Rory McGuire, the lead game designer for Sierra’s upcoming multi-platform title Bourne Conspiracy, is displeased with Microsoft’s decision not to include a hard drive in Xbox 360 Core and Arcade units. He believes that Microsoft should have included an HDD in every 360 model as Sony did with the PlayStation 3.

In retrospect I wish Microsoft had made the choice to have [mandatory] hard drives like Sony did with the PS3.

They did it with the original Xbox. I’m not sure why they decided to not require a hard drive on the 360. From what I understand they don’t move many [Core/Arcade] units.

Developers certainly benefit [from a hard drive]. If you have a hard drive, the whole game loads faster. Obviously you’ll be facing a short install time, but the developer benefits from it and you definitely benefit from it as a player.

But did Microsoft really make the wrong decision by not including a hard drive in every 360? When I see PS3 games imposing mandatory 5GB installs, I’m not so sure anymore.

No HDD in Core 360 a “mistake”, says dev [CVG]

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