Despite Gearbox President Randy Pitchford's best guess, his studio's forthcoming co-op shooter Borderlands will not require an Xbox 360 hard drive. In a comment made last week, Pitchford assumed the game would require the optional drive because it "seems impossible that a game that is doing as much as Borderlands and pushing the limit so much with all the weapons and equipment and character stuff can actually do it all in memory and streaming from the media." Well, according to Lead Programmer Steve Jones, Borderlands can and will operate without the use of the hard drive. Jones did add that the game "will take full advantage of the [Xbox 360] hard drive if it is present" (we assume the PC and PS3 versions will utilize their respective storage drives too).

Currently, Microsoft's policy permits MMO developers to require the use of a hard drive pending approval from Microsoft. All other games must be able to function without the use of the drive, though a recent mock-up of the Call of Duty 4 box art, featuring a "storage required" label (later confirmed to be made up), has raised suspicion that the policy is still open to revision.