Microsoft’s Allard has confirmed that the Xbox 360 could be coming out in multiple versions during its lifetime. Mr. Gates has already said that the Xbox 360 may be released with an HD-DVD drive sometime in the future. (Though, as I always have to point out, he suggested the possibility that the 360 may use a different drive than HD-DVD. Blu-ray anyone?) Now Allard is confirming what we already knew: developers can’t count on the existence of an HDD in the 360.

So when it comes to usage of the HDD, Xbox 360 games may be no better than the PS3. Hold your horses! Notice the word ‘may’ in there. We’ll have to see how things turn out. With the addition of a memory card to the Xbox 360, it might become the lowest common denominator to which developers write. My friend Todd always mocks saving on my PS2 because I have to use a memory card, while his Xbox’s HDD is faster and has a gazillion blocks free. The same problems I face may now end up on his Xbox 360. But even though I put that out there, I kinda doubt it. Saving to the HDD is so much nicer than saving to a memory card, developers will surely support it, right?

Link: Prodigious Gaming - Allard confirms multiple Xbox 360 versions