Where's my 20 gigs Microsoft?

[bapenguin]

Where's my 20 gigs Microsoft? IGN (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/674/674391p1.html) has the answer.

From the beginning, we've all known that the HDD is necessary for playing backward compatible games from the Xbox, so the emulator is also included in the HDD, along with some reserved space to download compatibility updates for more games as they become available (Burnout 3 anybody?). Space is also reserved for title updates and patches, probably not too dissimilar from what we've seen with Halo 2. Says Microsoft: "Some space on the HDD is set aside to increase overall system functionality, including things like the Xbox emulator to enable backwards compatibility and console and title updates to allow for continued innovation and expansion of the console experience."
There should be an option to remove the music database on the console if you aren't going to need it. I don't plan on ripping anything locally and just streaming MP3s from my PC.

[doyama]

The ability to 'remove' someting from the hard drive, must by definition, have some other way to 'recover' it as well. The only way to do that would be some kind of recovery DVD. I'm sure Microsoft does NOT want to have some DVD floating around, even if its encrypted with a 10-thousand bit RSA key, containing any of the core OS or application code for the Xbox. It's simply more information for hackers to reverse engineer the Xbox360.

Also from a call support perspective, you don't want people calling about how to use the recovery DVD as well. People are stupid and that's a call you don't want to have routed to your help-center if you can avoid it. Sure 'some' people will want to free up every last byte of the hard drive. But lets face it, 95% of the population won't, so it makes more sense for them to address those people.

[fitbabits]

Hmm, I haven't checked my hard drive since I found out there was only 13 gigs of space available to me. I wonder how much space a saved 360 game takes up? I appreciate Microsoft looking forward, but they really need to think about how things like this play out in the media.

The included content (music and videos) are long gone from my hard drive, though.

[Vandenh]

Just get a 100GB one next XMas ;)

[dolbex]

Just get a 100GB one next XMas ;)

Geeeze, with the price of other accessories, what do you think that will retail for?

[ChaosDent]

I'm sure the biggest space consumer is the available cache for load optomization. If my memory serves, it measured 700MB on the Xbox, and there were three separate cache locations that would rotate out as new games get put in. Take that cache, about 2 GB total for the Xbox, plus whatever cache storage that is reserved for the 360 and subtract the difference between a hard-drive manufacturer's gigabyte and a software writer's gigabyte and you'll come pretty close to the actual useable storage.

Without sacrificing one of the much touted advantages of the hard drive, I don't think it's possible to give the user all of the storage available. Personally, I don't see it as a problem, you are still getting a 20GB hard drive, the system is just multi-tasking its use of the drive.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

Geeeze, with the price of other accessories, what do you think that will retail for?

Going off the ridiculous $100 price point for a mere 20gigs of space, I'd have to say $500.

:rolleyes:

[MrMeatshake]

d'you think we'll see people in the media pointing out that if this space is 'reserved' then you can't really advertise a 20GB? considering it sounds like you can't EVER get access to that full 20GB.

u think the version of the 360 that competes directly with the PS3 might have a bigger HDD in the deluxe pack for about the same price? or will they just reduce the price as much as possible (probably the latter, but hey, it seems like a nice idea).

[The Iron Weasel]

I bet they are starting the excessories expensive so when sony launchs they can be like "well the hard drive is only 40 dollars now!". That way everything looks alot less expensive in comparison to past and probibally to sony.

[Phanto]

I don't get it why they not use the same method as PS2 so can play all xbox games in the 360 without the HDD. Oh well i guess its too late to be thinking about that, anyway is someone can answer this thnx in advance. ;)

[fitbabits]

I don't get it why they not use the same method as PS2 so can play all xbox games in the 360 without the HDD. Oh well i guess its too late to be thinking about that, anyway is someone can answer this thnx in advance. ;)
Because the internal makeup of the Xbox 360 is so different to that of the original Xbox. The Xbox used an Intel Pentium 3 Processor running at 733MHz coupled with an nVidia GPU. The 360 uses IBM and ATI for processor and GPU respectively. Thus, the only way for Microsoft to enable backwards compatability was through emulation. The PS2 has what amounts to PS1 architecture under the hood (along with the much touted Emotion Engine) to allow PS1 games to be played on it.

[Jacob Singer]

I noticed that on the 360 there is an option to format the hard drive. Any brave soul attempted this yet?

[GunnyMo]

Oh and the "64mb" memory card has only 51mb of actual space on it. It seems to me there is a little false advertising going on here.

[GunnyMo]

I noticed that on the 360 there is an option to format the hard drive. Any brave soul attempted this yet?

I did and it doesn't do a damn thing. You still only get 13g of space.

[bapenguin]

The other thing to remember to...a 20 gig drive doesn't have 20 gig of space. It would have around 18 or so. it's the all 1024 KB vs 1000 KB measurement trick. Might be why the memory card is like that too.

[iamkevin]

I don't get it why they not use the same method as PS2 so can play all xbox games in the 360 without the HDD. Oh well i guess its too late to be thinking about that, anyway is someone can answer this thnx in advance. ;)

xbox 1 games were guaranteed the existance of a hard drive.
for example, Halo and Halo 2, the Team Ninja games (doa3, doaxvb, ninja gaiden) all put data in cache on the drive. As Chaos Dent said, there are 3 such partitions, for a total of around 2 gigs of space.
If you don't have a hard drive, then those games won't work, because they'll try to write 700 MB of data to nowhere, even if you could put the emulator on an MU, and who knows how big that is.
I'd imagine that games can also do the caching thing with Xbox 360 games, but since they're not guaranteed that the HD will be there, they have to be able to work without it.

[51|RandoM]

stories like this crack me up, people complaining they don't get to use all 20 gigs of a supposedly 20gig harddrive for whatever they want.

It isn't a pc, it is a console. You're lucky if the hard drive is even addressible from the gui.

[phantomhitman]

Because the internal makeup of the Xbox 360 is so different to that of the original Xbox.

You mean the game makers didn't implement the "push button to play game as xbox 360" feature?? ;) I knew this was coming, to late to do anything at this point. I am keeping my old box just for this reason.

[3dge]

The PS2 can emulate the PS1 so easily because it has a PS1 in it. The i/o chip (called the IOP for Input Output Processor) is in essence the processor of the original playstation. As for the 20 gigs, come on people, there IS a 20 gig drive on the xbox 360. It's not like they short changed you and stuck on a 13 gig drive instead. It is not a general purpose computer, why would you expect to have all the space "accessible" DIRECTLY to you? I can't believe the Sony fanboys got this stuff on the front pages of major news sites.

[MosBen]

You know, I don't have 20.0 gbs available to me on my ipod, but I don't have a problem with Apple advertising the machine as a 20 gb ipod because it actually has a 20 gb drive. It's just the way these things go.

[rainbowblack]

what really gets my goat is that if they label it as a 20GB hard drive IT SHOULD HAVE 20GB!! PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT A CORE GOT RIPPED OFF 100 BIG ONES FOR 13GIGS. sure you payed 100$ for much more than 13 gigs with the ability to now play old games. but thats a feature that should have been included from the get go

thats just wrong. should have been a 27GB HD at least this way we get our 20gb as advertised

[51|RandoM]

what really gets my goat is that if they label it as a 20GB hard drive IT SHOULD HAVE 20GB!! PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT A CORE GOT RIPPED OFF 100 BIG ONES FOR 13GIGS. sure you payed 100$ for much more than 13 gigs with the ability to now play old games. but thats a feature that should have been included from the get go

thats just wrong. should have been a 27GB HD at least this way we get our 20gb as advertised


I hope this was humor.

[Phades]

what really gets my goat is that if they label it as a 20GB hard drive IT SHOULD HAVE 20GB!! PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT A CORE GOT RIPPED OFF 100 BIG ONES FOR 13GIGS. sure you payed 100$ for much more than 13 gigs with the ability to now play old games. but thats a feature that should have been included from the get go

thats just wrong. should have been a 27GB HD at least this way we get our 20gb as advertised

I didn't see where they advertised it as a "20GB Usable Space Hard Drive."

It's a 20GB HD, not all of that is usable space. That's just the way they work. Get over it, move on. If this really pisses you off you must have never owned a PC.

I too hope that was humor.

[Groo]

what really gets my goat is that if they label it as a 20GB hard drive IT SHOULD HAVE 20GB!! PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT A CORE GOT RIPPED OFF 100 BIG ONES FOR 13GIGS. sure you payed 100$ for much more than 13 gigs with the ability to now play old games. but thats a feature that should have been included from the get go

thats just wrong. should have been a 27GB HD at least this way we get our 20gb as advertised

Idiot: you get a 20 gig drive. You can open it up and check for yourself. The Xbox 360 uses some of those gigs for itself, so it can play your games better. That's the end of the story.

[iamkevin]

Idiot: you get a 20 gig drive. You can open it up and check for yourself. The Xbox 360 uses some of those gigs for itself, so it can play your games better. That's the end of the story.

I WANT MY GIGS!
giggity giggity.

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[Suicidal ShiZuru]

console gamers are st00pid