"Now that Microsoft officially announced the two Xbox 360 SKUs, the Core and Premium Edition, it has been revealed that Xbox 360 games must work if the detachable hard drive is not present. Although developers can take advantage of the hard drive to speed up loading times, Microsoft has worked with developers for the past year to assure all Xbox 360 games work without the hard drive.

This caused a big splash in the community and raised one major concern: Will developers be able to fully utilize the hard drive if it is mandatory that games work without it?

Considering the fact that in addition to Gears of War, Epic Games also develops the Unreal Engine tools and technology, which has been licensed by several game companies, we wanted to know how does the lack of a hard drive affects an Unreal Engine 3-powered game.

We had the chance to interview Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games, to discuss the implications of the recent announcements and how Unreal Engine 3 deals with an Xbox 360 Core system." [more]