343 Industries' new shooter mandates 8GB of free space for multiplayer, and for an "optimal experience," a full install is advised.
Gamers looking to play the multiplayer component of 343 Industries' upcoming shooter Halo 4 will need at least 8GB of free space on their Xbox 360 systems. In an update to the official Xbox website, Microsoft also advised that for an "optimal experience" players should install the entire game to their hard drives. It was not mentioned how large the entire Halo 4 install is.
Multiplayer in Halo 4 is broken into two components: War Games and Spartan Ops. War Games has players battling one another in a range of classic and new gametypes, some of which have been previously detailed. Spartan Ops, however, is a brand-new experience for the Halo franchise. This episodic game mode has players working through new story-driven experiences on a weekly basis.
Halo 4 is due out worldwide on November 6 and, according to 343 Industries, is nearing completion. For more on the game, check out GameSpot's latest preview.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
And people are talking about the gig space like it's money. And while I respect that gig space is important, 343 doesn't choose how much space the game will take up, Halo 4 is gonna possibly be the best looking game on the 360. like @warhawk-geeby said, consoles are havin a hard time keeping up. Enter next-gen
Doesn't matter to me, i got plenty of space to install the entire game. I'd do anything for Halo 4!
My xbox just broke and am having more fun with my ps3...but I may give halo 4 a chance if its not sooo modern halo
3 Like 8 GB install?.....what about players with a 4 GB hard drive?.....they are screwed
3 Like @MohammedMusfa What's the problem? Just connect another hard drive through an usb or sata port...
A 32gb usb drive is like 15$. Just plug it in and...
OH WAIT!!! YOU CAN'T! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
@jorge69696 @MohammedMusfa Oh wait..... you can! Up to two USB drives with a max of 16gb each can be used for storage on an xbox for a total of 32gb. Just where do you get your information from...?
3 Like I still have one of the first 360's that never burnt out. 20G hardrive, and I only have less than 2G's left.
D'oh!!!!
@maybock3000 Same here, I've been saving my last 3 gigs for something special, dlc or something, i wonder how big the map packs will be T_T
1 Like The cynic in me says they are doing this to drive up sales of 360 memory expansion.
Xbox fanboys are going to simply install it on their 20GB XBox 360 and erase all other games hahaha
Give me a PC sized (and priced) hard drive for the 360 if you guys want me to install games like the 360's a PC!
More like a dozen or so. Demo's, dlc, console updates, etc. Even if someone is not into using my console for other media applications, 250 gb can be filled up pretty fast.
Also most people don't have 250gb. They have 20gb, 40gb, 60gb, 120 gb. That's the vast majority. Someone with a 20gb drive, and it's probably the most used drive, will take up 75 percent of their space...seeing how a 20gb hard drive is really 12 gb.
Also microsoft's HD's suck. I've had one go out. Think another is about to. I have a 3rd, but it's a used 20gb...so.
Plus disc drives that aren't in great shape (i.e. old) can play games from discs, but if you try to install them, they don't work. I don't even know if the disc will install. Long constant transfers from the disc it just doesn't like.
Overall not saying the 8gb install is deal breaking, or anything like that. But it is a nuisance, and WILL limit who can play it.
Given that Halo 4 will reach double digit million sales...if everyone knows about this requirement, it could lower that number by 1 million sales. That's some significant cash being left on the table.
Of course, mostly because of the limitations and shoddy hardware by Microsoft.
Disc drives and hard drives should be removable and replaceable with off the shelf parts. It's insane that for the past few years most of the time you could get a 2tb hd for $89-119. But Microsoft charges more than that for less than a 1/10 of the size.....and the drives are shoddy. (Also it was a completely asinine design move to have a mechanical drive be up on the side so as it spins it stresses unevenly.)
Comparing HD space with digital only games, my Steam drive has 441gb used, and there are tons of games I don't have on PC.
Also my 360 collection has to be 100 games, and PS3 probably 30.
Man the 360 was horribly designed and Microsoft's upgrades or way too expensive.
@jmc88888 In December I upgraded to the
320 GB Xbox console because I filled up my old Black 120GB elite and it has failed twice already the drives this generation have is insufficient at least Sony is friendlier in that I can use any Sata Hard disc drive given the proper specs for Sony
So jmc88888 I feel you I can relate
The drives that this current generation offer is insufficient if all games are to be installed for "optimal experience"...
@bluespire1 If you never delete games you aren't playing, but why would you do that? Installing games has long been the best way to play on the 360, and is much better for maintaining system health besides.
@Atheosis I have lots of games not that I'm bragging but I have over 250 Xbox 360 games and over 100 for PlayStation 3 that why the whopping difference between My Xbox 360 and PS 3 games collection I at least have the choice not to install on the Xbox 360 as I've said its insufficient at least PlayStation allows me to upgrade to a terabyte drive for now...
I'm not a fan of installing games I've spent a fortune on PlayStation hard drive upgrades I now have a terabyte
easy answer "cloud gaming", i mean xbox owners pay enough for the online privilege anyway, give the loyal customers something worth having for a change. Halo's the best game iv played and iv played a lot, but 8 gig, this installment in the series must be really good. time to buy ANOTHER xbox 360 i think.
Why the vague article, Gamespot? Everyone else is reporting with quotes from Microsoft that multiplayer will not run without the 8GB install in place.
I don't get the idea. Whats important about this i use every game installed in my hdd since mmm about 3 years? So this is the same
1 Like As much as I hate to say it, it's reasons like this which shows Cloud gaming must actually be the way forward.
I remember when I bought my 60GB PS3 at the weekend of release and was amazed at the size of the HDD. A couple of years down the line though I had to invest in an external drive to keep up with demand - it was either that or delete all my oblivion files! Haha.
I've got a 320GB now thank god, but in a couple of years that will no doubt be out-dated too..
8GB for Halo really isn't anything out of the ordinary, it's just the way the technology is going. The consoles just can't keep up.
@warhawk-geeby Ya, I recently had to swap out the 80gb hdd in my ps3 which at first seemed like it would last forever. Then along came playstation plus and I ended up putting in a 500gb drive that will hopefully last a few years at least.
@bschroth Long enough for The Last of Us anyway.. that's all that matters now this gen :P
1 Like Why's everyone bitchin'?? You don't have to install the game, it just an advisement - Halo: Reach was no different. And when you're not playingt he game, uninstall it!
A complete non-issue!
@BadHungryWolf The story here isn't quite accurate. I've now read that Halo 4 has a mandatory 8gb install. If you only have a 4gb arcade xbox then you're outta luck. Even those with 20gb models will have a hard time finding that space.
btw I go 23 gb in mag 120 hdd I have many games from XBL store and dvd games installed, damn I was specting use 8 gb for halo and the another 8 for dishonored but halo takes it all :(
Everyone, this article is wrong. If you go and look at the xbox.com page, it just says you'll need to have a USB drive or a hard drive to play, it doesn't say you'll actually need any amount of free space.
2 Like is that all people on gamespot do is complain? thats mostly what i see on gamespot, complain, complain, complain. how about actually playing something for a change, after all, youre all supposed to be "gamers" right? pfft.
Quoted for truth. Whenever I want to feel despair about humanity I need to go no further than the Gamespot comment section. @KimCheeWarriorX
4 Like @KimCheeWarriorX In their defense. 8 gigs is quite a bit to ask just for online play. That's almost half of some people's hard drive. People do grumble quite a bit on this site, but it's warranted in most of the cases I've seen.Plus, you're complaining about the complainers =P
8 gigs for multiplayer, so we can rough out the its 4 for Wargames and 4 for Spartan Ops. unlikely, but let's go with that. Reach and H3 worked fine without installing, so then we'd only need 4 gigs since i'm guessing Spartan Ops would be what really needs instalation. And for you people complaining about overpriced MS storage pieces, go buy a small external harddrive and format it, much cheaper than than MS' one, and more space
@jordangoss123 Yeah, plug an external into your xbox and you can format it to store xbox data, That's how you move data over xboxs without spending a million bucks in MS stuff
3 Like That's a pretty epic dick move to strong-arm people into buying overpriced storage units...
3 Like Is this a joke? The "20" gig hard drive only has 14 gigs on it anyways so I guess they really don't want me to buy this game.
1 Like Battlefield 3 got me up to 20 GB used (out of 20) and I already deleted all my demos, videos, etc....I guess many people will have to try out compatible non-MS branded storage.
8 Like I dont even see why MS still sells the 4GB console with how many games need or run better with 8-10GB installs.
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