Yes, I am well aware that the PS2 has to use the rest of the system besides the HDD... but wait... isn't that kinda redundantly OBVIOUS?! I was merely pointing out that their claim on HDD space being so limited is just slightly bogus.
No, the partition is NOT capped at 8gb, because all I have on my PS2's HDD is PlayOnline at 1gb, FFXI (which I just checked) is currently at 10,240MB, Tetra Master at 128MB, and Socom II at 256MB. Nothing else installed.
I am also WELL aware there are over 100+ Japanese games that utilize the HDD, and barely 29 USA games that do. the thing is... How many of those games is one person really going to own? I mean, seriously. And the fact that, most of them, once played.. Will most likely be uninstalled. The MAJORITY of the PS2 games (USA, Japanese, Otherwise...) still do NOT use the HDD. I've owned well into 70~80 PS2 games (Lost track, lol). 3 Of them utilized the HDD at all, And it was NOT by much.
I'm all for new zones. I would LOVE a real, new Story Line. New, Unique enemies. I DO love my PS2, but I am NOT a PS2 fanboy. I play on PC, I USED to play on PS2 when that's ALL THERE FK'N' WAS to play on (During Pre-US release, Mind you. Yes, I had a Japanese PS2. Just for playing XI.) (Love for ones console is VASTLY different from fanboyism.)
The thing is, they DO do things very differently. Each of the zones may be just a reskin, but the entire zone is packaged in its in its OWN .dat file. This is done for EVERY zone. Its the reason a game that should now only be about 7gb is actually more like 10gb now on the ps2. And it has always been at LEAST 8+gb.
Adding new Content is one thing. But changing the base code to lower space required is impossible. Changing the code for any truly brand new features is also more less impossible (Such as disabling character blinking when changing gear, For PC making a REAL, decent windowed mode [no, their windowed mode is not a real windowed mode, its a wannabe. it puts the entire game in its own special little emulated instance and forces that into a window.. in extremely simple terms.], parses, information overlays, ......how the game accesses data it has stored on the system thus making it impossible to save much space compared to the current system [the .dat system]).
Take into consideration, that its far to late in the game for them to change such base coding, the data is buried FAR too deep in the game for them to change anything so drastically game changing because they just don't have the resources to do so or the documentation on what everything does where and how, because old people left and never made the proper documents on it (most likely scenario..) They would have to completely reverse engineer their own games base coding.
Also. If the PS2 is a bane on FFXI, then you would have to count xblolx as well, since they use the same code, just repackaged to work on that platform. (PS3 in rare instances too, Such as my Release 60gb [500gb upgraded hdd] PS3 Phat, which runs XI quite happily. Not to mention every other PS2 game in existence.)