You might remember a little story last week that confirmed with Gearbox President Randy Pitchford that their multi-platform first-person co-op shooter Borderlands would require the hard drive to run on Xbox 360, leaving behind anyone who purchased the Core SKU and didn’t want to buy the expensive hard drive accessory. Not long after the story ran, however, Borderlands Lead Programmer Steve Jones announced to Gearbox message boards that Borderlands wouldn’t require the hard drive.
Buh?
1UP contacted Pitchford for clarification and, well, it turns out Pitchford simply didn’t know. “I was wrong on that quote. It turns out that the hard drive isn’t required by the game. It seems impossible that a game that is doing as much as Borderlands and pushing the limit so much with all the weapons and equipment and character stuff can actually do it all in memory and streaming from the media,” he told 1UP. “It was so impossible to imagine that even I had it wrong and I needed our lead programmer to sort me out.”
Right now, unless it’s a subscription-based MMO, Microsoft requires all Xbox 360 releases to function without requiring the hard drive bundled in the Premium and Elite SKUs. Rumors have suggested Microsoft is preparing to change that policy, but Borderlands won’t be the game that does it. That said, Borderlands will use the hard drive if it’s there. “The game will take full advantage of the hard drive if it is present, but again, it will not be required,” said Jobs in his forum post.
In the interest of full disclosure, here’s a snipped transcript of the conversation between 1UP Previews Editor Matt Leone and Pitchford during a demo of Borderlands, where this whole confusion came from:
Pitchford: … If it weren’t for where the 360 and the PS3 have gone, with big hard drives, and lots of memory, and powerful processors, that there’s no way you can conceive of this as a console game. But because the systems have gotten where they’ve gone, yeah [you can].
1UP: So can you play this on 360 without a hard drive?
Pitchford: No. No, you’re going to need a hard drive. I don’t know if they’re going to complain about that, and I don’t want to be in the middle of a controversy there, but you need space.
1UP: Was there some Microsoft quote where they said they would ban games that required a hard drive?
Pitchford: No, they didn’t say that. There was a guy that was trying to say that “all games run on 360,” but…
1UP: There’s Final Fantasy XI.
Pitchford: Exactly. That was spin, and they corrected the spin.
Well, that’s that. Or is it?
By Patrick Klepek
Related posts
Borderlands Will Not Require 360’s HD
You might remember a little story last week that confirmed with Gearbox President Randy Pitchford that their multi-platform first-person co-op shooter Borderlands would require the hard drive to run on Xbox 360, leaving behind anyone who purchased the Core SKU and didn’t want to buy the expensive hard drive accessory. Not long after the story ran, however, Borderlands Lead Programmer Steve Jones announced to Gearbox message boards that Borderlands wouldn’t require the hard drive.
Buh?
1UP contacted Pitchford for clarification and, well, it turns out Pitchford simply didn’t know. “I was wrong on that quote. It turns out that the hard drive isn’t required by the game. It seems impossible that a game that is doing as much as Borderlands and pushing the limit so much with all the weapons and equipment and character stuff can actually do it all in memory and streaming from the media,” he told 1UP. “It was so impossible to imagine that even I had it wrong and I needed our lead programmer to sort me out.”
Right now, unless it’s a subscription-based MMO, Microsoft requires all Xbox 360 releases to function without requiring the hard drive bundled in the Premium and Elite SKUs. Rumors have suggested Microsoft is preparing to change that policy, but Borderlands won’t be the game that does it. That said, Borderlands will use the hard drive if it’s there. “The game will take full advantage of the hard drive if it is present, but again, it will not be required,” said Jobs in his forum post.
In the interest of full disclosure, here’s a snipped transcript of the conversation between 1UP Previews Editor Matt Leone and Pitchford during a demo of Borderlands, where this whole confusion came from:
Pitchford: … If it weren’t for where the 360 and the PS3 have gone, with big hard drives, and lots of memory, and powerful processors, that there’s no way you can conceive of this as a console game. But because the systems have gotten where they’ve gone, yeah [you can].
1UP: So can you play this on 360 without a hard drive?
Pitchford: No. No, you’re going to need a hard drive. I don’t know if they’re going to complain about that, and I don’t want to be in the middle of a controversy there, but you need space.
1UP: Was there some Microsoft quote where they said they would ban games that required a hard drive?
Pitchford: No, they didn’t say that. There was a guy that was trying to say that “all games run on 360,” but…
1UP: There’s Final Fantasy XI.
Pitchford: Exactly. That was spin, and they corrected the spin.
Well, that’s that. Or is it?
By Patrick Klepek
Related posts