Xbox 360 to get USB storage
Microsoft is rumoured to be brining USB storage support to the Xbox 360 in the future.
"Increased market penetration of high-capacity, high throughput USB mass storage devices" led to the implementation, according to Joystiq.
The news comes from some official documentation obtained by the blog, authored by a Microsoft software engineer who states that support will be in place ready for a Spring 2010 rollout.
The documentation also hints that, since USB storage devices may be much larger than the current range of Microsoft HDDs, it may be possible in the future to install full disc-based games onto USB devices. Either way, the Xbox 360 will have an in-built limit of two external storage devices.
Microsoft has yet to offer any official comment on the leaked documentation.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums Reply[edit] That sucks... What a wasted opportunity! I'm sure there are loads of folks who would love to use a 320+GB external HD on their 360 and turn it into a proper media centre.
Because up to now, you CAN'T add an external hard drive. And with this fantastic "update" you can. But you can only use 16GB of it. Even if it is a 1TB drive
I'm almost positive this is related to the new 'Xbox slim' rumours, as it seems likely Microsoft will ditch the current HDD form factor (top of console, running from front to back) in favour of an external device. The current HDD attachment dictates the the size of both the depth and height of the console, two things I assume Microsoft will want to reduce for a 'slim' console.
Can we use a USB HUB for more ports?
Even though who uses the space, not even used half my 20GB
I should've said use it for loads of games as well as media, but you're right, there isn't anything stopping us now.
Whilst on the surface this does seem like a good move, I personally won't have any need for it currently. I am probably usig at most, 25GB of my 120GB elites drive.
My PS3 on the other hand needs a new HD pronto (my current 60gb is filled with top gear and Big bang theory episodes.... (oh and game demos / installs))
I would assume that the console can only 'see' 16gb of the drive regardless of its size or partition setup.
How this restriction is enforced I don't know. No doubt a way will found to circumnavigate the size limit.
First party accessories are a major money maker in the games industry. By limiting to 16GB it gives people another option but still leaves an incentive to buy one of their official HDDs.
Nothing, but it will only allow 2 devices like this at once.
I think this great.
1: Everyone has a USB stick lying around so it's an easy way to transport your profile without having to shell out for a memory card
2: It provides a cheap way for arcade console buyers to have lots of storage space. You probably won't be ripping any games to them but 32Gb is tons of space for save games, demos, arcade games, etc.
Sure it's not as good as it could be, but they didn't have to do this in the first place.
This does seem like it could be going hand in hand with a slim 360. The two memory card ports take up quite a lot of space, by allowing this, they no longer need memory card slots, thus cutting down on space required on a front panel and cutting stuff off the motherboard. I very much doubt it is a complete replacement for the hard drive though, I imagine they want the slim to replace the current models, otherwise they're just adding yet another version. So if this is a complete replacement for the current version, they would need to keep the hard drive support because otherwise why would people want to replace a dead 250Gb console to one that can only take 32?
I would imagine the reason why they wouldn't be selling many xbox 360 games on live is due to the price rather than anything else.
And besides, with installing games on USB storage your load speeds are not going to improve over running off the disc very much at all if any. They need to take a look at what Sony is doing and copy them, with the hard drive, like they usually do.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=235556
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=238341
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=235873
That's a bit misleading, a lot of the data on a PS3 is repeated making the size of the data on the disk "artificially" higher, if you look at PS3 versions and Xbox versions of a game, the PS3 version will be taking up a lot more space on disk, even though it's exactly the same game.
And here it's basically pot calling kettle black. MS didn't have a plan? What about Sony? PSN was a shambles at release, their emulation backwards compatibility wasn't ready forcing them to make the initial consoles with hardware BC, then later they removed BC entirely because they weren't selling enough PS3 games.
MS refuses to adopt BR, that seems logical to me. When the 360 was out, BR, HDMI, HD-DVD, none of those were released, not even the specifications finalised. As for Sony's plan it was also not to improve gaming with the release of the PS3 with BR support. Sony's main purpose with BR in the PS3 was to make BR the winning format of the format war.
I don't think releasing a BR box for the 360 would really improve the console at all, think about it, if they released a BR box and then allowed developers to make games on them, then lots of people would be forced to buy an expensive peripheral to be able to play new games. Then we'd get another thread like this with people moaning about how M$ is all about the money with their expensive peripherals that are all but required.
I don't really see your problem, if someone came up to you on the street and gave you £10 would you be all up in their face about how little you can buy with £10?
MS are being jerks like always.
As for Microsoft keeping the limit at 16gb, kinda obvious why isn't it?
How are they being jerks by giving us something? What you you prefer? No USB stoarage support or limited USB storage support (which is limited to being more than the original HDD had which was still more than adequate for save games, demos and arcade games).
I don't either, but thats why you design a better box in the beginning so you don't to add things later and charge people more money for them. I like the 360, own one, and support M$, but I believe both consoles have their strengths and weakness. I believe that the PS3 is a better designed box than the 360. Both have good games, Xbox live is a better service than PSN. I also don't want multiple discs or lost content either.
As if those stupid proprietary HDDs weren't enough they're now 'making up for it' with external storage, limited to 16GB?
Yeah, way to go Microsoft! Unfortunately 2 wrongs really don't make a right.
Is this not Xbox article? What did you expect?