PS2 Hard Drive

Hey guys, I have to admit, ever since Blast/Shock/Rumble Cities went down, I am totally out of the loop with gaming.

What's the deal with the PS2 HD? Is one coming out for the U.S.? I imagine the Japanese HD isn't doing too well? Where can I import one (I looked through NCSX and Buyrite without success)?

I'm thinking of grabbing one to 1) cut down on loading times and 2) the replays I guess.

 

It's pretty much assured to come to the U.S. since FFXI will require it. Importwise, I haven't really heard of it working with anything important other than reducing the load times in FFX. I'm guessing/hoping that Sega will leave the hard drive compatibility in with the U.S. version of VF4 so we can take advantage of it eventually.

 

A friend just purchased the PS2 HDD for VF4 so I'll report how it improves the game when the game arrives. CVS2, Gundam: Federation vs Zeon and a whole slew of titles take advantage of the HDD now.

 

But, with the exception of memory capacity and faster loading times are there any other applications? for example, would it be possible for extra data to be placed on the VF4 DVD so that it would request more textures that could be saved on the HDD, thus increasing the texture memory of the system. That's the only worth while use I can find for it.

 

Well as far as I can tell that seems like one of the original intentions. you will be able to download patches for FFXI thats why you will need a hard drive. So i don't see why there won't be upgrades for other games

 

Federation vs. Zeon uses the PS2 HDD eh? Sweet. It's one of the few games I really do want to get on the PS2 (aside from VF4 and Winning Eleven 5), though the PS2 version definitely had a long loading time (you just get spoiled playing it in the arcade--though the only place I've played the game on either platform is Vancouver, BC).

-Chanchai

 

But why didn't developers think of this off the bat? Developers have inside knowledge right? Sony should have of gone to the best developers and said "Look gentlemen we have a HDD in the pipeline, we're looking to release it around so and so. So make games that take advantage of it. We're not talking crappy 3% increase in loading times. We want to see options for patches and requests for extra data for games so PS2's with the device will display games with better graphics."

Now that would be something.