Clever users with the beta of the new Xbox 360 NXE-thing have noticed something: the size of game installs on the hard drive have decreased. So, good news for those of you with smaller hard drives. (I’m still kicking about with the old school 20GB hard drive. I soldier on.)

For example, someone on the Cheap Ass Gamer forums reported that Left 4 Dead went from 4GB to 3.7GB. That’s a savings of 26 percent!

Then there’s NHL 09, which went from 5.7GB to 5.0GB.

And Rock Band 2 goes from 6.3GB to 4.6GB.

You really have to troll through message board after message board to get a list going.

Why is this happening? There’s no official reason, of course, but people think it’s because the new rips do away with much of the dummy data on the disc.

Now, how useful it actually is to install the games to your hard drive, I don’t know. You’re talking a matter of only a few seconds of load time, so…