Criterion explains Burnout Paradise online hard drive requirement

by Scott Jon Siegel on Feb 4th 2008 10:55PM

Hoping to diffuse some of the resentment felt by Xbox 360 Arcade owners who only recently learned that they can't race online in Burnout Paradise, Criterion has issued a public statement on the game's official website, clarifying the reasons for the hard-drive-only requirement.

The Burnout team explains that it was a priority to have the offline and online modes of the game transition seamlessly into each other, something that wouldn't be possible using the limited space of a memory card. Criterion states that they had been in talks with Microsoft to work out a solution for Core and Arcade owners, but when none could be found they opted to not limit the robust online gameplay experience in order to facilitate HDD-less 360 owners.

While this does leave Core and Arcade users in the lurch, Criterion does point out that the online leaderboards for Burnout Paradise are fully accessible without the hard disk drive, meaning players can compete for best times with their friends, just not during the same race.

Source

Tags: burnout, burnout-paradise, burnoutparadise, criterion, ea, Electronic-Arts, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (32)

Solution:

Get a 360 with a HDD.

Problem Solved.

>Get a 360 with a HDD.

or.... stop selling 20gb hard-drive for ridiculous amount of money?

You wouldn't have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a HDD if you got a 360 with one in the first place.

The only people that should be buying HDless 360's are people who do not intend to use Live.

To be fair, it was always said by MS that Core owners would never run into this problem with Live. So, you can't hardly say that they shouldn't have bought it to begin with if they wanted to use Live.

If you're going to be buying a Core or Arcade or any HDless 360 in the first place and then shell out the ~$60 a year for Live, you could have afforded a 360 with a HDD in the first place.

If you cheap out you get the bare minimum, deal with it.

You lost me, Huey. Does the 360 Pro come with a year's membership to Live or would you have to buy that anyway? I thought it didn't.

Either way, your argument may be a good one as to that the 360 Pro is the better deal. I certainly think it is. However, if anyone bought the Core thinking they would not need the HD to play Live games based on MS word, then I don't see how you can just say "Oh well, too bad." I mean, you're not Fernando. You show rational thought, so I'm sure you can see how both would be true.

The argument that the pro is some kind of good deal is only because MS charges so much for the items the pro comes with. If I could put in a $40 hard drive like I can with the PS3, then paying $80 more to get one wouldn't seem like a great deal, would it?

The Pro is a great deal for MS. It bundles in a lot of profit for them that isn't in the core. For us it's a great deal only because you're pretty much going to need the HDD anyway and MS has made sure you can't get it truly affordably so their "deal" seems like a good one.

November 2007
PS3 Loses Backwards Compatibility, Gamers Feel Cheated Out of Something They Were Promised from Day One

"But they promised! Well we'll show that bunch of arrogant, money grubbing liars what we think of their PSTriple!"

January 2008
Burnout Paradise Requires HDD to Play on XBox Live, Gamers Feel Cheated Out of Something They Were Promised from Day One

"Hey you, yeah, the one complaining. Shut up."

How about this:

Read the box before buying the game.

Don't buy a 360 without a HDD. What's the point anyway?

Done.

Hmmmm...

I have little sympathy for 360 owners without a HDD, but it still does kinda suck that there is this problem at all.

mmmk, you paid $60 for a game. why can't you pay $100 (or less used/ebay) for a HDD? the number of features it adds to the 360 is worth it. why complain about $100 for crackdown/burnout multi, video/demo downloads, library o' arcade games? why complain?

Ohhh Rrrright, because God gave you fingers to type with and Al Gore gave you the Internet to whine with. bleh.

I took the hard drive out of my PS3 to show my support

And replaced it with a $100 200GB (or maybe even larger) hdd?

I took the hard rive out of my PC to show my support.

Wait a min---

Hey I think thats a great idea. I'm going to take mine out as well. (the 250 gig from ebay is coming today)

I think microsoft needs to rework the arcade system yet again. They messed up with the core, and again with the arcade. This is what they should do, lose the memory card, lose the wireless controller, lose the arcade games include harmony 360 remote only and drop the price to $150. This way people can buy a 360 to use as a media center extender or use its streaming or hardware for playback of wmvhd and .avi and dvd files. Then for those who want to upgrade to gaming console from media center, can go purchase a controller, a hard drive, and some games.

Then they need to eliminatne the need to cater to anybody without a hard drive, assume that if you play games, arcade or retail, you own a hard drive

I still wonder why microsoft releases a console without a hard drive. Whos actually buying it?

Uninformed parents who love the fact that the 360 starts at 280 as advertised.

Are any of you guys saying to "just go buy a hard drive" the same ones that blasted the PS3 for being expensive? Just curious...

Some people bought the HD-less one because they were under the impression that MS would make sure that every game for the 360 would work on it regardless of the HD existence. That's pretty much what MS said would happen, and they didn't come through. I think it's great that Criterion decided to make a game they could be proud of, but it sucks for those who now have to shell out some extra cash to get the full experience.

I think people have forgotten that Microsoft is in it for the money. They make products to make money. The HDD is a product, they will do whatever it takes to sell this product. You are not forced to purchase this product but they aren't going to stop simply because certain consumers don't want to buy that particular product. Either you want it or not. Don't complain when you don't want it. That's stupid.

What?! A cheaper, feature-deprived, base(less) model has run into limitations?!?! I don't know what's more shocking - that people are actually shocked about it or that Criterion bothered to explain themselves to el cheapos. When you cheap out, you've gambled away your whining rights. For the record, this is not a whine, it is a condescending scold.

I didn't know that people who bought X-Box 360 Arcades could afford internet access. Colored me surprised.

"Dude, I just got Super Mario Bros. 3! Have you played it yet?"

"No... I only have the Core NES."

What did you expect them to say? Of course they're going to try to turn an admittedly small negative into a positive. Welcome to marketing.

I still feel the core is a millstone around MS' neck. Ideally, they should have waited until it was possible to ship it with 4-8GB of flash. That doesn't sound like much, but if you subtract the 6-8GB of backward compatibility stuff on the regular edition's HD, it's comparable to as much space as 20GB HDD users get.

This is only the beginning for 'two-tiered' gaming...

It's what we were all predicting long before the many xbox sku's came out.

I was one of the people that originally bought a core back on release day. Then I remember waiting patiently for the demo of FFXI on the official OXM disc. I rushed to the shop, bought it, only to find in very small print on the back of the magazine that a hard drive was required. I felt cheated but went out the next day and bought a hard drive. I am sure something similar has happened to other users.

Now with the advent of the arcade models, the customers who buy burnout will find out they can't play on live. While I think it's a poor decision on MS part to have released a console without a hard drive, I imagine hard drive sales will increase sightly

Anyone who bought the xbox 360 for xbox live most likely had some experience with the Xbox and Live on it as well. If that was the case I can't imagine how they would not want a hard drive. Farcry used a harddrive on the xbox to store extra maps and whatnot so why the fuck would you want a harddrive-less "upgrade"?

Honestly anyone complaining I'll sell you one or both of my 2 20gig drives for like 20-60 bucks so you'll quit bitching. Bah! Do away with the arcade I say! Develope games with a harddrive in mind.

It should be worth noting that HDD-less XBOX 360 owners aren't actually deprived of the ability to play Burnout Paradise - they are being deprived of the ability to play online.

I don't what guarantees Microsoft made regarding all features of games working without a HDD, but if they did, they should retract that. Instead, they should basically be saying "be advised that by buying the cheap-ass version of this console, there is no guarantee 100% of features in all games will work", and telling people to look at the back of the case before purchasing.

If you buy a computer but are too cheap to get a network card, then you get no internet. If you buy an XBOX 360, but are too cheap to get a HDD, then you take your chances with online play. Microsoft should just clarify this fact, instead of being misleading.

- Scott

Its funny, I always thought the point of a console over a PC was that you didn't have to do all sorts of research before buying one.

Kid says he wants an Xbox. Parent goes and buys one. Kid then discovers its an Arcade. Oh dear.

The fact that a HD-less model exists at all is a mistake, and the fact that it still exists today is an even bigger one. Microsoft screwed this up.

(The HD addons are also hillariously expensive for what you get, but I guess Xbox folks like being gouged.)

Many people make the assumption that the majrity of the owners actually knew the diference between the core/arcade and the others. Most of them just saw a price diference, I have little to no sympathy for the people that chose knowing what they were going into. There are however may that had absolutly no idea, or many kids whos parents just bought them the cheaper one ecause of the price diference. Thats where MS is at fault for creating a tiered system.

haha!

wow, rage much?

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Criterion explains Burnout Paradise online hard drive requirement

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