spring-update-2010
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Official Xbox 360 USB drives priced by GameStop
GameStop has leaked information about those official Xbox 360 USB hard drives we've heard about (first rumored and then officially), and they ain't cheap. According to the confusingly similar GameSpot (who saw the prices temporarily listed on GameStop's website), there will be both 8GB and 16GB drives available, the smaller for $39.99 and the larger for $69.99. According to Major Nelson, we'll see them in stores in May. Of course, the system update will also allow you to use any USB drive (not just the official Xbox-branded ones), but before you get visions of 1TB of storage plugged into your Xbox, remember that there's a 16GB limit on each of two possible devices, so you can have only 32GB total. Fortunately, an unofficial 16GB flash drive is about half of Microsoft's price over on Newegg. You may have to tweak things a little bit, as the official drives are meant to be "plug and play," but it can't be that complicated. The GameStop listing is down for now, but we'll see these drives officially in just over a month or so anyway. [via Engadget]
Xbox 360 gaining USB storage support in 2010 update
Documentation obtained by Joystiq – and subsequently confirmed with two separate sources – reveals that "USB Mass Storage Device Support on Xbox 360" will soon be a reality. The document, authored by a senior software development engineer at Microsoft, states that due to "increased market penetration of high-capacity, high throughput USB mass storage devices, a 2010 Xbox 360 system update" will allow consumers to save and load game data from USB devices. The update is purportedly coming in Spring 2010. Once the update occurs, Xbox 360 owners will be able to download Xbox Live Arcade games, Xbox Live Indie games, Games on Demand, DLC and Title Updates to the storage device. "USB storage devices may, however, have far greater memory capacity than MUs (at the date of writing, the largest MU is 512 MB), and may therefore support previously infeasible operations-such as installation of a full disc-based title." That's right, you can also store disc-based games to the USB device; however, it will require the disc to be in the tray for authentication, identical to the current functionality. %Gallery-88477%
