Bach: Xboxes without hard drives will get 'standard-def' BF3

Battlefield 3 producer Patick Bach has said that the 'optional' hi-res texture pack which comes on the second disc of the Xbox version of the game must be installed to the hard drive to get full graphical quality.

Because there are models of the 360 which do not have hard drives fitted, the texture pack had to be an optional extra, rather than standard as it is on PS3 and PC.

Speaking in an interview with GamerZines, Bach says that 360 owners who do not have a hard drive will be getting what he refers to as a "'standard-def' version" of the game.

"There's nothing magic about it," Bach told the site. "It's the same thing we do for PC and PS3, so there's nothing extra. "I think the controversy about this is that we actually let you do it on 360 for once. So what it does is it gives you the same abilities, kind of, as the PC and PS3. You can actually stream information from the hard drive.

"That's new for Xbox 360, but it's not a new idea for the gaming industry as a whole. No one has really tried to do it properly, so us doing it will create question marks.

"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. 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."

Although it's unlikely that Bach means standard definition in a literal sense, he was unequivocal about the installation making a noticeable difference to the visual quality of the game.

"It does make a difference, yes, absolutely. The whole engine is based around streaming textures, streaming terrain and a lot of other content.

"It's not the engine that demands it, but that it has the ability to create a more detailed experience. We can't use more memory of the actual machine itself, we need to flush that memory with new information depending on where you are in the game.

"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."

Battlefield 3 is released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 next Friday, 28 October.