Halo: Reach co-op hiccups for 4GB 360 owners

In early August, Microsoft rolled out its latest hardware revision for the Xbox 360, a slimmed-down Arcade model that included 4GB of internal flash memory, built-in wireless connectivity, and five USB ports. Unfortunately, owners of the new 4GB Xbox 360 have been unable to access Halo: Reach's full suite of multiplayer features, receiving an error message when attempting to enter the just-launched game's co-op mode.

The error message indicates that "one or more players do not have an Xbox 360 Hard Drive," despite the presence of the 4GB drive, and says "an Xbox 360 Hard Drive is required to play co-op on Xbox Live or system link." Gaming blog Nukezilla originally highlighted the issue and also reports that adding to the machine's storage with USB flash drives doesn't fix the problem.

The frequently asked questions section of the official Xbox support site suggests this is a known issue, though offers no immediate help for 4GB Xbox 360 owners, saying only "some multiplayer aspects of Halo: Reach require an Xbox 360 certified hard drive." Owners of the 4GB Xbox 360 are not advised of limited multiplayer access, except in the game packaging's customary "some features and downloads require additional storage" disclaimer. At least the problem may only be temporary; a Microsoft representative has told GameSpot that they "are aware of the issue and are quickly working to resolve it."

The new 4GB configuration of the "slim" Xbox 360S launched in August as a replacement for the entry-level Arcade model. Like the Arcade, the 4GB model comes at the lower end of the Xbox 360 price range. However, where the Arcade had no onboard storage, only a small internal memory chip, its replacement has a flash memory drive--albeit with a modest 4GB of storage, compared to the higher-end version's 250GB of hard drive space.

On the site of Halo developer Bungie, forum users have reported similar problems with ODST and suggested the 4GB drive is recognized as internal flash memory and not the hard drive required for full online functionality.