My friend just bought a PS3 because she wanted a good Bluray player with certain features and the store was offering a special which allowed her to get the 120GB version for $200. She's not going to be using it for playing many games, so 120 gigs is more space than she will ever use. What of everyone else, though? How much hard drive space does an average gamer really need on a modern console like the 360 or PS3? Do I *need* the $350 250GB version? Aside from saving games, what is the hard drive even for? Is it worth an extra $50?

i download a lot of demos, rock band songs, and arcade games.

i have an elite and so far that's enough drive space for me.

Depends on the gamer. If you download full games you can fill up the space quickly. My 80GB PS3's hard drive has 30GB free, but my 120GB 360 hard drive has only 20GB free since its my primary console. My gaming PC has over 500GB used up by games.

But as for what the hard drive is used for outside of save games on the 360 or PS3:
Bluray discs can save data to the hard drive on the PS3.
Downloading complete video games (Warhawk, Burnout Paradise)
Downloaded Videos (Movies, TV shows, trailers)
Game Demos
DLC for games (Rock Band DLC can eat up a hard drive fast)
Installing data for some games like Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3
Optionally installing games to the hard drive on the 360 for better load times.

For the casual gamer the extra $50 is probably not worth it, but for someone who plays a lot of games it is.

Plus, as time goes by, we'll be seeing more and more digital download options for full games, in which you won't even have to buy a disc, but pay for the game to download and have on your console's HD

I have a 20gb 360 and I've got about 2 gigs left. Most of the space is Rock Band songs. I'd say 120 would be good, but the more space I have, the more I can find to fill it.

I am filling mine faster than I thought I would, because I'm buying a lot of DLC like map packs and the extra missions for Mass Effect and Gears of War 2.

I'm thinking this is going to be the future...more content delivered via download. As I recall, they considered selling Gears of War: Dark Corners as a disk, but it wasn't economical to make and ship disks to deliver that much content....so it was made available via download only. Unless you turn your content into a game in its own right, a la Halo 3 ODST, downloadable is going to be the way to go.

And that's not even counting videos or arcade games or stuff like that.

I am filling mine faster than I thought I would, because I'm buying a lot of DLC like map packs and the extra missions for Mass Effect and Gears of War 2.

I'm thinking this is going to be the future...more content delivered via download. As I recall, they considered selling Gears of War: Dark Corners as a disk, but it wasn't economical to make and ship disks to deliver that much content....so it was made available via download only. Unless you turn your content into a game in its own right, a la Halo 3 ODST, downloadable is going to be the way to go.

And that's not even counting videos or arcade games or stuff like that.

I held on to my 20g HDD for a very long time. Eventually I found a good deal on a "used" 120g (not really used but it was marked as such, yay me) so I seitch and moved all my data. Three days later I was down to 60g free.

So yeah, I'm picking up the 250g MW2 console.

I had a 60g PS3 that I got around a year or so after the console first came out. It's worked out beautifully, but I recently upgraded the hard drive to 320g earlier last month because I would only have around 8g or so floating about that I could freely use. I simply needed more room, especially with the mandatory installs being made by some games, though considering how easy Sony makes it to upgrade, that was also a factor. I think at last count, I had about 205g (give or take 5) free on my hard drive.

250g should be more than enough room, however, for most of what you'll need. Just think of it as a long term investment.

You don't need the 250gb PS3. I download demos, videos and all kinds of jive and I'm not close to filling up my 60gb system.

The 20gb 360 hardrive is a bit small for my taste though. I need to keep deleting old demos.

I have 4 HD Movies stored on my 60 GB PS3 and its still not full. Granted I don't use my PS3 as a gaming console these days, but twice that amount that comes standard in the PS3s these days should be fine. And if you ever wanted more space, you could always add a larger hard drive to it.

On the 360 though, 20GB just isn't enough. 60GB might be okay, but the 120 should be fine.

Yeah i caved and got the 120g HDD before the NXE update came out. It was a bitter pill since it cost me like 85 bucks for such little space. But its great to have that extra space. i rarely go crazy on my hard drive but there is on average 45-50g free space.

Probably would have more but ive got GTA4, RB2, Gears 2 and maybe one or two others saved on the hard drive. If it wasnt for that feature i probably woudn't have caved. With the exceptions of the DLC's for games and the game saves everything else gets deleted once iam done with it.

I stuck a 500gb HD into my Ps3 a while back, quite cheap actualy.

I <3 sony for letting me use non-proprietary hardware with the PS3. being able to use whatever HD i want, use generic flashsticks to backup/tranfer saves, being able to access my stored media collection from my WD passport.. so awesome.


I conned someone into getting me the 120 GB 360 HD back when they were still had that ungodly pricetag. No way in hell i was going to actualy pay that much myself for whats basicaly a generic but specialy formated HD crammed into a special shell. And wasnt going to take the risk of getting my xbox banned by popping open the one that came with the system and trying to swap HD's there. But if someone else is going to foot the bill.. well why not get myself a little extra room..

based off of what I've seen from working in a video game shop. Your going to want at least 80.
A guy I woke with maxed out his 40 gig ps3 within weeks of getting it
I got a 20 gig ps3 the Christmas that they came out, and I was good for a quite a while. I'd download a demo then delete it after I was done to save room. It was enough until I started downloading games, and LBP levels. I noticed things were full once I went to play ghost-busters over the summer. So I deleted the data for GTA 4. I then went to play Batman, and had to do something similar for that. I picked up a 250 gig hd for 60 bucks, was all ready to put it in to the PS3. when i noticed my computer's hd(120 gig) was getting full. So I backed up the computer gave it the 250 gig hd, and put the 120gig in to my PS3. I think my ps3 might be the only one on the planet with Apple hardware in it.

I'd say that you'll be fine with the 120 gig version(at least for now anyway)

And they stripped that functionality out of the PS3slim. What fun!

Actualy, your wrong awa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNxgRmWYwR8

Still just as possible and easy as the PS3 Phat. Remove one screw, a cover and it slides right out to be swapped out if you wish

Huh. Cool, glad to be wrong about that one.

To be fair, he worked at a video game store. He's hardly your average gamer.

yea he's a bit of a demo whore, but there again so am I. Of course free demos are worth every penny