After I have sold my Wii (brought about by a terrible lack of good games) I am going to purchase a 360, presumably at the new low (rumored) price. My question is: are there any games out there that require a hard drive? If not then I think I'm going to go with the core system. I don't have fast enough internet so online play is a non-issue for now :(

My favorite games are JRPGs, which are in surprising abundance on the 360

No games require a hard drive. A fallacy of the system.

Seriously though, spring for the 300$ model. It's worth it.

Nothing requires it yet, but with the quality of games on XBL Arcade, and the ability to download demos, I really wouldn't go without a hard drive.

I brushed off the Arcade thing at first, but I've found a few games on there that I've really enjoyed, and the releases just seem to be getting better.

Oh yeah I forgot about XBLA, what kind of games are on there?

All different kinds. Action, Platformer, Board games, Adventure games, Fighting games. Anything you can think of.

My 360 is pretty much an XBLA machine.  For that reason alone I recommend a hard drive.  You don't need to pay for Live to use XBLA either, just make a silver account.

However, if you're determined to buy the core, you should wait until September 7th, when the price will drop to $200.  You can always buy a hard drive later.

Alright on Sept. 8th I'll by the premium I guess, or whatever that SKU is called

Who knows anymore? We just call it the 60 gig.

No game require a hard drive... but it's easier.

Plus in the fall, you'll be able to rip games to the hard drive and they're run gooder.

"Plus in the fall, you'll be able to rip games to the hard drive and they're run gooder."

Final Fantasy XI requires a HDD, correct?

"Vaxadrin said:

"Plus in the fall, you'll be able to rip games to the hard drive and they're run gooder."

D-. See me after class."

Final Fantasy III DS. A lot of professional reviewers knocked it because of its simple "cliche" story (although it wasn't exactly cliche back in the day), but I thought it was a nice break from the sometimes over-the-top stories of today's RPGs. And I like hard games.

I too plan on getting the 60gb in September when the price drops. I also sold my Wii, but I sold my Wii like a month after I bought it ( I got it like 2 weeks after launch). I'm really glad I did too becasue there are barely any great games on the system, the library has gotten a few great games but I'm not really seeing anything in it's future. Like you, I bought a new system with the money I got from the wii ( I got about $550), except I bought a PS3 instead. I still love my PS3 and will never sell it but I figured since the price of the 360 is dropping and it will be relatively cheap why not get one? The 360 also has lot's of games I'm interested in like the Halo trilogy and the Gears franchise. Glad to see I'm not the only one purchasing a 360 so late in it's life cycle. Makes me feel better about buying one.

Burnout Paradise requires a HDD to play online.

i think most games say that they are optimised by the hard drive  and maybe the load time will be faster but you should be ok, just make sure you get your memory card.

my recommendation----- spend the extra for the hard drive even if its a twenty you'll like it

"No games require a hard drive. A fallacy of the system.

Seriously though, spring for the 300$ model. It's worth it."

if you want to play burnout paradise online then you need a hard drive. other than a few other online games like ffxi , you can play almost everything.

The only game I can think of is FFXI (the mmo), but I have close to 30 XBLA games and a decent amount of videos so I would recommend getting a HDD regardless.

"No games require a hard drive. A fallacy of the system.

Seriously though, spring for the 300$ model. It's worth it."

Buy it, then Fable II and Fallout 3.

yeah, nothing really requires it, but some games are much, much worse without-get a hardrive.

Without a hard drive load times become much longer. Also without a hard drive you are not going to be able to get many Xbox Live arcade games. If you plan on playing alot of games buying a core is not worth it. Just save another $50 to get one with a hard drive. You won't regret it.

Trust me, if you buy one without a hard drive, you will find yourself buying a hard drive in a couple of months time. It'll be much easier and cheaper if you just buy the pro model with the hard drive included.

well crackdown co-op, expansion packs, and while you can play halo 3 without a hard drive you'll be missing out on half the game

"After I have sold my Wii (brought about by a terrible lack of good games) I am going to purchase a 360, presumably at the new low (rumored) price. My question is: are there any games out there that require a hard drive? If not then I think I'm going to go with the core system. I don't have fast enough internet so online play is a non-issue for now :(

My favorite games are JRPGs, which are in surprising abundance on the 360"

oh and the arcade doesn't come with a headset so...