Halo: Reach just landed on Tuesday and gamers everywhere dropped Noble Team into their Xbox 360s and started to explore all the content Reach has to offer -- the epic single player, competitive multiplayer, Firefight, Forge World, and co-op... err, well unless you happened to own Microsoft's new, fancy 4GB Xbox S. You see, 4GB Xbox S owners are not able to play Reach's co-op. It is like owners of the 4GB Xbox S are George Costanza and Halo: Reach's co-op is the Soup Nazi, "no co-op for you!"
The pre-launch buzz for the game was huge, often highlighting all the cool things you could do -- and then the great reviews started coming out only adding fuel to the fire. Halo: Reach was not to be missed. But apparently none of the reviewers played the game, or at least co-op, on a 4GB S model 360. In fact, nothing of this problem was covered prior to the game's release. I would be livid if I just dropped $199.99 on a new 4GB Xbox S and $59.99 on my new copy of Reach only to learn co-op was off limits.
When gamers try to play co-op with a 4GB Xbox S system an error message comes up providing, "[o]ne or more players do not have the hard drive required for this game type." And no, this is not a bug or glitch. In fact, the game's official Xbox page FAQ provides:
Q1: The error “One or more players do not have an Xbox 360 Hard Drive. An Xbox 360 Hard Drive is required to play co-op on Xbox LIVE or system link” occurs when I try to play. Why?
A1: One or more players do not have a certified Xbox 360 hard drive attached to their Xbox 360 console. Some multiplayer aspects of Halo: Reach require an Xbox 360 certified hard drive.
For me, playing each Halo's campaign cooperatively has always been one of my favorite parts about the games. To think Microsoft allowed one of its marquee games to be released in a way that denies co-op on its new console seems odd to me. I realize other games have required a hard drive for certain aspects before, but I feel like those games, the previews about those games, and the reviews about those games made that point clear before people went out and dropped their dolla-dolla-bills on the game. Not only does the 4GB Xbox S have 4GB of storage space, but you can also add up to 16GB of flash drive storage space, which also does not seem to solve the problem. So that means gamers with 20GB of storage space -- the same amount as the original, launch Xbox 360s with a hard drive -- cannot play co-op Halo: Reach. Crazy.
But there is some good news. According to Eurogamer, Microsoft is aware of the problem and insists it is "temporary." No word was given on when the problem would be fixed, however. But at least there is hope, something the people of the planet Reach cannot say the same thing about...
Halo: Reach is available now exclusively for the Xbox 360.