Many a feather was ruffled when it was revealed that Burnout Paradise on 360 required an HDD for full online play, but developer Criterion Games says it's necessary both for seamless on/offline transitions, and also to keep the door open for downloadable content.
Extending the Burnout experience with extra content was part of the plan from the very beginning, explains a post on Criterion's website.
Equally important to Criterion was ensuring that "all online players could show off new content when they go online," something that simply wasn't going to be possible "by supporting the lowest common storage denominator, the 64Mb Memory Unit, either in size or data read speeds."
The post goes on to say that "all possible technical options were investigated" to maintain the desired online experience without requiring a hard drive, but a solution was never found.
Core owners aren't completely shut out of playing Paradise online, but they are restricted to Road Rule gameplay only, which is a fairly small portion of what Paradise offers online.Everyone, sadly, has to listen to Guns N Roses every time the game starts.
At this point, I have to wonder, just how many 360 owners don't have hard drives? Is the fact that a game like Burnout Paradise, which contains an entire load-free city environment, requires a hard drive for seamless online play at all surprising?
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See Also:__
- Criterion Address Complaints About Burnout Demo
- Burnout Paradise Lets You Play At Your Own Speed
- Burnout Paradise Offers Wide Open Environments
Xbox 360 HDD/Online Statement [Criterion Games]
