The Playstation 3 will require a hard disc drive (HDD) to play games, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) President, Ken Kutaragi, revealed at the Playstation Business Brief. The information was announced after the new launch details for the PS3 were made public, GameSpot reported in their coverage of the brief.

While outlining a number of new details about the Playstation 3, Kutaragi did not confirm whether or not all PS3 consoles would come equipped with the HDD, saying that the company was still undecided on the matter.

“We might end up installing it in all PS3s, though that depends on the market,” he said.

The SCE President has told developers to create games as if the hard disc drive was installed in all consoles.

“We view the hard drive to be mandatory for the PS3.

Rather than have developers create games for the PS3 with or without the HDD, we will be asking them to develop games as though all PS3s have the HDD installed,” he said.

Kutaragi said that the 2.5 inch 60 GB HDD to be used in the Playstation 3 would support Linux operation system, be fully upgradeable, could connect directly to the internet and act as a home server.

[Update Mar-17: ]

Nobody knows for sure right now whether the PS3 will *require* a HDD to play games. It is hard to imagine that Playstation 3 consoles could be sold that aren’t able to play PS3 games. The developers are apparently told to assume that there IS a HDD, which most new sources interpret to mean, the games won’t run if there isn’t an HDD. However, this is all interpretation and conjecture at this point. Fact is, nobody knows for real what the full story is regarding the PS3’s HDD, and at this point in time, this may even include Kutaragi-san himself.

Markus Weichselbaum, PS3focus.com Editor

[Update Mar-19]

Now we DO know for sure. The Ps3 will come with a 60 GB HDD standard.

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