Battlefield 3 will be ‘standard def’ on HDD-free Xbox 360s

Though Battlefield 3 will undoubtedly offer a real graphical treat, DICE has warned that those without a hard drive on their Xbox 360 will not receive the same visual experience as HDD-owning users.

The game gives players the option of installing a hi-res texture pack stored on the second disc. Those without a hard drive, of course, will not be able to do this – though will still be able to play the game.

"The thing with the 360 is that you need to be able to give consumers a game where you don’t have to install it on a hard drive, because there are 360s without a hard drive,” executive producer Patrick Bach told GamerZines.

So we need to give you the option of installing it, rather than just demanding it. You could call it a ‘standard-def’ version for the 360 if you don’t have a hard-drive.

"What we let you do is let you have high-res information that gets streamed in and out of memory at all times, and that gives you a more detailed, varied and vivid experience on all platforms. We don’t want to take that away from 360 players.

"We’re really trying to push the limits of what we can do on the consoles and the PC. Our goal is to see how we can utilise as many of the systems that you actually have in your machine that some people haven’t utilised before.

Some (developers) just do it like, if it doesn’t fit into memory we just make a lesser game. We don’t do that. For us, it’s about how we can give you the most game ever even though the hardware is over five years old."