Xbox 360 Game Install Feature

[Josh Parr]

Now, anyone who follows the 360 related news knows that Microsoft will be releasing an entirely new dash setup within the next couple of months. It brings many new features, that in my opinion are going to be used to bring in the casual gamer market.  Luckily, Microsoft has said you can use the old dashboard layout with the new features.

One of the features that is coming that I'm personally interested in is the game install feature.  Now, with the PS3 you have the option, or are required in some games to install portions to the hard disc for improved game speeds.  What Microsoft is doing is taking that one step further. You will be able to install any 360 game, past or present, to your 360 hard drive.  This saves on disc drive wear but with their security feature it doesn't stop the changing of discs.  To actually start the game, the game disc has to be in the drive.  This is what will provide the authentication.

I understand that they have to put in some sort of procedure like that to keep people from just borrowing games or renting them and putting them on their hard drive.  With how prevalent the homebrew scene was on the Original with hard drive installs, I can bet that they have tested everything they can think of.  I don't blame, I do wish their was a way of not having the use the disc at all and still have some sort of authentication. 

No matter what though, I'm definitely looking forward to this feature. I picked up a used 120GB hard drive to be ready for this future update (which I ended up accidentally deleting all my gamesaves in the transfer procedure because I wasn't paying attention.  Figures.  Anyways, are there any other 360 owners looking forward to this?

[G.A.Pster]

It doesn’t matter to me (I’m just glad I can keep using the dashboard), if you ask me they stole their new dashboard and Mii clones from , (just like they stole things from Apple and every one else)

And as far as the installing games thing, it’s irrelevant to me.

However I am interested to see something else, there’s an official 360 controller that’s coming out in Europe that has a better D-pad (because some of their soccer games use the D-pad), I don’t have any problem with the current D-pad, but I’m still interested to see it.

[Josh Parr]

I do think they are doing the avatars as a reaction to the Miis, but Avatars and stuff like that have been around for a while. You could say that stole the motion sensing with gaming from Microsoft because they had that back in 1995 or 1996.  Everyone borrows from everyone anymore.  One thing that the original 360 dash that I've always been in love with is the custom music in any game.  I'm actually pretty sure that they patented that as well which is why Sony can't directly all in-game music access and have to leave it to the developer to do so.

[G.A.Pster]

Maybe, but MS is easy to hate, even easier than EA games.

I like the in game music too, though I only use it for racing games, fighting games, or anything else without much of a plot.

[Josh Parr]

Yeah, it is really hard to do the in-game music in heavy-plot games.  Sometimes what I'll do though is put it really low where you can hear it, but not interfere with the gameplay. Nice little ambiance.