Do you have an Xbox 360 Core or Arcade model? Did you expect it to be able to do what the higher end Xbox 360s can? You did? Well, guess what? You're wrong. Dead wrong.
If you buy Burnout Paradise, the latest installment in Criterion's critically acclaimed series, you'll be forced to play it offline, unless you pay $100 to Microsoft to buy a hard drive.
"Wait a minute? Are you saying what I think you're saying?! Burnout Paradise on the Xbox 360 REQUIRES a hard drive in order to play online?!" Yes. That is exactly what I said. No typos. You MUST have a hard drive in order to play this game online. "But I thought Microsoft said 'every game will work with every Xbox 360 system'?" Yeah they did, but did you see the part that said, "But just like some games will require you to have a Memory Unit to save games, some games will require you to have a Hard Drive to experience them." OH MY GOD! NO WAY!
What does this mean? It means that if you bought a 360 Core or Arcade, you just got ripped-off big time, but not by Criterion/EA, but by Microsoft.
I know, I'm a Sony fan and tend to gravitate to them, but hear me out. Games these days need a lot of space to run, especially big open-world games like Burnout Paradise. Microsoft should have had the foresight to see that this would become a problem and launched the Core model with a 20GB hard drive and the Premium one with a 40GB or so. By not doing that, they basically limited what the developers can do with the system and make them figure out other ways of caching and quick access.
This isn't the first time that the hard drive has been required on the 360 (think of all the DLC for various games, video downloads, Final Fantasy XI, and Oblivion GOTY), but it is perhaps the most notable since Burnout has huge mainstream and casual gamer popularity, and the people who buy this game might not be the ones that have the Elite Super Deluxe model with all the bells and whistles.
The 360's lack of a standard hard drive is also holding back the game industry because now it's getting to the point where the PS3 versions of games are being effected by Microsoft's boneheaded decision. Rockstar and Capcom have already expressed problems with the lack of a hard drive, and I'm sure more are to follow.
But remember, this is one (admittedly biased) guy's viewpoint. So, readers, I ask you this: what's the solution to this problem? Should devs just leave behind Core and Arcade owners? Or what should happen here?
An update to an earlier post we made regarding the Xbox Live outages and issues, they have finally announced the free game we'll be receiving. It's Undertow from Chair Entertainment Group and we'll be getting it next week starting Wednesday, 2:00 a.m. PST through Sunday, 11:59 p.m. PST for all Gold and Silver members.
Undertow is a fast-paced action-shooter that sends you underwater as you battle up to 16 players for control of the oceans! Non-stop conquest-style battles push the envelope of onscreen effects and combat action and boast some of the most stunning graphics ever seen in an Xbox LIVE® Arcade title.
Combat control: Undertow features relentless high-speed combat with simple and intuitive controls.
Visual style: The incredible next-gen graphics resonate with a vibrant underwater visual style.
Multiplayer matches: Undertow features 16-player multiplayer battles and two-player co-op modes.
Races and upgrades: The game includes three different playable races, each with four unique upgradeable units.
Single-player campaign: The 15-level single player campaign has a compelling story told through cutscenes.
This looks like it may actually be a good title. I applaud their efforts to pick a quality game for compensation over the many titles we all feared they would like Yaris or Totemball. Hopefully they have learned their lesson and will be better prepared for an onslaught of new users next Christmas. In the meantime, check out the original article and feel free to discuss this in our forums.
As many of you know, last Christmas (2007) Xbox Live shat itself and caused no end of problems for many members both Gold and Silver. Everything from account recovery, dashboard hangups, online match-making problems etc etc. According to Microsoft, that was due mostly to all the new XBL members who signed up during Christmas when they got their new X360's.
Unofficially, I believe it's people like this clogging the gaming interwebs with their enthusiasm. Or perhaps these kids have a cousin in Redmond, Washington who peed on a server at daddy's Christmas party, who knows.
In any case, Microsoft has acknowledged, apologized and plans to compensate Xbox Live members for their troubles sometime in the coming weeks. Here's the official statement from Marc Whitten on the www.Xbox.com website:
Quote
Dear Xbox LIVE Members:
During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service.
As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state.
At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you.
Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!
Sincerely,
Marc Whitten
General Manager, Xbox LIVE
A nice gesture and no doubt both costly for them and a big logistical undertaking to set up. Hopefully it'll be a really good game, no doubt a Microsoft Game Studio published one and one that will fit on the small memory cards.
I'll take a stab at it and guess it'll be either Hexic 2, Catan or Jetpac Refueled. if it's a 3rd party title, Pac-Man CE, Uno or Metal Slug 3. Yeah MS3 is new, but that's my surprise pick. There's a possibility it may be a game not yet released as well, giving away a title that a million gamers already own would be a bone-headed move on their part after all.
In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for more details and will post them ASAP. Until then, keep reading, there's always something on channels 3 & 4.
This is the first installment in a new series here at RF Generation informing you of the latest downloadable games for Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. I will post these every Sunday or Monday. For the first edition of this article, I'm just going to post North American releases. If you would like to see this expanded, let me know
My pick of the week is Band of Bugs for XBLA. Know why? Simple. Turn based strategy involving bugs. Sounds really fun. It's been well received so far. It scored an 8 out of 10 in the Official Xbox Magazine, and was a finalist in the 2007 Independent Games Festival. I do not have a 360, so I cannot play it.
Until next time, happy downloading!
UPDATE: There was some stuff released for the Playstation Store this week! It's been added to this article.
Do you have an Xbox 360 Core or Arcade model? Did you expect it to be able to do what the higher end Xbox 360s can? You did? Well, guess what? You're wrong. Dead wrong.
An update to an 
As many of you know, last Christmas (2007) Xbox Live 
