The things which they are refering to have very little to do with the ACTUAL GAMEPLAY. granted I hate load times are no fun but the fact that there are load times certainly does not make the time actually playing the game any less fun.
Anyway please dissect exactly what he is saying.
"Without a hard disk," he explains, "it's difficult to do things like the Ninja Gaiden Hurricane Pack. (NO DUH!!! The hurricane pack was a download for an existing game. If not everyone has the capacity to store that download then it will be DIFFICULT to allow everyone who purchased the game to enjoy the new features. Simple solution. Make upgrades HDD only) There are also problems with caching." He suggests that smooth startup sequences for games would be difficult.
(AGAIN A NO BRAINER! Implement load times or redesign the code. Its that simple. I know devs hate to have to implement load times, but its a VERY simple solution to the smooth startup sequences. )
Also regrettable, he states, is that, minus a hard disk, he won't be able to manage sound in the way Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball does now, where music is copied over from the game disk. (AGAIN A NO BRAINER. Depending on the bitrate of the music and other background processes the music would either have to reside in ram or stream direct off the DVD. either way not a big deal an Mp3 music file would be no more 10MB at most, especially for a fighting game match.)
to be honest I dont even understand what the issue is. they simply cant make it as close to perfect as they would want. accrding to this these are the three things the lack of HDD caused.
1) not everyone will be able to get downloadable content
2) may force the use of load screens if we dont redesign the code
3) cant put music on the HDD, why? because you dont have one.
