Xbox 360 MMO makers allowed to make hard drives a requirement

If there was ever a reason to believe that Microsoft might kill off the Core System sometime in the future, it would be this latest announcement. Microsoft will now allow game makers to require a hard drive for MMOs.

The announcement was made at Gamefest 2007, and the rules can be bent on a "case-by-case" basis. One of the most important rules is that they must state explicitly exactly how much space the game is going to take up. They are encouraged to estimate high, so that they don't go over their own imposed limit. One of the software designers from Microsoft even said "feel free to require 30GB for your game; that's just going to make your potential audience a lot smaller."

I can't say that this is in any way a big surprise to me. I'm not really sure how one would go about making an MMO for a console without the use of a hard drive. I suppose it is possible, but I can't imagine it being that great of an option.

Xbox 360 MMOs allowed hard drive requirement [via joystiq]