Xbox 360 Arcade Pack gamers were dismayed to learn that they lost a part of their investment when they got home and fired up Burnout Paradise last week.
One of the game’s bullet-point features touted the ability to “freeburn” online, allowing players to tear up Paradise City with up to eight friends. Too bad these unfortunate gamers won’t be getting a piece of this action; without an Xbox 360 hard-drive, players are unable to utilize the game’s online capabilities.
Ouch.
Many hard-drive-less fans took to message boards, complaining about the lack of notification that this feature requires an Xbox hard-drive. When the issue was further investigated, it was found xbox.com listed this simply as “storage device,” which was overly vague for people whom checked, and lead many to the assumption a memory card would be adequate. The detail was listed in the requirements on the back of the box, a set of guidelines for the features of the game, which is a convenient reference for someone with the box in-hand.
While GameStop listed the requirement online, a multitude of other online retailers including BestBuy, Toys R’ Us, and Amazon, all failed to list the hard-drive requirement to their consumers, keeping the armchair shopper oblivious to the necessity of the storage device.
Developer Criterion responded to the heat in a press release, which notably stated:
“It’s important for us that all online players could show off new content when they go online and unfortunately it wasn’t going to be possible to do this by supporting the lowest common storage denominator.”
It is estimated the majority of 360 owners have Premium or Elite systems, but this is simply one more public relations nightmare for Electronic Arts.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Also, on the back of the box it said, “Online multiplayer 2-8/hard drive required”
otherwise very good work
February 9th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I did cite the back of the box in the photo and in the text where I wrote “The detail was listed in the requirements on the back of the box, a set of guidelines for the features of the game, which is a convenient reference for someone with the box in-hand.”
February 10th, 2008 at 2:27 am
I don’t think the people that are buying the Arcade unit are the same people that are buying the Burnout. Still, it’s a raw deal.
February 12th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Who doesn’t have a Hard Drive?
;]