A harddisk is a very essential thing to the X-box. If you have seen the files, that some games save, they are quite big, because the state of every moving object in the game have to be saved. And the shorter development time the game developers have, the more space they use.
Many PC games did not reach the console market, and many games needed to be reprogrammed until they reached the console market, simply because they relied on having access to a harddisk.
Additionally, a harddisk can provide:
- Internet browser cache.
- Office programs. I know people are not going to use their TV for writing letters etc., but with a cheap monitor, this is the future.
- Game saving facilities.
- Swap space for games with so huge worlds, that they cannot fit inside the X-box RAM.
- Maybe the CDs will get cached on a harddisk, which could improve speed a lot.
etc.
Since I expect that the X-box is capable of running both Terminal Server clients and within a year or two maybe also Linux, the X-box can definitely replace a PC.
In fact, the X-box is what people expect a PC to be... turn it on, and it works. |
