As part of an in-depth interview on IndustryGamers with BioWare's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, we asked the duo if they were frustrated by the lack of a hard drive in every Xbox 360. The infamous loading elevator sequences in Mass Effect for example most likely could have been smoothed over if everyone had a hard drive. Worse than that, however, according to Zeschuk, is that BioWare feels somewhat limited by not having that extra space for downloadable content.
The developer is planning a good deal of DLC for Dragon Age: Origins (which ships this holiday). BioWare views the game as a "platform" and intends to support user-generated content as well. Without a standard hard drive on the 360, however, adding this feature on Xbox is a little more difficult.
"I think in many ways the hard drive issue is a bigger one with regards to downloadable content. We're really entering a phase here in the industry – and Dragon Age: Origins is a great example – where there's very extensive downloadable content planned. To take best advantage of that you've got to have the space to put it in," said Zeschuk. "Even the size of the Xbox Live downloads and demo downloads have gotten big... it's just becoming more and more digital. So one side is game performance – yeah, it'd be better with a hard drive – but the other side is that as we attempt to create platforms, and that in many ways is what Dragon Age is, we need the space to put extra content in. Not only will there be downloadable content we sell, but we're going to provide user tools, and so players will be able to create content and we're going to see if we can bring it over to console. All these things create a platform and a platform's got to have a landing pad for content."
