VGGEN.com News - PlayStation 3 To Have HDD

PlayStation 3 To Have HDD
PS3 hard disc drive mandatory, but sold separately?
By Andrew Joy 03/15/2006 08:08:33 PST

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As part of their PlayStation Business Briefing 2006, Sony announced that the PlayStation 3 will make use of a 60GB 2.5" hard disc drive, though through Ken Kutaragi's comments the nature of the device quickly became more of a question than an answer.

In his announcement, Kutaragi stated that the HDD would be required to play PS3 games, as they are asking developers to develop their games as if the HDD will be installed in every PS3 system. However, Kutaragi also added that Sony has yet to decide whether the hard disc drive will be pre-installed in PS3 units, or if consumers will be forced to buy it separately in order to even play their games, stating that it all "depends on the market."

Also revealed in the presentation, the HDD will be installed with the Linux operating system (not Microsoft's Windows of course), can connect to the Internet and act as a home server, and it will be completely upgradeable.

I'm glad to find out that sony is definately going to offer a ps3 with a hdd at launch. Hopefully it will function as the xbox hdd does unlike my 40 gig paperweight in my ps2. 60 gig seems to be a good size drive and I'm thinking they will most likely offer two different packages as xbox 360 does but it really don't make sense if games have to use the hdd. I really think after sony has seen how well xbox 360 has sold on ebay they will probably launch the ps3 at $499 with the hdd installed in every package with some installed bonus material and possibly a blu ray disc packed with game demos and information on the future of blu ray. All going to come down to the games which at this point none excite me too much. With all the great ps2 titles out there I have to wonder if ps3 will ever get as many A+ titles as ps2 has. It most likely will but I think it will start living up to it's potential in late 2007 early 2008 with 2008 probably being the best year for gaming in history.

Posted by Matt on 03/15/2006 at 10:57:31 AM

The problem I have with all of these consoles (XBox 360, PS3), is there desire to clip the ticket at every possible stage of the process. Rather than generic hardware or allow users to use generic hardware, we have to deal with all this proprietary rubbish. Why cant they just allow us to connect an external USB/firewire based hard-drive rather than including one of their own?

Lets face it 60gig may be good for your saved games and your game patches, but a lot of users will have an mp3 collection far in excess of 60 gig, and thats not taking into account movie collections.

In chasing the almighty dollar Microsoft and Sony tend to forget the consumer should come first. Proprietary hardware adds complexity and cost. Sure these machines can network to this, that and the other, but for me it would be better if these companies made it easier for the consumer to get on board. These next-gen consoles are expensive enough as it is!

Posted by Steve on 03/15/2006 at 03:19:14 PM

We'll discuss this article in our upcoming geekspeakradio episode #54

http://geekspeakradio.com

Posted by Rob Bruce on 03/16/2006 at 03:05:07 PM

That's awesome Rob, please let us know when the podcast is live. :)

Posted by Jared on 03/18/2006 at 08:53:35 AM

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