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XBox (Games)

J. Allard Responds to Hard Drive Criticism 165

Posted by Zonk from the we're-right-how-dare-you-suggest-otherwise dept.
Edge Online is reporting on responses Xbox 360 platform chief J. Allard gave in response to questions regarding the hard drive on the Xbox 360. From the article: "I don't know who we've let down. There isn't a game on 360 that you can't play without a hard drive, so I think that's a good thing for consumers. We've made a commitment to broadening the audience, and while I think most of our energy here at X05 is about the hardcore, over time we're really setting the stage for making this a bigger category for everybody. So from the developer point of view you have the best tools and the commitment of the most well-resourced company in the world going worldwide with this product and saying that we want to grow the audience. So that seems like a win for developers - I'm not sure who's supposed to be disappointed."
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J. Allard Responds to Hard Drive Criticism More

J. Allard Responds to Hard Drive Criticism

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  • Guess he doesn't know his own product... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Utoxin ( 26011 ) <utoxin@gmail.com> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:21PM (#13734337) Homepage Journal
    Heh. He lies in that statement. Flat out.

    Quote: "I don't know who we've let down. There isn't a game on 360 that you can't play without a hard drive, so I think that's a good thing for consumers."

    I can name it right now: FFXI. It /will/ require a harddrive to play.

  • But wait ! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GaelTadh ( 916987 ) * on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:26PM (#13734398) Homepage
    Without a harddrive how am I supposed to install linux on it and turn it into a cheap media center that runs mame ?
    • I am sure someone will figure it out
    • use a usb hard drive...

      will cost less for more storage, faster and more versatile.

      that is of course, if your DRM overlords allow you the privilege of hooking up "unapproved" storage devices to THEIR xbox360...

      it is after all, their machine, is it not....?

      oh wait.
      • I actually did that with my Xbox. I got the Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II USB Keyboard Adapter for my Xbox when it was available for free plus shipping and handling ($6.95USD). I plugged that in to the control port and then hooked my 1gig usb key to it and turned on the Xbox. It treated it like an unformated memory card and formated my USB key as one giant memory card. I thought I had trashed my USB actually because I had a little trouble formating it back once I disconnected it from the Xbox.

  • Cost Cutting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ReverendHoss ( 677044 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:29PM (#13734425)
    I think he missed the real point of the criticism with his defense. I think the idea of different tiers of packaging and possible upgrades is a good idea. But I think many people believe that internal storage is no longer one of the "optional" features that can be removed to cut the cost of the machine.

  • They may not require an HD but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Iriel ( 810009 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:31PM (#13734439) Homepage
    ...the game could be crippled without one. Imagine when all the new maps come out for Halo3 and you're the one that can't play with your friends on Live because you don't have the HD to download the map-pack.

    They really need to give up the act about 'broadening our audience' for a while. Until this system costs less than I pay for my car each month, I don't think they'll be reaching for anybody but hardcore gamers.
    • You can still download new maps of Live, but you need to buy a memory card (surely expensive) for that. Of course, you need the memory card to save your games too.
    • Imagine when all the new maps come out for Halo3 and you're the one that can't play with your friends on Live because you don't have the HD to download the map-pack.

      Not only can you save the maps to a memory card instead, they could always just stream you the map before the game if necessary and keep it in RAM. It shouldn't be that slow - it's just one map at a time, and they can start streaming it as soon as you join the party or begin matchmaking or log in or whatever.

    • This is all about price points. Mom goes to Walmart around Christmas and sees "XBox 360 $299". She's much more likely to buy it than she is to buy it at $399. That's all that matters. Mom will buy it.

      So now little Jimmy has it and he's slapping down $60/game every now and then, whenever he can afford one himself, or can nag his parents into buying one.

      Jimmy eventually gets Halo 3, and yes there are map packs, and yes his friends are playing them and he can't because he can only download one map onto his mem

    • Re:They may not require an HD but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @06:03PM (#13735301) Homepage Journal
      "They may not require an HD but...the game could be crippled without one. Imagine when all the new maps come out for Halo3 and you're the one that can't play with your friends on Live because you don't have the HD to download the map-pack."

      Um... so? Not having a net connection would 'cripple' Halo, as well. Is Microsoft supposed to provide that for you, too?

      Enough of the dipshitted belly aching. Microsoft made the system upgradable and offered a cheaper version of the system. As an added bonus, a hard drive failure won't mean replacing the whole unit. As yet another added bonus, the drives are removable so you can physically carry them to a friend's house. Oh those evil bastards at Microsoft.

      Of all the things you could be bitching about with regards to the XBOX360, this is the stupidest by a rather large margin. Bitch about the controller being almost exactly like the PS2's. Bitch about the high price tag. (ready to cast your stones at Sony over that, too.) Bitch about the screenshots not looking all that advanced. Bitch about the same ol humdrum games being made for it. Bitch about EA supporting it. Bitch about Microsoft being a bunch of assholes. These are all great reasons to bitch. But a removable hard drive? Lighten up.

    • Re:They may not require an HD but... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DarkZero ( 516460 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @08:40PM (#13736153)
      They may not require an D but... the game could be crippled without one. Imagine when all the new maps come out for Halo3 and you're the one that can't play with your friends on Live because you don't have the HD to download the map-pack.

      I think you have it backwards. The problem isn't that the people without the hard drive won't be able to use that feature. The problem is that in order to accomodate those people, the game will never HAVE that feature to begin with. Take the PS2 for instance. Because not everyone has a modem, very few games are online, especially compared to the Xbox. Similarly, because not every 360 owner will have a hard drive, very few games for the 360 will use the hard drive feature.

      • Bingo! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 ) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @11:21PM (#13736973) Journal
        And that's why people are disappointed. One of the great things about a console is that you can assume people will have the same hardware, so you don't have to scale down to the lowest common denominator. If it works on the development machine, it'll work on everyone's machine, otherwise theirs is officially broken.

        And if a hard drive, broadband connection, high-end nVidia card, quad-core processor (do I have that right?), and all of these are things you can count on most people having, you'll use all of them. Meaning we'd see a lot of very cool games using all of them. As it is now, this is worse than the original xbox -- it's just a high-end PS2. The only reason I'll ever buy one is if I can't borrow someone's for long enough to play through the Halo 3 campaign.

        It looks like PC gaming wins here, with things like Half-Life 2 -- you pretty much need an Internet connection, and probably broadband, in order to play the game and keep up with all the patches, meaning all that, plus some decent minimum requirements, can be assumed by any modders. Which is why we see such awesome mods. Natural Selection, anyone?

        So, PC gaming wins... maybe that's what they wanted?

  • again (Score:1, Troll)

    by ArsonSmith ( 13997 )
    And again Microsoft is going to find a way to fall flat on it's face and land in a pile of money.

    • Re:again (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zangief ( 461457 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @05:24PM (#13734975) Homepage Journal
      Like they did with the original Xbox, when they fell on a large pile of NEGATIVE money?
      • I had to laugh at that statement. I love MS just for the debate they constantly ensue. How does Microsoft even think about money anymore?

        "Oooh, we lost a few hundred million on the xbox, that's sad."

        "How much are are we going to make on Office products alone next year?"

        <I-draw-with-oatmeal-cookies-type insane laughter>

        "Really? I couldn't even write that on a piece of paper without turning it sideways. That's if I could figure out how many zeros that is."

        "So Bob, how goes the purchase of Venus?"
      • Wow I didn't realize that Microsoft was in the red now. Are they going to declare bankruptsy?

  • FFXI definately need a HD (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eugene ( 6671 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:39PM (#13734512) Homepage
    There is no way Final Fantasy XI can play WITHOUT a hard drive. It's really simple, MMORPG will always have patches and update contents. So unless M$ is dropping FFXI, or J. Allard isn't aware that FFXI will be ported to Xbox360, his statement is simply not true.

  • The PS2 HDD developer fiasco... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by neura ( 675378 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:40PM (#13734527)

    The problem with making it optional is that developers will never make any cool features for the HDD unless it's ubiquitous. I think that's the main reason Sony just did away with the HDD when releasing the PSTwo. Why would developers make games that even made use of it at all, much less required it, if it just alienated the people that did not have one.

    We may not see quite the same problem here, since at least it will exist as an option from the start, but no major developer is going to release a game that has any features supporting the HD without serious consideration of how it will effect the customers that don't have one.

    I also agree with the first reply, FFXI will NEED the HDD, but maybe he's just using Microsoft speak (poster #2) and saying that there are no games on the system NOW that require the HDD because there's technically no system available and no games available. Wouldn't be the first time MS abused "language loopholes" to pacify the audience...

    • ** Begin rant **
      You guys wine too much -- if a developer can figure out how to make particle based physics, then they can just as easily check the "Is Hard drive present" function and take advantage of it if it is there. Besides, there are lots of thir party devices out there that are just additions to whatever you've got.

      However, I do think that the main point of consoles is somewhat lost now, and that is the underlining point right. Consoles have historically been little black boxes that are powerfu

  • Sure, all games can run without one... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dividedsky319 ( 907852 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:46PM (#13734590)
    Sure, all games can run without the hard drive...

    BUT, if ALL systems DID have the hard drive... that allows the game developers to utilize it to it's max potential.

    Imagine if the Revolution's controller was optional. An add-on of sorts. That kind of cripples the system. But since ALL the systems will have this extra ability, it means the developers can utilize it. Only having a fraction owning a particular accessory could scare developers away from actually using it.

    This, IMO, is why it's too bad that all the systems don't have the hard drive.

    • Re:Sure, all games can run without one... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AlexMax2742 ( 602517 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:51PM (#13734641)
      Sure, all games can run without the hard drive...

      BUT, if ALL systems DID have the hard drive... that allows the game developers to utilize it to it's max potential.

      All Xbox's came with a hard drive. Hardly any developers took any real advantage of it other than being a giant memory card. Frankly, I don't blame Microsoft, why include something standard that a very few games make use of anyway?

      • wow you're just flat at wrong, most x-box games did in fact make use of the hard drive. Perhaps just for faster save/load, perhaps just for caching, but those things resulted in significant performance increases and reduced load times.
        • Technically, all games took advantage of the HD. For saving settings data, save games, and some amount of built-in caching. These same things will likely be done with the 360 if you have a HD.

          However, the number of games that were written to do anything significant with the HD was very, VERY small.
        • wow you're just flat at wrong, most x-box games did in fact make use of the hard drive. Perhaps just for faster save/load, perhaps just for caching, but those things resulted in significant performance increases and reduced load times.

          I'm just guessing here (but hey, this is /. - facts are irrelevant!) but my theory is that the xbox API provides the use of the HDD for caching etc automatically. I mean that the game doesn't have to be coded such that "Load this level from the DVD and cache it on the HDD", t

          • Re:Sure, all games can run without one... (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            That's not how the APIs for Xbox 1 worked at all.

            You had a variant of CreateFile(). Give it a drive letter in the path and that's where you read from. (D for the DVD, Z for the scratch partition assigned to your game, etc...)

            Notice something? You have to manage this all yourself.
        • Load times are not vital to a game, and as posted elsewhere in this thread can easily be abstracted out from a game (if harddrive found use caching, else don't bother). In addition, the XBox has tons of really fast RAM to work with, so it can use what is left of RAM for caching AS WELL AS using a hard drive, if avalable.

          And yes, the hard drive was used for awesome and unique things....but it seemed that almost every game that did it had a lot of Microsoft involvement in it (Ninja Gaiden, DoA 3, Halo 2),

      • 'Specially given how much they cost.
      • Hardly any developers took any real advantage of it other than being a giant memory card


        Not true. Halo is a good example - when you first load a level, its slowwww (remember the blue bar moving across the screen).
        Next load, its fast.

        Of course, the xbox DVD drive is as slow as hell (largely because of the crap ribbon cable, apparently), and doesn't even use DMA. Proper DMA support should reduce the need to cache data.
        • Not true. Halo is a good example - when you first load a level, its slowwww (remember the blue bar moving across the screen). Next load, its fast.

          That's a perfect example of a feature that developers can still implement, because if there's no hard drive, they can just turn it off.
        • I still remember a game for the Dreamcast, I think it was called Dragon's Blood. It might have had a different name in the USA.

          What surprised me at the time was that I could hear the CD-ROM seeking all the time. As soon as I started moving around, the CD would seek like crazy. I can only guess it loaded data on the fly off the CD.

          But here's the fun part: the game never missed a beat. It ran flawlessly at a clean 50 fps. (That's the TV refresh rate here in Europe.)

          That's just the kind of thing that you can d
          • I remember reading once about the development of crash bandicoot (the first one) on the PS1. Apparently they wrote some impressive tools to sort out the order everything was placed on the CD in, as the CD drive was only 2x or 4x or something, and was slower than average when seeking too.

            GTA San Andreas on the xbox suffers from loading stuff from the disk, its quite a bad problem. The Xbox version of the game has more detailed models and textures than the PS2, and hence there is more data to load.

            The game
      • As other people have mentioned a lot of xbox games used it for caching to speed up load times. However one point that a developer for the xbox 360 made (and I am really sorry I can't remember the developer or the name of the game) was that the lack of the harddrive is placing restrictions on what they can do for the 360.

        This developer was writing a game that streamed all the content from the disc (sort of like GTA does I guess) and they said they had planned to have a helicopter/plane as one of the vehicles
        • Perfect point, and I agree totally, but I have to ask...

          "..streamed all the content from the disc (sort of like GTA does I guess)...couldn't stream the data from the DVD fast enough"

          Then how does GTA do it on a slow ass DVD drive, with a pretty anemic amount of memory? That doesn't sound like a good omen for the XBox's technical prowess. Sounds like someone doesn't want to take the time to write smart precaching algorithms in order to meet a deadline. Yes, I know the PS2 doesn't do it in high-def, but th

      • Re:Sure, all games can run without one... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by fwitness ( 195565 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @10:55PM (#13736819)
        Unlike most of my sibling posters I get your point, and have banging my drum on it for awhile. Yes, developers used the HDDs as an easy way to precache data, but that's not using the HDD. Yes, you can save uberloads of games but that's also not what we mean. You can buy a big mem card for a PS2 and I've never had a loading issue on my Gamecube, *ever*. What those systems *don't* have, is a built in area of massive storage for downloadable content, or allow you to have an entire world saved as part of your game. The xbox could do that sort of thing, but never really did.

        Point being, the XBox was innovative in that it was the first console to ever feature such a large, fast dedicated local storage. Possibilities abounded, yet no one did anything significant with it.
    • This is an excellent example of exactly why they should not make it optional. If it's optional, developers will be much less likely to use it. If it were built in, developers could count on taking advantage of it and therefore wouldn't mind investing the extra time and money into writing code to support it.

  • Allard. (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by cornface ( 900179 )
    J. Allard's "extreme" makeover from (balding gray-haired corpodrone to earring clad, doofus, sweatshirt under the jacket, teenage-style hipster) is one of the saddest and most embarrassing things to come out of corporate America in a long, long time.
    • Huh?

      The guy got ten years older, and in the process ended up looking ten years YOUNGER. Most of the people I know would LOVE to end up doing a similar thing - I know I sure as hell would!

      Besides, who actually wants to look like a corporate drone?

      Hmmm... thinking about what most of my fellow Microsofties wear, perhaps quite a few people do... :/
      • The guy got ten years older, and in the process ended up looking ten years YOUNGER. Most of the people I know would LOVE to end up doing a similar thing - I know I sure as hell would!

        Looking younger and dressing like a teenager as a stupid marketing gimmick are not the same thing.

        The latter is the sign of being a giant embarrassing douche.

  • So, which is it???? (Score:5, Informative)

    by neura ( 675378 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:53PM (#13734668)

    From the article:

    "I'm not sure who's supposed to be disappointed." -- The unknowing customers you're screwing over by forcing developers to not take advantage of the hardrive for fear of screwing their customers over and the developers who can no longer use the HDD for caching, etc. etc. (listed later)

    "Are there developers who are disappointed? Yeah, sure." -- Did he not just say he wasn't sure who was supposed to be disappointed?

    "I was the biggest fan of the hard drive and its potential, but the problem is that we sold 22million Xbox consoles and 5million, maybe 10million just don't care about it." -- Maybe they didn't even know it was being used in games they were playing, used for caching, storing huge save games that would require an entire memory card, used for map updates, used for patches to the game itself, etc.

    "We can either ask the gamer to pay for it, pay for it ourselves, or prove that there's enough value in it and have the gamer say 'I want to pay for it' - I think that's the right model." -- again just completely missing the point, it creates a situation where developers have to make a choice to support it or not, piss off the customers that don't have one or not, etc.

    "A lot of people have said: 'This is really confusing - you have different configurations and blah, blah, blah', and I'm like: what consumer electronics business in the world has three manufacturers, three brands that each make one thing that doesn't change for seven years?" -- that should be pretty damn obvious, it's the consumer electronics business that YOU are in...

    • Sure that's what the words in the article can clearly mean, but J. Allard just doesn't have a clear understanding of English. What he said was:

      "I don't know who we've let down."

      He doesn't seem to realize that "let down" is a synonym for disappointed...

      Ah wait, Firefox find stalled on the apostophe. He means the total package shoudn't be an overall disappointment, while not having a hard drive is a specific disappointment.

      But he still doesn't realize the chicken or egg problem that the hard drive en

  • No memory card (Score:4, Insightful)

    by atarrri ( 580364 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @04:54PM (#13734676)
    The problem is that there is an implication that you're saving 100 dollars by getting the cheaper model when in fact you will need to purchase a 40-dollar memory card to save games (something that is a fundamental requirement of modern gaming). Thus you will only save 60 dollars and get a much worse deal. A lot of people will be disappointed when they opt for the cheaper model and find out a few hours later that they still need to spend another 40 bucks before they can save their game.

    As it is I see this as a major mistake on Microsoft's part. They are making it more difficult for developers to take full advantage of their console just so some customers can save 60 dollars and still feel like they got ripped off.
    • From ebgames website, "Xbox 360 Memory Unit (64 MB)" page:

      "Required in absence of hard drive to play on Xbox Live and to save game progress."

      So yeah, the base system with it's free Live! trial will REQUIRE a memory card.
    • A lot of people will be disappointed when they opt for the cheaper model and find out a few hours later that they still need to spend another 40 bucks before they can save their game.


      Yeah, we see how badly that hurt the PS2 sales when people realized they had to buy a memory card for it.

      • Re:No memory card (Score:2, Insightful)

        by atarrri ( 580364 )
        Slightly a different scenario with the PS2. There was no version of the system that came with a mem card much less a hard drive. In other words everyone that bought a system had to buy a memory card, there was no other option.

        All I'm saying is that some people will buy the $300 version and a game, bring it home, play it, that realize they can't save their game. Then they will pause the game and go back to the store and shell out 40 more bucks for a memory card and wish they just got the model with the ha
        • Slightly a different scenario with the PS2. There was no version of the system that came with a mem card much less a hard drive. In other words everyone that bought a system had to buy a memory card, there was no other option.

          So, your argument that there were no bundled packages with a memory card follows that....Microsoft is evil for releasing a bundle with a memory card and a bunch of other things at much less cost than it would cost to buy each seporately? Your second statement would have still been

    • But you see, the hard drive comes bundled with the system. There will be little (if any) profit made there. On the other hand, that $40 memory card probably only costs $5-$10 to make. They will make a tidy profit off of those.

  • I know who loses (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GoNINzo ( 32266 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <ozNINoG>> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @05:02PM (#13734765) Journal
    The people who lose are the people who want to play old xbox games on their xbox 360. My understanding is that you need the hard drive (and an xbox live connection) to play older xbox games. Or has this fact changed in the past two weeks?
    • I would not expect this to change. You have to download a binary recompiled for the PowerPC architecture that will use the data files from the original x86 disc.

  • I'm not registered, so no one is going to see this (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06, 2005 @05:10PM (#13734834)
    Source [aussiexbox.com.au]

    Last but not least, after we were told that there was no ability to fly aircrafts in the game due to the DVD drive's inability to stream the environment fast enough in full 720p resolution. We asked Jacques Hennequet (Producer for Saint's Row), "If the Xbox 360 Hard Drive was standard across both SKU's, would flying aircrafts in the game have been a reality?", Jacques simply answered "Yes". While he completely understands why MS made the decision to not include a hard drive in the Core System, I think he felt somewhat disappointed, as it could have opened up much more possibilities within the gameplay for Volition's first Xbox 360 title.

    Not making it standard is making features be cut from games. End of story. Why is this a big deal when the others don't have a HDD? The Xbox had one standard, so it's taking a step backwards. THAT is why people are complaining - you're removing a feature that was being used unconsciously, and causing developers to cut features that otherwise would have been included.

  • Less maintenence issues (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shadwolf ( 696297 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @05:26PM (#13734992)
    On the bright side, has anyone noticed that since the hard drive is removable, when it does go out (and it will), all you need to do as Joe Blow average consumer is go buy a replacement drive for it? The hard drive and the dvd drive are the two most likely pieces to fail in the console. At least you won't be screwed when the hard drive craps out as in the original XBOX model. Notice that I'm talking about Joe Blow here - not you hot rod modders.

  • Ow. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06, 2005 @06:30PM (#13735479)
    I've been madly skimming /. the last few minutes for interesting stories, before I have to leave for an appointment... you know how it is. Anyways, I think I pulled a brain muscle trying to read this line at 2x speed:
    There isn't a game on 360 that you can't play without a hard drive
    I sure hope Allard isn't in charge of writing the 360's manual... "Never don't not clean the unit with benzene." Might give someone an aneurysm.

  • Triple Negation for $1000 Alex (Score:5, Funny)

    by patternjuggler ( 738978 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:20PM (#13736352) Homepage
    There isn't a game on 360 that you can't play without a hard drive

    I can't not misunderstand this sentence because it doesn't have not too many un-un-negatives...
  • "So that seems like a win for developers - I'm not sure who's supposed to be disappointed."

    Ah! But you do know:

    "Are there developers who are disappointed? Yeah, sure."

    And then this:

    "You bought a Mini Cooper and you want the Turbo, you're screwed. You buy the Xbox 360 Core system, you can build up to the premium system and you won't be left out of anything along the way."

    Horrible analogy. People will not "upgrade" their Xbox because no games will require it. Developers will not create games that require the

  • 10% rule (Score:4, Interesting)

    by neelm ( 691182 ) <michael.neel@gmail.com> on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:07AM (#13738614) Homepage
    I seem to recall reading some M$ sales info on the XBoX a few years ago (I'm too lazt to find a link) that said if 10% of the user base gets a hardware add-on, that is consider a good margin for an add on. Unless your company also sells the addon then, it's not worth development cost to code for an addon. I thought these were the reasons they included a HD and Broadband in the XBoX, so they would be used by developers, and thus a reason XBoX was better than a PS2.

    I think they see XBoX as a failure, even though they said they expected a loss. They are now trying to not repeat themselves, but they don't know why XBoX failed. It failed because of the lack of games, not the platform. How sad is it when I mod my XBoX so I can BT any games I want and realize the 5 I bought are the only 5 I'm intereste in playing?

    I love my XBoX, it runs mame, streams avi's, and mp3's, does karaoke, taps into my tivo, and lists the latest /. rss. If I can't do all that *and* have great games on 360, I'm happy where I'm at now.

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