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No Hard Drive Bay On PStwo
Thanks to Gamespot for the notification. Sony has confirmed that the PStwo will not feature a hard drive bay. "...consumers who want and use the hard disc drive are typically the more 'hard core' gamers, ... we feel that a majority of those HDD interested consumers already have their PlayStation 2 units."
He said he felt that the main problem was the developers would start shying away from the HD due this... Which unfortuantely is probably true.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I would say that developers knowing that future PStwo systems will not have a HDD they will be less likely to support the add-on. I would say that, but to get less support for the HDD would be next to impossible considering there are what, two US releases with support? FF:XI which all HDD owners have because they are only sold together (the Linux kit HDD doesn't have the "browser" upgrade needed to allow games to access it). And Resident Evil: Outbreak. Which has such horrific loading times without the HDD that it should be required.
Does anyone know any other games that can make use of the HDD? Also what Japanese releases would use the HDD that have had the feature removed for US release? I would guess that FF:X did support it. After using HDLoader to copy the game to my drive, I found that the shattering screen that marks the start of combat actaully displays over the loaded battle area instead of a black screen if it can get the data into memory fast enough.
How many failed/vaporware add on's now does this make in the past few years? I know that FFXI and HD loader are around, but still. There's the 1394 port on the PS2, notable absent on later versions. The GC still hasn't used one of it's expansions bays. PS1 never used the parallel port (Officially) and barely supported the serial port. N64's disk drive system also MIA. This doesn't even include things such as light guns that are woefully under developed for. We could go on back much further... It just makes me wonder why doesn't Sony/Nintendo add some sort of incentive to get them to use available technology. Like 15% off licensing fees if it uses the HD/1394/eyetoy/whatever. It worked to get developers to release quality games for the NES.
because flash is still hideously expensive for the uses you'd use a hd for?(storing tens of gigabytes of data)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...and that it dies after 100,000 write cycles?
The HD held some possibility of revitalizing a somewhat tired console. No more. So now it's up to PS3, which may be a while in coming and sounds fiendishly difficult to code for (thought debugging obscure locking problems was hard on SMP *nix? just wait 'till Cell).
I'm assuming that each console has a reasonable amount of flash memory, say 512 MB from looking at current prices. That's enough for tons of saved games, patches and added features. The game disk has 9 GB of space, assuming dual-layer DVD. If that isn't enough, the game could be split onto two DVDs. How many of my customers have Internet connections, have their console connected to the Internet, and have a broadband Internet connection? If I want to release a major expansion pack, it's going to be on a retail packaged DVD, along with the current and tested version of the game. So what use is that "tens of gigabytes" of HD space? Don't say that it's for copying pirated games to the hard disk.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I was thinking it might be like the EverQuest expansions for the PS2. The full game plus the new expansion was on the new disc. It could just checked to make sure you had a proper save files from the initial release.
As always, the decision to drop support for the HD bay and by extension the HD itself, in the PStwo is just about money. No, it's not really about stopping people from using HD Loader. Most console users are not interested in or technically capable of using the various tools that, among other things, make playing pirated games possible. If that were the case, Sony would have done something a lot sooner.
The likely fact is just as it was said earlier, the consumers with interest in the HD already have it. They've milked it for all they can get, so continued support at this stage would cost more than what it is worth. Why? Because they had plans for the PStwo all along as a stop gap between now and the PS3 release. The PStwo gets the platform back in the news in time for XMas. They'll pick up some new sales and some repeat sales as either gifts, spares, or replacements. And best of all, for Sony, the PStwo hardware is probably going to sell at a profit for them. To make this possible they had to drop everything that would increase the cost of making the console, so bye bye HD.
This probably also means that those HD using goodies that were promised will not be coming, at least not to North America or Europe.
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