kotaku

Summary : Microsoft have developed a new file system to use on their xbox 360 game disks, which will allow them to store more data on each disk. Xbox 360's will be updated to recognise this new file system in the next firmware update. However, some old 360s have drives that can't handle the new system and would have to be replaced.

Here's the kicker - MS can spot which old 360s' these are over XBox Live and, at least in the US, have a plan to pre-emptively replace user's units with the latest model before the firmware update goes live. For free. So people will basically get an email saying 'Hey, your 360 is a bit old, so we're sending you a new one!'.

Mental.

Jon

OMG. Compare that to Sony. Very tempted to jump ship.

Hmmm i might try this out a hope to get lucky.

My 360 isn't technically dead, but it will now randomly freeze within 5-10 minutes of doing anything (be that playing a game or browsing the dashboard).

Hopefully i might be able to get a new one out of this .

I don't think you'll get a free one if you buy one at this point .

I've got the original Xbox 360 model. Might get a replacement

Naa, been there, done that. The grass isn't greener.
It's nice that they are preemptively replacing machines that won't work, but at they end of the day they should have used a media format that was big enough in the first place. Who knows what Sony would have done, but so far they haven't remotely borked swathes of PS3s yet.

I can't get over the tiny size of Xbox hard drives. The smallest PS3 you can get is 40GB, but I've seen 360s on Amazon with 4, yes 4GB hard drives. This from a console where they encourage you to install the games!

Actually the 4GB is usually Flash Memory designed for Savegames and XBLA games, not for installing.

Also the 360 doesn't particularly "encourage" you to install games and no game that i know of "requires" you to install it in order to play it unlike some PS3 titles.

The install feature was added to:

a) Remove the sound of the DVD drives which were rather noisy.

b) Improve load times.

c) To give people a reason for buying the larger HDD sized Xbox 360s... before the install option i'd barely used any of my Elite's 120GB HDD and the largest things i had were demos. The Xbox 360 was never really designed to be a PVR type Media Player like the PS3, it was a games console first and foremost and designed to stream content, hence the Media Center integration and it's rather poor codec support.

There were probably other reasons as well, but i can't think of any more.

They did. DVD was the format at the time of release.

No you're not expected to install on a 4GB console. It's a cheap entry model designed for those who play casually like the "Arcade" model before it.

Before this with original models (20GB Premium) installs were not mandatory nor at the time were they done at all with consoles hence the lack of need for a large HDD.

What did annoy me though is when installs/media/downloads became common MS charged a premium of HDD upgrades.

You can plug in a usb stick and use that too for your game saves, I think it supports up to 32gb that way (16 for sure)

PS3 have mandatory installs due to Blu ray being stupidly slow for random read, there isnt a single game on the 360 that has a mandatory install (except possibly Halo 3 for the double buffering)

I call it "forced install" for the 360, because if you want to actually hear your game you definitely want to install it.

Not so much on the new ones, mine is quieter than my ps3 running a game that has been installed in both cases

Even the arcade games run quieter on the 360 over the ps3 (360 S 250gb VS 250gb PS3 slim)

There can't be - they can't very well exclude the original "core" systems that came with no save facility whatsoever...

All PS3s on the other hand came with at least 20GB for saves & game data.

They don't need mandatory installs as the data transfer rate of the DVD drive is fine (just a shame about the noise on the early models.

And yes PS3s came with at least 20GB but also at least a £100+ premium over the Xbox.