Are we gazing onto the cusp of a new horizon, one where our Xbox 360 storage needs aren't shackled to overpriced
proprietary hard drives? Probably not quite. Our best friends at
Joystiq have managed to obtain documents (corroborated with multiple sources) showing that the folks in Redmond are mulling over an option to enable USB mass storage support for its game machine. To elaborate, that means downloaded Xbox Live and Arcade games, DLC, other associated game files, and even installed disc-based games can be saved to an external HDD of your choosing. The documents further elaborate that the storage device itself must be 1GB or more; a system partition of 512MB is required, and by default beyond that the consumer partition (i.e. your games and the like) will occupy the remainder of the drive or 16GB, whichever is smaller -- and unfortunately, that's as much as you're gonna get. This could be another way for Microsoft to, alongside the
rumored Valhalla motherboard, trim some fat
for a slimmer future... but given the size constraints, we're guessing it's more likely to be a more spacious alternative to Memory Units than the main HDD itself. Word has it the feature will be rolled out in a Spring 2010 firmware update -- that is, if Microsoft keeps to its paperwork here. Excited? We are. Read the full documentation over at
Joystiq.
posted March 18th 2010 12:59PM
One word... Awesome
This will surely come with restrictions, microsoft won't be able to over charge for their memory for the 360 then.
hackers put games on HDD :D oo yeah i love it
@Eminemdrdre00
Considering most 32GB flash drives still cost around $70. And one of Microsoft's 60GB Hard Drives cost around $90. I'm not too upset about that. Both are still expensive.
Microsoft should let us use our own storage devices, though. There is a reason why I haven't purchased more downloadable content/games. It's because I practically used up my 20GB drive and I'm not spending $90 for a new hard drive. They are actually losing money by not making their hard drives cheaper.
Can someone explain to me why their 60GB hard drives still cost $90? If I buy an Xbox Elite system with 120GB ... that only costs an extra $100 over the Xbox Arcade system without the hard drive. Plus ... you get two full games with it. I know the 60GB drive comes with 3 months of Xbox Gold and that cheap headset, but still ...
@Meekermoloko
Oh, I guess you're not limited to flash drives ... but external hard drives as well? Well, then that might make things more interesting ... but yeah, the 16GB limit sucks.
@Meekermoloko Sure, the 16GB limit sux as that means you cannot just dump the internal drive's content to an external hard-drive, but this is about backing up your some of your contents. Currently, if you want to backup your stuff, your only option is to buy tons of those 512MB memory cards. This will allow users to at least backup stuff to flash drives (4GB flash drives are pretty cheap and common now). Considering the only alternative is those overpriced 512MB memory cards, this is a Godsend.
good news for me, because I absolutely refuse to by an HDD from MS at the current price, but having this 20GB is a hassle...
i'd rather they just make the prices reasonable though.
What is the 512MB partition for? Sounds like to store an RSA key pair.
Why do I think MS is going to require you to "authenticate" your key once over the net and pay a fee for the privilege?
wow... after more than 4 years i can finally save on my flashdrive.
@kjsin1994
No, you can't. You can put anything on the drive EXCEPT saves. Putting saves on a flash drive would lead to gamerscore cheating, and Microsoft won't be having any of that.
Don't call it USB mass storage support because you will inevitably find people pissed off that they can't plug their 20+ gb USB external drive and expect to be able to use all of the space on it. Instead, call it a memory card replacement vis USB thumb drive limited to 16gb USB thumb drives and smaller.
if they are sensible ,could be thety are finally giving up on crap property hdd they been making and go f... it lets give em abit of freedom in order to beat sony,you want 1tb hdd 2tb its all up to the users to get em,well maybe knowing our luck,you will still need theere hdd as a main drive and these will be only for movies,mp3 ,arcade etc,But if its the better out come i just ask one thing extra....usb HUb support so we can have external psu powering a array of as many hdd as we want,and it will not make it any hotter due to the power drain of the usb hdds
Then M$ discovered USB .......
Hah man if this is true... I just recently recently replaced my old 360 with one of the new ones that come with 250 gb.
So basically, Microsoft baked a nice cake for you but then told you they stuck a turd in it after you took your first bite.
Well Done Microsoft, New Smaller Motherboard, USB Storage Update. Your Heading In The Right Direction. Now I Want To See Inbuilt WiFi & A Quiet DVD Drive =]
Dear MS. Could you please just shove everything into the cloud?
Now I know all my saves games take more space than the frankly ridiculously priced memory card I bought for portability can carry, so currently it just hold my profile - but wouldn't it just be nice to log on, have all the stuff I've bought be 'there' and then just download on the fly if it wasn't locally cached already.
I'm not even too bothered about the price of your HDs (mainly as I just bought a 120G WD drive and hacked it onto my Xbox for about £25 all in) - but it does niggle. I'm happy to pay the money for the service, I like it and all that. Just once you've got my money, I would appreciate it if you did everything technically in your power to actually give me everything you're capable of creating.