Education Minute: Why Sony Never Considered Going Hard Drive-less

Well, I mangled that header nicely. Sorry.

Unlike the Xbox 360, Sony never gave consumers the option to purchase a Playstation 3 without a hard drive. Microsoft touted the drive-less 360s as a cheaper option for families who are less into the hardcore stuff (like the Xbox 360 Arcade Pack), but Sony decided against going that route even though the subsequently lowered price would have helped them out significantly. Why did the company choose to install a hard drive in every PS3?

Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony Worldwide Studios, admits that a drive-less option for the Playstation 3 was considered and decided against, according to Videogaming247. A hard drive, Yoshida reasons, is needed for “seamless” gameplay and digital distribution.

“Like Microsoft did, we could have had an optional hard drive and settled for cheaper combinations of hardware, but if we had done that – from a [development] standpoint – we cannot rely on every consumer to have a hard drive.

“So that really helps us to focus on [the fact that] every consumer has a hard drive. Now we can cache data so that gameplay is seamless.”

Yoshida pointed at one game specifically that relies on PS3’s hard drive to cut down on loading times.

I have to admit, Microsoft probably thought it had a good idea selling 360s without hard drives, and honestly, it sounds okay on paper. In this cold, unpleasant reality we live in though, it just doesn’t work. I’ve talked to game retailers who used to stock and sell hard drive-lacking 360s, only to have them returned or be forced to stock and sell hard drives separately because the family would always be back for one. End result? Try finding a 360 that doesn’t have a hard drive. Their SKUs rattle and moan, forgotten like morning mist burned away by the sun.

Drama, drama, etc. In short, Sony did the right thing, even if the path proved rough.