guek said: See, I'd disagree that it was the lack of a harddrive across all skus that prevented the 360 from gaining DLC momentum early on. The reality is that there just wasn't the required infrastructure to support the marketplace at the time. I think I recall xbox live having a really small friends list cap as well as a few other now-unheard of restrictions back when it first launched. If nintendo has a respectable marketplace up from the beginning, and that is a very big IF, there is zero reason developers wouldn't put their stuff onto it. The most self-sabotaging move nintendo could do is once more enforce file size restrictions and retain the arbitrary and disorganized submission process they presently have in place. Even microsoft had no idea what a juggernaught DLC would turn into, which is why it took so long to get the 360 marketplace to get to where it is today. Click to expand...

guek said: As far as installs go, there are benefits for sure but I really believe few will care, especially since we'll have optical drives far superior to the 360/PS3. Nintendo is and always have been obsessed with fast read speeds and reduced loading times. Texture pop-in and whatnot are improved by installs but that's only because it circumvents bottlenecks that may be absent in the cafe. Click to expand...

guek said: It's just that not including a HDD and pricing the cafe lower as a result is most likely in the interest of gamers at large. Click to expand...

guek said: The story you listed is directly at odds with the NPD report, which is strange. I'm more suspicious of Microsoft's figure though since they're less impartial than NPD. In any case, including HDD support but excluding an HDD from the box feels reasonable to me because it gives consumers a choice rather than forcing them to pay for something they may not use. The logic might be that 8gb is enough for most people to have a taste of what the marketplace can offer, maybe download a handful of demos or one or two map packs and whatnot. At that point, the consumer can make the choice themselves as to whether they want to go out and buy more storage and how much. Click to expand...

[url=http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/209009/20-million-registered-psn-accounts-exceed-xbox-live-accounts/]Sony Press Release[/url] said: PlayStation Store offers more than 14,500 diverse digital content, ranging from exclusive on-line games, downloadable version of UMD titles, game demos and items, and titles from "Game Archive," through which legendary and popular titles from the original PlayStation are made playable on PS3 and PSP, to more than 5,900 movies and TV episodes that are available through Video Delivery Service*3 that started in the United States in July 2008. To date, more than 380 million pieces of content*4 have been downloaded, with total sales exceeding 180 million US dollars*5, and the business scale is rapidly expanding. Click to expand...

Why do you keep discussing DLC? I've literally never even mentioned it in any of my arguments until you brought it up in the last few postsNintendo could only have a respectable marketplace if they do not have an obscene restriction in place from day one like developers only being able to depend on 8GB of space and then whatever SD cards consumers have on hand. In this regard, it's related to the issue of not having only a tiny amount of flash memory on board. They need at least 32 gigs of whatever they decide to go with in every system, whether it's a HDD or flash memory.There is no way Cafe will be advanced enough to avoid texture pop-in, particularly in genres like open world games. I have a ridiculously high end PC that is probably superior to whatever Nintendo is planning on putting out to a factor of eight to one.That said, there are ways to reduce it and install to HDD is one. Along with the loading benefits, I'd say it is the type of thing that even if a majority of people didn't know it existed or even cared, it's worth doing since it makes objectively superior gaming experiences and that is what should be designed toward: the ideal of gaming, not the ideal of the ignorant masses. And that may sound harsh, but that's the general argument. The majority might not use something, therefore it makes sense to cut that option out or simply not have it to begin with. As if popularity is what should dictate system design rather than the most idealized representation of a headache-free platform you can humanly make... we all know what popularity nets us. it nets us people liking TRANSFORMERS so much that we get three of those filmsThe point here is simply Nintendo should be designing the system based on what makes games better, no matter how many people realize the system is making life better for them. Ignorance is not something that should be designed toward.Including an 8GB flash memory is almost certainly as cheap as including a 60GB HDD. So even that argument is empty. If they're going to do it, they might as well go all in and not limit developers and consumers.Even Sony released similarly impressive statistics (this was when PSN surpassed XBL for registered users):Way back in the day, so it's improved since then. Considering the PS3 userbase, this ends up being a big percentage of users who purchase downloadable content of some kind when you do the math and break down costs.Either way, I'd say it is clear downloadable games and content is important to a massive section of gamers, even if it's not quite the majority. Certainly important enough to start making sure a system is designed around the convenience of it.