Today marks the release of Microsoft's rather big system software update, bringing a whole "new experience" to Xbox users. As this is not a general gaming website, I'm not going to go into all of the details, you can head on over to this page to get an idea of what it's all about and find all necessary information.

What it has to do with GTA IV is that now you can install it, and probably all other games, on your hard drive. This of course means less use of the game disk, which results in faster loading times and a quieter system. The latter I had often found pretty off putting, but with this update there's definitely an improvement.

The installation for me personally took 10 minutes, and takes up a nice 6,8 GB on your hard drive! With a normal 20gb hard drive only having just under 14 GB of available storage, chances are some of you may have to clear up some space or get a larger hard drive this holiday season. Support the ailing economy, you're gonna have to get one anyway for those two episodic content packages releasing in the coming months! Microsoft is catering to this and are offering some specials, so check your local retailers for any good deals on disk drives. I believe if you have an arcade system you get a special price in some territories.

I haven't tested GTA IV much myself, but from the starting point the initial load was definitely faster. In case you're wondering, the update size shouldn't be all that big, as it doesn't take too long to download, and according to Microsoft, you need a minimum of 128 mb of available space, which is somewhat surprising considering all the content.