[Harry]

Originally posted by the_artist

It was rumored that Square were considering making the HDD non compulsory for FFXI: after all, the actual installation of the game basically involves you copying the entire contents of the DVD onto the drive, which seems a little un-necessary. Yet, the solution that people were claiming was in development, using a Memory Card for the job, sounds impossible (due to the downloadable updates, which probably total more than 8mb). So I guess the HDD is necessary for the launch after-all. I think that the HDD in the US is likely, if after some delay, but Europe? yet another reason why I think PAL gamers will be forced onto the PC...

The HDD is necessary, on my opinion - also because even if we don't consider expansions and add-ons, patches and updates are a necessity when it comes to online games. And when it comes to MMO games, it's almost impossible to contain the size of patches within a 8MB memory card.

Btw, the artist, I also see the release of the HDD in Europe very very difficult. Damn, everyone is still waiting for the Network Adapter (sorry AdaptOr) to come.