PS3: Explained

Hard drive or hard luck?

"The hardware was developed with the hard disk in mind," claims Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, who stressed during Wednesday's revealing meeting that developers should create games for the PS3 assuming the hard drive will be there. But even though Kutaragi's presentation stated that a hard drive was required, he refrained from confirming if the drive will be preinstalled in all PS3s.

However, a Sony rep here in the US has officially told GamesRadar's sister magazine PSM that it is Sony's intention, at least in the US, to include a hard drive with every system. 60 gigabytes and detachable, to be exact.

Of course, that's an added expense.We'd be surprised if thePS3 was launchedbelow the $400 mark, and a bundled hard drive could bump that price even higher. However, as anyone who bought the gutted,"Core system"Xbox 360for $300will probably attest, sometimes it's worth it to drop the extra coin.

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.