Microsoft Sticking With “Optional” HDDs

First Mass Effect’s load times, then Lost Odyssey’s instability…Microsoft’s reluctance to allow HDD-only games (if only for caching, ala Oblivion) on the 360 is starting to become a small problem, and will only get bigger as time goes on. So are they looking at changing this? Uh, no. Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg:

You’re a gamer, I’m a gamer, we’re connected to Live, we want to download content, so for us, we definitely want a hard drive…That’s definitely the right solution for us, and frankly for a large majority of our customers. For my friends that want to go online and get the complete entertainment experience, I definitely recommend that they get the Pro or Elite console.

At the same time, with the launch of the Arcade console this past holiday, you talk to some of our mass market retailers that talk to a very different type of consumer, [and they'll tell you the Arcade model] sold out when we originally launched. They’ve performed extremely well.

They can’t have performed that well, or the “large majority” of Pro and Elite users wouldn’t be so large, would it? Here’s hoping that gimping big games just so you can advertise that one of your systems is “cheaper” than a Wii is worth the risk you’re taking, Microsoft.
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