Two reasons it will not have a built in hard drive.
1. It would add extra expense to the system, even if we assume that M$ wont be making any money on the machine they will still want to reduce the unit cost as much as possible.
2. Console users are a different breed from computer users, they dont want the complexities of Hard Disk management they want to stick a CD in and play straight off, PC users have some idea about how to use the file-system on their machines, Console users can't be bothered, and even if the game includes an uninstall option, every uninstall under Windows leaves files behind, because none of the uninstallers can handle the idea that a program can produce files after it's been installed, so after a while the hard drive is going to a) fill up with useless left over files, and b) become so fragmented that operation is going to slow to a crawl.
Oh and whilst we're at it, if it does have a hard drive then Micro$oft will be using Virtual Memory, and once again we'll be into the wonderful realms of 'The Game Of Hard Drive Thrash' because the OS has decided it has better things to hold in memory than the currently executing program (anyone else notice how Windows manages to allocate more memory for it's disk cache than for programs)
You're wrong there, Whilst there is a Bios in the machine that will provide basic functionality, Sega provide two sets of libraries, one WinCE, the other Sega's own libraries, and from what I've been hearing most developers have been using Sega's rather than WinCE, which I see as a really positive step, or maybe it's just because if the rumours I've heard are true, the WinCE libraries have a memory footprint of about 6MBytes (I could be totally wrong here, as I say it was only a rumour), and no one wants to loose that much memory on their console before they've even started writing the game.
You're not wrong there, I worked on GTA for the Saturn before it was dropped and I can tell you, trying to make full use of all the processors using Sega's libraries was almost impossible, I did manage to get the two main processors running in concorde, but there was no easy way of syncing between the two, the memory layout was a nightmare,
Of particular note was the graphics system, it would only handle quads (no triangles) and had no concept of texture UVs, every texture map had to be square and based on a power of two width/height, oh and the actual texturemapper was weird, it wasn't a scanline mapper, if you pulled a corner too far up you would end up with a curved edge, cool in it's own way, but not exactly useful.
The fact that I actually managed to get GTA running (albeit very slowly) on the machine is perhaps more testament to my tenacity than to my skills as a programmer, and I was glad when DMA finally dropped the version.
Have you any idea how much of the cost of your average console, or game for that matter, is distributer and retail markup, and dont forget that the cost of any console system is more than just the component cost to manufacture you also have to take into account the R&D budget, this has to be made back as well. The reason that consoles start off so highly priced, then drop rapidly is that as the manufacturer pay off their R&D costs, and start making enough on the Games they pass the saving back to the consumer.
On a secondary note, Sony have already made inroads into programability with the PSX, with their Net Yaroze project, where you get everything you need to develop software for the PSX (except a PC or Mac) in one box, of course the libraries are a cut down version of the full developement libraries, I forget how much they cost now but I believe it's about $200, compared with the cost of a full developement kit this is a bargain, infact compared to the cost of a PC this is cheap, and the libraries are easier to use than DirectX, and you're only programming for one specification. I'm wondering if Sony will do something similar with the PSII.
Oh BTW someone also has to pay for the QC on all those extra games, Sony submission can take several months at the moment, can you imagine how long it would take if there were ten times as many submissions, not to mention how much it would cost Sony to do all this testing. Anyway Sony is getting much more choosey about the games it accepts for submission nowadays and I can see it getting even more so for the PSII.
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Two reasons it will not have a built in hard drive.
1. It would add extra expense to the system, even if we assume that M$ wont be making any money on the machine they will still want to reduce the unit cost as much as possible.
2. Console users are a different breed from computer users, they dont want the complexities of Hard Disk management they want to stick a CD in and play straight off, PC users have some idea about how to use the file-system on their machines, Console users can't be bothered, and even if the game includes an uninstall option, every uninstall under Windows leaves files behind, because none of the uninstallers can handle the idea that a program can produce files after it's been installed, so after a while the hard drive is going to a) fill up with useless left over files, and b) become so fragmented that operation is going to slow to a crawl.
Oh and whilst we're at it, if it does have a hard drive then Micro$oft will be using Virtual Memory, and once again we'll be into the wonderful realms of 'The Game Of Hard Drive Thrash' because the OS has decided it has better things to hold in memory than the currently executing program (anyone else notice how Windows manages to allocate more memory for it's disk cache than for programs)
You're wrong there, Whilst there is a Bios in the machine that will provide basic functionality, Sega provide two sets of libraries, one WinCE, the other Sega's own libraries, and from what I've been hearing most developers have been using Sega's rather than WinCE, which I see as a really positive step, or maybe it's just because if the rumours I've heard are true, the WinCE libraries have a memory footprint of about 6MBytes (I could be totally wrong here, as I say it was only a rumour), and no one wants to loose that much memory on their console before they've even started writing the game.
You're not wrong there, I worked on GTA for the Saturn before it was dropped and I can tell you, trying to make full use of all the processors using Sega's libraries was almost impossible, I did manage to get the two main processors running in concorde, but there was no easy way of syncing between the two, the memory layout was a nightmare,
Of particular note was the graphics system, it would only handle quads (no triangles) and had no concept of texture UVs, every texture map had to be square and based on a power of two width/height, oh and the actual texturemapper was weird, it wasn't a scanline mapper, if you pulled a corner too far up you would end up with a curved edge, cool in it's own way, but not exactly useful.
The fact that I actually managed to get GTA running (albeit very slowly) on the machine is perhaps more testament to my tenacity than to my skills as a programmer, and I was glad when DMA finally dropped the version.
Have you any idea how much of the cost of your average console, or game for that matter, is distributer and retail markup, and dont forget that the cost of any console system is more than just the component cost to manufacture you also have to take into account the R&D budget, this has to be made back as well. The reason that consoles start off so highly priced, then drop rapidly is that as the manufacturer pay off their R&D costs, and start making enough on the Games they pass the saving back to the consumer.
On a secondary note, Sony have already made inroads into programability with the PSX, with their Net Yaroze project, where you get everything you need to develop software for the PSX (except a PC or Mac) in one box, of course the libraries are a cut down version of the full developement libraries, I forget how much they cost now but I believe it's about $200, compared with the cost of a full developement kit this is a bargain, infact compared to the cost of a PC this is cheap, and the libraries are easier to use than DirectX, and you're only programming for one specification. I'm wondering if Sony will do something similar with the PSII.
Oh BTW someone also has to pay for the QC on all those extra games, Sony submission can take several months at the moment, can you imagine how long it would take if there were ten times as many submissions, not to mention how much it would cost Sony to do all this testing. Anyway Sony is getting much more choosey about the games it accepts for submission nowadays and I can see it getting even more so for the PSII.