The more discs the merrier. I don't want content to take a hit over the possibility people can't afford a hard drive for their platform.

ya, like Microsoft is known to avoid extra costs of its customers...

99% sure it will not happen, cost too much for them to do something like that why change something when its making money and when any kind of additional space will just go to waste because more = poorer graphics at this point. The 720 will most likely have Blue ray though

So the current Xbox 360 disc is 8 gigabytes. 1gb extra isn't a huge deal imo.

It's better than a slap in the face,and it's mainly for piracy,without taking up more space of the original disc etc.

From what i understand from the hackers prospective, they are testing the new format update on the old games that use the old formated disc so they know if it will cause any problems when playing older 360 titles after being updated, as for new games in development, as long as your xbox is updated for the new format then in theory it should work as expected( with of course format fixes and updates if any issues should come to light (which has been a tradition since the 360 launched). so i could see skyrim getting the go ahead from Microsoft in utilizing the new format, and it only makes sense for microsoft to try and push it out of the beta stages for a game like skyrim as its a very big title this year and software sales have been impressive (the moneys not in the hardware but the software for microsoft) with TES ever since Morrowind.

I doubt that, see as Microsoft has always been a company that would rather push limits and create new ideas than to be a slave to royalties, I wouldn't be suprises if we see HD DVD rise from the dead in a move against piracy of xbox titles and more disc space for devs or in a smarter move torwards the future smaller more efficient SD card or USB drive formats to take the place of all these outdated disc formats (and yes in my opinion blu ray is outdated when you have flash drives that can hold more and move data much faster, plus leaves room for DLC to be attached to the drive without worrying about HD space and such, a move like that just makes sense)

It worked for Mass effect 2

You can't compare ME2 and TES. One is open world, and the other isn't.

Yes is did, but a very linear rpg compared to TES, you just can't put players in a decision to stay away from areas in an open world because they fear the disc 2 screen, mass effect 2's main problems were to much useless audio and bulky coding with poor compresstion tech. They could of put that game on one disc if they had tried to make some efforts to what the game really need in it and make some improvements to compression rates

IF........it is on more than one disk i dont see why they could just make it optional. for people to cheap to get a harddrive they will have to swap disks, but those with harddrives, they can install it. i dont know why they should have to remove game data so the game works for the lowest common denominator of consolers. we had better have more than 3 voice actors this time around. everyone seems confident that it will fit though so probably no worries.

This everywhere just type in new 360 disc, they have been beta testing it since the start of the year

This is more for anti piracy then anything else. Don't get too excited.

sry to be the one to tell you this but multiplatform games are built around the capabilities of the lowest common denominator of platforms-----> the 360

they are already removing gamedata to make it run on that

Skyrim isn't finished yet, so they definitely haven't already started burning it onto disks. They're already starting to roll out the new format for Halo Reach.

However, I don't think this extra space is actually for the game. The main reason why Microsoft is doing this is so they can fit additional anti-piracy tools onto each disk, while giving games the same amount of space they had before.

I'm looking forward to the next Xbox when all of the games can use Blu-ray. That will last a while I'm sure.

I heard the same thing, and I also heard that Skyrim will be utilizing this. Can't recall where though...

That's never been stated anywhere.

Well good news is that we can have a little higher res textures and/or more sound files for voices to be packed in the game, that's always a bonus until the next gen console. Waiting for 2012 to get the verdict on when the next gen console is coming out so I know when I can possibly start challenging my PCs hardware. hmy: That's it. We find out that the next gen consoles are so powerful that they implode time and space and destroy the world. Oh you Mayans and your seeing video games ending the world :tongue:

Got the disc on Monday :goodjob: .... havent really done much besides play some Halo for 10 mins. I guess Im supposed to play Oblivion and other games and see if everything runs smoothly. I have not taken into account any differences but I havent really looked


Lemme know if you want me to take note of anything. And I dont think it has been confirmed that the discs offer more space or whatever. The letter Microsoft sent me spoke nothing of it. All they said was the preview only works on specific 360s and it is a new disc format. All 360s will be updated with the patch I downloaded (on the Halo disc) in the future.

i wouldnt care even if i had to install 1 or more discs on my 360 hard drive if it meant massive more content

The Forza install disc is optional. You can play the game just fine without ever touching it, but with fewer cars and tracks. So it's within what MS allows. For reasons others have already stated, this doesn't work (well) for open-ended games like TES.

Stupid Microsoft. Haven't all the original XBOXs RROD'd yet?

EDIT: Though, actually, adding extra content for a HD install is not really that implausible for an open world game. I mean it's just like an expansion or DLC. Adds new places, new NPCs and new quests. After all, most of that data would just be dialogue, since it takes up the most disk space (I hope they shove as much dialogue (AKA quest content) in as possible).

You are not allowed to publish a game who require harddrive as I understand, downloadable games and other content can require this but not standard games.
Not sure how well you have to support playing without harddrive, would it be ok to require a separate disk for the main city.

How well does the 360 run a game like Oblivion or Fallout 3 without a hardrive anyway, sounds like it has to be a lot of loading times.

Not at all. That's a place you'd have to go, and probably often. No location should be an install place, at least important ones. Adding some additional questlines or such would be good for an install.

lol I doubt that, more like adding new content and refining what they all ready have. Considering oblivion left a GB of space on the disc (and much better compression tech and other tech ideas are around to use this time) and the potential use of a 7.9 GB disc, I really wouldn't worry about the game fitting on the disc, im more worried about Bethesda only having a little more than a hand full of months to finish polishing the game off. Todd seems confident though, so thats reassuring.

In theory they could run it like TES4 GOTY and put certain extras not vital to the game progress and area loading on a second disc for install (that would work). when are USB scandisks, SD cards etc. gonna be considered to hold extra data or possible a whole game for 360? All these disc drive formats are out dated, USB drives and SD cards can hold more data and load it faster?