While the new, 4GB, "Kinect Ready" 360 Slim may seem like an enticing prospect, at just £149.99 on the RRP for a brand new, reliable console, with plenty of internal memory for someone who's not interested in filling their console with demos and downloadable games - unfortunately, as ever, all is not quite as it seems.
Rather than coming with a 4GB built in hard drive, the new starter Slim actually has 4GBs of what's known as flash memory - the same as is found in new iPods, and other smart phones. And while that may not make much difference to the average user, unfortunately, it makes a huge difference to games - as many people are today finding out, with Microsoft's brand new super hit, Halo: Reach.
Although the game's been flying off the shelves over the past 24 hours, if you've bought a new 4GB Slim console (as many people will have), you won't be able to play in online co-op, as your console doesn't technically have a hard drive. You're free to play the co-operative mode with two players on the same console, in split-screen, as far as we're aware, but if you want to play with your friends online, you're out of luck. Which is a bit of a problem, when a large part of your game's appeal is the co-op, and the ability to play with friends anywhere around the world.
Unfortunately, Microsoft haven't exactly been all that clear with their packaging - on the back of Halo: Reach's box, you'll be hard pushed to find the tiny text that says, in the standard spiel that's on the back of every single 360 game, "some features and downloads require additional storage, hardware, and/or fees". It's written in a font that's so small, you'll probably have glanced over it - and if you've read it, it's the same blurb that you've read plenty of times before. There's nothing that says a hard drive is required to play online co-op.
Even worse is the fact that the 4GB Slim 360 doesn't actually make it clear that what you're buying isn't actually a 360 with a 4GB hard drive, but rather, a console with 4GB "flash memory". It doesn't explain the differences you'll have, and doesn't explain that it may not work the same as a hard drive - instead, featuring only a small statement saying that "console memory is internal". That could mean pretty much anything - it certainly doesn't explain that what you're buying is a console with 4GB of internal memory that may not work in the same way as hard drive, on certain games.
Other games that require access to the hard drive are also affected, with reports saying Crackdown, Halo: ODST and Halo 3 are all limited in a similar way.
At the moment, the only way to remedy the problem would be to buy a hard drive for the 360, but there are two slight problems with that. Firstly, it's around £80, and secondly, it's not out until the end of the month. That's a very large bill to pay in order to play something that you could reasonably have expected to work to begin with - and retailers like Amazon
Thankfully, although there's no instant solution, Microsoft are apparently looking into it, so if all you wanted was to play Halo: Reach in online co-op with a 4GB console, a solution should be coming, as Microsoft get their engineers to work on what they assure is a temporary problem. There's no word on whether the other games will be fixed, but, judging by their age, we doubt it.
At the end of the day, we thought we ought to write a story up on this to stop you getting burnt. If you, or someone you know wants to play Halo: Reach, and you were thinking of buying them a 4GB slim to do it, it may be worth holding off until Microsoft have fixed it - or, having a slight change of plan, and buying one that genuinely does come with a hard drive. The new 250GB 360 S is an excellent choice - or, you could buy an old, normal 360, like this
