wrote:

Don't get me wrong, i love my 360 but i think MS were fully aware of the issues the hardware had before releasing. They probably hadn't forcast on the publicity that the failures would gain but i think that if you look look at the track they've taken with software over the years, release buggy, flawed code and then and then fix later on, it's like they just extended that line of thought to their hardware.

Reminds me of that scene in fight club where Jack explains his job

Well all of that's a general design/part quality issue rather than something specifically related to releasing a HDD-less console option.

As far as I'm aware the red ring of death problems are across the range of the 360, not just in the Core or Premium versions.