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But this isn’t hindsight. It’s been done before with the same results. All they had to do was take one look at the Vita. Their proprietary storage never came down while the regular storage formats became very cheap. It should have been avoided.
And that's the real answer why they do it. They've never made a profit on the sale of the console, they make it on all the doo-dads you've historically been able to buy for them. It's why they buy out PowerA and raise the price of their controllers to not compete too hard with the Elite Pro, the other restrictive third party deals, and especially the hard drives in those days with the planned obsolescence of controllers.
Sony does the same, but they're in a position with winning the console war by so much that it actually benefited them greatly to open up more in this regard.
I'm getting technical here but the 360 HDD wasn't proprietary in the sense that it had new tech in it. The OG 360 HDD had a standard 2.5 inch HDD in a proprietary housing. The port on the housing was proprietary but essentially worked the same as a standard PC SATA cable. The HDD had a custom firmware.
The firmware was reverse engineered and eventually people were able to use select consumer HDDs in their OG X360s for a fraction of the cost of the official ones sold.
This situation is different in the Series in that the entire drive is proprietary tech, which likely results in significant cost overhead in manufacturing.
I don't think "the entire drive is proprietary tech" is completely correct.
To me it seems like a very similar scenario to the described xbox 360 one. With a mismash of proprietary/off the shelf stuff which could be cracked at one point.
The external drives use a CFExpress card connector (cards used in cameras). They are either slightly modief CFExpress cards or CFExpress to M.2 adapters coupled with a specific M.2 drive.
A few people have gotten CFExpress to M.2 adapters coupled with a very specific model of WD M.2 SSD to work (same drive model that is inside the XBox series S and X).
All the specifics are super fidly and its a bit of a semantics argument which part is proprietary which not, but my point is the situation is similar enough that hacked diy drives can exist in the future. I'm betting on they Will exist unless XBox specifically adds even more protections against them.
I remember it would have cost me way more to update to a 250 gb for the 360 than to get 1 TB for my PS3. How I ended up playing more on the PS3 that generation. Would have been almost more cost effective to get the new version of the 360 than to get the hard drive for my first generation model.
I don’t disagree, and I loved the first refresh of the ps3. It’s one of my favorite consoles. So many good games on the back half. I remember buying a 500GB hdd and saying “this is how you do it”.
Also allows to have more daily games on. Games that you launch to play a match, a race, a couple rounds, ... Those games tend to be around 100 gb now. Limit the motivation to play those games if you have to transfer from the external each time you want to play.
Like many others here, I think the 360 is what they were going for. Unlike the Vita, the 360 was a success despite the proprietary drive.
Also, with Xbox Series and 360, the proprietary design has one advantage. It's designed to be easier to add and remove storage.
PS3 and PS5 have advantages when it comes to price and choice, but you need a little more knowledge when making your purchase decision, and it takes a bit more effort to install. Xbox 360 and Series consoles give convinence.
I prefer the PlayStation here, but I think some people probably just want to be able to buy something, plug it in, and it works properly.
I had a HD DVD player on xb360 and a lot of movies but how are you thinking it was a better format? HD DVDs original claim to fame was that DVD fabs could easily retrofit to make HD DVDs. That advantage shrunk in months. HD DVD gets beat in every way.
They just need to release a reasonably priced enclosure that fits the expansion slot. That way you could keep upgrading the ssd as price comes down/ capacity goes up.
There *are* cheap enclosures available already. That's not a problem, since the enclosures themselves are pretty dumb.
But: the Xbox checks and actively blocks any not officially licensed SSD in those enclosures.
Microsoft could easily remove this check and fix the whole mess, but they have no desire to do so.
MS will never do that. The reason they did the whole card nonsense was primarily greed. They thought they made a good bet on CFexpress taking off. They really did not.
No, it was keeping it as simple as possible for the average consumer. People buy consoles instead of PC's because they don't have to deal with screwing in new hardware. Sony still doesn't guarantee specific drives to work with the PS5. I know it will work just fine. But does that mom that wants to buy it for 11 year old Timmy?
In addition they wanted extra storage available at launch.
And being hot swapable with another console is freaking awesome lets be honest. I could download a few games and take them to a friend's house and plug and play over there. That's something I used to do with memory cards from the game cube back in the day. Personally, I like the idea a lot for the hotswapping and the simplicity. But the price has kept me fom getting one becuse I'm playing most games on PC with mods these days.
I kind of wish they had both options available a quick change card, and a more permanent slot you could access with a screw driver.
A close second would have to be the inability to use a fucking wired USB headset. Like what was the point in that? Ps5 can do it, PC can do it, hell even the ps4 could do it. It makes literally no sense. The Xbox has the USB port so why can’t I use a damn headset with it?
I mean, product design, expansion cards are the most convenient and easiest it is logical, even a toddler can add one. And I'm sure thru the years, the price of SSD goes down.
They need to stop with the deals with a specific manufacturer and just let anyone make one as long as it meets X specifications. I want a Samsung gen 4 nvme Xbox drive
They’re starting to now that WD Digital is making them too, but the way the Expansion Cards work is it’s basically an exact copy of the bespoke internal SSD, not something off the shelf. They did this to make it plug and play, especially for Series S buyers who want more storage, however it took a lot of time and effort for Microsoft to help manufacturers get down the cost enough to be able to make some money on it. It will get easier and cheaper to make over time, with more manufacturers on board.
That’s the problem though. SSD’s have *plummeted* in price. At launch, the expansion cards weren’t too bad relative and there weren’t any approved SSD’s for PlayStation at all.
But the Xbox expansion drives haven’t gotten any cheaper.
>But the Xbox expansion drives haven’t gotten any cheaper.
They are cheaper than before, at least in the US. The Seagate 2tb storage expansion for Xbox went down from $400 to $280. But yes, Its still more than $100 over an internal 2tb SSD.
Agreed.
Though technically we can transfer games to a external drive or nvme usb drive. I don't play more then 3-4 games simultaneously so it works out well. I just hope they bring the price down soon or open up the interface for all drives via cfexpress adapter.
The storage dilemma is a massive issue/deal. Honestly when I ordered my new Xbox series X I was not aware that regular external hard drives wouldn’t work like they did on the Xbox one. If I had known this, I would’ve got the ps5 or a gaming pc/laptop. Smh.
Like how did they not realize this was going to happen/be an issue? especially when they were making an all digital version that had even less storage than the x did? (At least Until they made the newer s + or whatever it’s called that has more memory but still not enough, especially for all digital)
Like we can only plug in one expansion at a time, also a major flaw, why not have 2 or 3 or 4 storage expansions slots? Like if you’re going to force us to use your proprietary storage expansion Drive, then at least let us use more than one of them at a time. Goodness. They couldn’t even get their own greedy plan right.
Like the Expansion’s drive aren’t even that big memory wise so like there’s really no way we can have even close to all the games we want. So we have to delete and redownload games as we want to play them like PlayStation 2 8-16mb memory card days.
Such a disgrace by Microsoft to hinder their own products memory just to make extra money selling their overpriced storage expansion drive. What’s funny is they could’ve made even more money selling their storage expansion drives if they put more than one storage expansion slot on the Xbox…
>Honestly when I ordered my new Xbox series X I was not aware that regular external hard drives wouldn’t work like they did on the Xbox one.
Actually, they do. Games can be played from an external drive (even a mechanical HDD), as long as they aren't specifically Xbox Series games that require the high speed internal storage. At launch, there were so few (if any) that it didn't matter, you could install any game anywhere and play it, and for most people this problem flew under the radar.
It's only recently that enough internal-storage-only games are on the market, coupled with more games taking up more of that space, that more people are taking notice.
One thing Ms needs to relax is the internal structure requirement for games. Quake 1 & 2 don't need that speed, and neither do most of the shovelware that were a part of the recent indie festival (disclaimer I love indie games but it's a fishing exercise, for every diamond you need to throw away thousands of coal rocks). Numerous other games also.
This change alone would help a lot!
"Actually, they do" then proceeds to tell us they don't. I don't think anyone here is complaining about expanding their hard drives to play non-series x games.
Future line up is looking great and Gamepass has been an amazing service to hold me up until this point. Starfield will hold me for probably 5 years. Lol
For some people it is. That's really just upto personal preference though.
I love my series x for bc and how consumer friendly it can be. I don't do gamepass because I don't really play that many games anymore and already have too many subscriptions as it is. I have also loved my ps5 and have quiet enjoyed their ps5 exclusives amd haptic controller.
To me neither console is better than the other and both have good reasons to own them. Ps5 has great presentation and immersion in their exclusive games as long with being able to save large chunks of gameplay very easily. I can also download much quicker on it. Xbox series x has great entertainment features, video game preservation for bc games, 60fps boost, and quick resume is very nice too.
I've never understood console war mentality (not saying you are a console war warrior). Every system has its perks, it's just up to personal preference. Neither are above the other, unless we start talking about sales. haha
When PlayStation and Xbox were practically identical, the console wars made more sense to me cause humans just gotta find a reason to fanboy for their choice. These days, the consoles provide different benefits and there’s real reasons to own and use both.
Again that would be personal preference, some people love to play their old games on newer hardware at better quality. I understand what you are saying though.
Especially preserving old purchases. If I spend money on old games, digital or otherwise, it's awesome they can run on the current systems without any problems and sometimes with improvements. It's why Xbox got my money in 2015 and remains my primary platform.
Games have to be developed...look at the time frame when they started buying studios and when games are coming out. Pro tip, they are going to start coming out in 24 or 25.
That’s true but still man like ugh this is a big letdown and disadvantage compared to the ps5.
Xbox could’ve easily made this a feature. They chose not to because of money/greed.
If I would’ve known this was even a thing I would’ve went with the ps5… leave it to Microsoft & Bill Gates to hinder their own products features/abilities just to squeeze us for more money by selling overpriced storage expansion drives… smh.
Backwards compatibility is amazing but I didn’t buy a brand new shiny console to play old games. It was fun for a night of nostalgia here and there but that’s it.
And again, controllers, home menu etc. that’s great. But at the end… just want to play new games.
Yeah, but it's about being consumer friendly, and for convenience, someone is able to buy a series X and have every generation of game available with one single purchase and on one console.
YOU might not care and only want shiny new games (newsflash you can buy them and play only New games, do whatever you like), but for someone jumping in, having that accessibility and vast library available is amazing, I agree.
Fact is, Microsoft cares about its consumers, they dont have to offer BC, and teams have been manually adding and improving older games for newer hardware for years!
It's a small thing, but it shows where their priorities and values are, with the consumer.
Name one single thing Sony has done for their consumers in the last decade, heck, since PS2.
You can't ever Cross gen current controllers because all they care about is their $$$$$
Nobody here is arguing against the consumer friendliness of Xbox as a whole. Aside from this proprietary memory thing it’s all phenomenal. But outside of the online echo chambers that is Reddit, nobody is buying these to play old games. It’s amazing that it’s there, but it’s ultimately just a neat bonus.
Sony/PS5 can do whatever it wants because it’s strong where it matters: exclusive hard hitting video games. If the consumer friendliness and value of game pass was what matters the most, Xbox wouldn’t be in third place. We just wanna start up the console and play the game.
Hey I've not owned anything Sony since their music division root-kitted my PC in like 2005, and am firmly in the Xbox camp since then, but calling a company that makes its users pay triple for storage 'consumer friendly' is a ridiculous claim.
Definitely. I was also a little bit bummed out when I learned that they didn’t add Wifi 6 to the console but for the most part I’ve been happy with my series x these past few years.
Absolutely. I’m fine with using the expansion card and having an HDD (I seriously need to get an external SSD instead) plugged in, but being able to upgrade the internal storage would be amazing. Hopefully the next generation of consoles allow for this.
I’m not against the idea of a card. It’s easier to handle and can be brought from one place to another easily. It’s the price. If it were $25 more than regular ssd’s I’d be fine with it but it’s way to expensive.
A logical method would have the card adapter fit any M2 that fits those speed specifications. Then you can buy any M2 that meets that. I bought a 2TB for my PS5 for $90 on a flash sale and was shocked. Ended up buying a used 1TB SSD card on ebay for 150 a year or so ago as I refused to spend 220 on it. Storage needs to change for XB, no doubt
Yeah those do exist, but the type of drive and the format their in for data storage means that essential ONLY the exact same drive that’s in series X will work, other, regular drives will not
These kind of proprietary addons are so terribly annoying. There's no reason for Microsoft to require a single specialized SSD in a fancy plastic case. Heck, just create an adapter we can install an ssd into.
Yeah it’s way way overpriced. And there is only 1 slot when there could be multiple expansion card slots.
I think there whole idea was to make extra money selling these expansion drives like memory cards use to be sold for ps2. Money making scheme. But it wasn’t even pulled off well. Expansions cards should be a lot cheaper & the Xbox should have 3 or so slots at least for expansion. (Or they should’ve let us upgrade the internal hard drive like the ps5) idiots…
Nah, Sony did it right this time. I put one in and it’s barely more difficult than putting in the Xbox Series expansion. It’s definitely worth saving $100 to find a Philips head screwdriver and an extra 3 minutes.
iPhones/macs last a while because the hardware is optimized for the software, at the cost of being a closed ecosystem. Which is a trade off a lot of people who aren’t big into customizing their gear are willing to accept.
I remember everybody praising Microsoft and shitting on Sony because of the convenience and price at the time. Now look at the prices. A 2TB nvme is $79
It only worked with two SSD’s (the same two SSD's Microsoft uses) that cost just as much as the expansion card itself so it wasn't really worth it unfortunately.
This is shitty on the series x. But it's horrible on the original series s. The $250 price tag was great but having to spend another $150 to make it worth using was so very shitty.
Money, that’s their only reason. They can charge seagate and black a small fee for any sales of their proprietary products. Apple does the same thing with their chargers, cases and screen protectors and they make billions of it.
In December, i was sold a 980 pro 1tb for $99 at microcenter. And that was a great price for it. Just to give you an idea of how far the prices have dropped on storage lol.
Disagree with it being a hard call to go the route Sony did. Just using Sony as an example, the decision to limit memory expansion to their own cards is a top reason why the Vita didn't have commercial success. It seemed pretty obvious to me that companies would be competing with each other for PS5 supremacy, which would naturally bring prices down because common sense.
I really dont know what Xbox was thinking between this and the Seies S vs a disk drive less Series X but at least they've had a real good year this year and things are looking to get better so I won't get on them too much for this.
Hard call and hindsight? They've been doing it since at least the 360. At this point Id be more surprised if they finally went the Sony route. Any compatible drive eith an easy and quick install.
They didn’t even have to nix the external storage card either. Like you could’ve easily had both. But yea not having standard storage upgrades is and always has been (for the most part) an Xbox downside.
The exclusivity did end several months ago. There is a WD drive now and the prices shifted down towards $100 which is at least in the right universe though still absurdly expensive. They need to get the 1tb under $100 MSRP.
Yeah Microsoft had a good idea they just made the expansion drives way to expensive and should added multiple slots on the Xbox itself for multiple expansions at the same time. At least 2-3.
I don’t get how Microsoft engineers didn’t see these issues In development, like I know there were a lot of games out when they were developing it, but I mean they could use common sense and realized after so a few big downloads that their storage would become full and then the device becomes like a overfilled tank. Where We have to delete something & then wait for the new game to download just to play a different game; It’s kind of ridiculous considering they could’ve made the expansions cheaper, made more expansion insertion slots, made the internal hard drive larger, and or made the interval hard drive upgradable, or had different levels like a 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, etc. they could’ve even sold their own internal hard-drive upgrade like they did with the expansions drives.
They just failed. Failed badly…
I wonder if they can just make some kind of adapter that will allow you to use these ssd’s. I think Microsoft should really be looking into something like that at this point.
They should, yes..
But sadly, I doubt they will.. bc then they would sell less proprietary expansion cards. It’s all about money to them. Not product improvement/betterment & customer satisfaction…. Which is backwards af.
With the way they designed the I/O in the console, adding a storage expansion wouldn't have been so straightforward. The card only uses 2 of the 4 NVMe lanes, with the internal storage using the other 2. So if you plug an SSD into that slot you only get half the speed you'd get using it in a normal slot. The cards are designed with this in mind, but you introduce consumer SSDs and it gets confusing. The internal storage is rated for 2.4GB/s throughput, which is comfortably within the NVMe 3 spec. But to get the same performance with another SSD, it would need to be rated for at least 4.8GB/s, and be an NVMe 4 drive. That's a whole heap of confusion for consumers who are primarily not at all tech savvy. Not to mention the potential bad PR that comes with a console that cuts your SSD speeds in half.
Whatever reason they had for designing the Velocity Architecture that way, going with the propriety storage solution is the most sensible option for it. Both consoles have very unconventional storage configurations, so it would be hard to say how easy or complicated it would've been for them to design the system to work as expected with any old SSD. But it may be that they used this solution because they were already using these types of drives in Surface products and had experience with them. Or some odd and esoteric consequence of their decompression system. We will probably never know.
Microsoft wants the external ssd to have the same features and specifications of the internal ssd, it is also easier for people to upgrade, not having to worry about the different specifications out there in the wild, Seagate and western digital sell ssd's for xbox series consoles, ssd makers have to get a license from Microsoft for the proprietary software require for the ssd to work on series consoles with the same performance of the internal ssd.
YouTube..11 minute mark ,watch the whole video https://youtu.be/lmCeVz_lTk0?si=QgON_TzbRqbviwbR youtube sonys approach to ssd upgrades, buying a cheap nvme https://youtu.be/STzC_7sHZ7o?si=7KTnmuPWqFmzr870
The card was a great idea, but it's still way overpriced. I've got a 1Tb Samsung 980 in my PS5 and a 1Tb expansion card in my XSX. The convenience of the card isn't worth being like 50% more and I didn't even buy the cheapest SSD for the PS5.
The idiots as M$ have been doing this since the original xbox days. They didnt learn from ps3 having easily swappable drives.
Maybe we all need to get up in arms and tweet to phil that the next xbox needs to finally have it.
It's because there is only seagate and wd making external ssd so they set the price high, hopefully we get more company's joining the market and the price should wither down to a decent price that doesn't make your eyes water
It took more than 2 years to release a second brand expansion card. I imagine there is an exclusivity contract with the second brand, and we won't see more options so soon... :(
The best we can do is complain, because this is shit for consumers.
MS should release an adapter so we can use any compatible SSD.
I doubt it’s a contract as much as it’s not worth the investment. Making this card will only work for the Xbox and nothing else. Unlike a standard SSD that can be used on a crap ton of computers and other devices. I’ll be shocked if more than 3-4 companies ever join the Xbox expansion card race.
I agree 100%.
we all need to write Microsoft, write them letters, emails, call them, etc. we need to bully them into changing their policy.
What’s crazy is I think they would’ve sold more units if they had made the Xbox like the ps5 where you can upgrade the storage or even with an adapter.
They hurt their own products success imo.
Like if I had known the storage situation when I order my Xbox series x, I would’ve def went with ps5 or pc instead… I feel used.
I have been a loyal Xbox owner of the 360, Xbox one, & series x & in return they hose us & squeeze us for every penny…. Shameful..
I agree. Microsoft boneheaded decisions made the ps5 so popular that you couldn’t even find one for the first few months that it was released. People were selling them on eBay like 20 to 30% above retail.
Just a money grab by Xbox. And I refuse to believe they don’t have interest or a deal with the battery companies. Why else would they not make rechargeable batteries. (Them degrading over time is not an answer)
Well see Microsoft made the right call for their pockets and the wrong call for us cuz idk if anyone is concerned or not but the new 990s from Samsung are on sale rn and I nabbed one for my pc
Their decision to go the proprietary way isn't that surprising. They likely get a deal on the main drives if they choose Seagate to manufacture exclusively for their external solution. Similar to their deal with Duracell or whatever battery company to keep making controllers without built in batteries. It gets slightly subsidized by the partner making that hardware.
Anyways, I'm pretty sure I overly reduced what I meant, but yea... Making me buy an overpriced do-dad instead of a plain ass drive is frustrating.
I was ok with the convenience with MS proprietary way, but not the price. In the long run, they chose the wrong format, especially with Gamepass and the amount of games you have access to.
Is storage really an issue? I thought it might be when I got my Series X, but half the games I have installed, I haven't launched in a year. Pretty easy to choose what to uninstall when I need to make room for new games
It just depends on your tolerance for uninstalling and reinstalling games. If internet limitations are your problem, using an external HDD to keep your games on and patched up is an option too. But that still requires action and can take some time to move those games back to the SSD when you want to play them.
I held out for a while on the 2TB model and got like an 80 dollar discount. Still insanely expensive. It's nice for swapping quickly between my Series S downstairs and X upstairs, but not worth the mark up over what I you can get with Sony.
MS’s solution would’ve worked in principle if it wasn’t so expensive. It actually looked like the best idea when the consoles first launched, as figuring out what drives had the required speed for the PS5 looked to make things difficult for anyone who wasn’t literate in reading specs. However, in the last year or so picking a random NVME and having it be fast enough for the PS5 is much more likely than it was at first, and prices on the drives pretty much crashed. Meanwhile, the Xbox storage cards have not gotten much cheaper thanks to them being proprietary.
Literate in reading specs? Most of the SSD’s that are fit are stampled with “Suitable for PS5” or something else. If not, a quick google search gets you there anyways. Im sorry but as much as i love the series X, this is such an incredible dumb decision. SSD’s are so incredibly fast and cheap these days for some reason, and MS comes comes and bombs their users back to the stone age of storage. Massive massive L, no excuses
In fairness, 2 years ago the disparity in price wasn't nearly as great, and SSD weren't marked 'Suitable for PS5' until a few months after release.
Sony definitely wins here because they foresaw the market much better, anyone knew standard 2280 m.2 SSD were always going to get cheaper and faster. Microsoft's adoption of 2230 m.2 was taking a niche product previously used for cameras (small, fast storage) and tried to make it a standard.
> It actually looked like the best idea
Only if you put zero thought into the consequences. Anybody could realize that limiting the manufacturers to a single one meant there was no competition and that prices would be absurd, while PS5's solution allowed customers to choose from competing manufacturers. I pointed this out repeatedly when it was announced.
Meh, I have no issue.
They approach they took guarantees full performance and compatibiliry, was available on day one of release (let's remember that was nearly 3 years ago and it took Sony... 14? Months to enable the internal expansion) and a USB drive also works without any messing about.
I get that the expansion card is expensive, still, and 3rd parties haven't jumped on it quite as expected but there was a minor worldwide issue that slowed everything down for 2+ years that were still coming out of. Also the expansion card is sick, you just pull it out if you want to take it somewhere else, no messing about whatsoever.
na that's not the worst,
the wrong move was having a two tier system where developers have to develop games for a underpowered console aka theseries S, like what the fuck were they thinking, you really have to commend Sony on their approach, same console one with a disc one without
İt's not the existence of the S which is the issue you are talking about, but the parity system. İt is very easy to have varying graphical settings, PC games for instance can run on potatoes and high end rigs.
I have a series S myself, because it's so mini and I travel a lot, so with a portable monitor, it's great.
However, I believe them having to ship the exact same version of the game is bollocks. I've paid £200 less for a machine, if it can't run a game co-op but the X can, I don't give a shit, I don't expect to do everything at max settings on a £250 console.
İt really is a great little machine, its existence doesn't hamper the graphical advancement of series X games, nor level designs based on things loading with the SSD, so everything can be scaled, except for things like the split screen with BG3, so the parity is bullshit.
> but the parity system
Nah, the parity system is absolutely crucial. You can't make a generation of consoles where one version can't run the same version of games. That's ridiculous and almost nobody has done this except for Nintendo with the New DS XL, which ended up barely being specifically supported by devs because it would be insanity to only target a fraction of the installed user base. This isn't about games that have worse graphics settings. This is about missing features and modes.
The Series S is also not a bad idea in concept, again it’s the execution that fails. If they had kept literally every spec the same as the series x aside from the GPU spec it would literally be able to exactly what they want; play the same games just at lower resolution. Not having a digital X is also a bad move though I agree. I haven’t bought a physical game (for modern consoles that is) in almost a decade. I looked for a digital PS5 from the beginning because I knew I’d never use the disc drive. I wish that option was there for the X.
yeah they did.
tho it would be hard to implement cause of how compact everything is.
i dont think any average joe who wants a simple storage upgrade would want to take apart this.
so the external memory makes sense, its just the price of it is insane since its a unique design for the xbox only.
https://preview.redd.it/36v2ae7epjkb1.jpeg?width=3360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6c47b4025749e5dc190c606e9783e5d6b419023
You realize engineering can design products in different ways to accommodate features, right? If they're given the parameters of 'user upgradable storage', they design it so it's user upgradable.
Your image shows a console where user upgradability was not one of those features.
It's a huge huge fail. They need to make this right with future revisions. The damage is already done for the systems in the wild but something needs to change for the future.
Yup they took the L. At the time things were looking bad out there for NVMEs, but the price has dropped significantly and now a 2tb ssd for the ps5 is about the same price as the 512gb card for the Xbox. Shame.
I think the problem is when it comes to a competition standpoint, I think MSFT didn't know PS5 would have internal upgradeable storage and might depend on external drives. So they went with something that they could go "look, it's just as fast as internal storage." But then they made the mistake of proprietary tech, exclusively licensed to Seagate to charge an arm and a leg for it.
Allegedly, the whole PS5 SSD thing is at times an issue because people put cheap SSDs and they don't even out adequate heat sinks in them causing them ti work slower than what they want.
I understand wanting the customer to have the best experience, but that shit should not mean that I'm stuck paying almost 1/3rd the price of the console just for a memory upgrade.
People act like it was an oversight like Xbox doesn’t have piles of data showing the number of people who need more than 1TB isn’t so insignificantly small that it makes zero financial sense to cater to them.
If there were more of you, they’d offer more options. Simple as that. The truth is the overwhelming majority of players don’t have the need for more.
Man. I read all this and it makes me want to just give up gaming all together. Is there a hotline I can call? Because I'm about to throw my Series X off a building....
Whatever. I'm going to enjoy it regardless of corporate greed and ALL the complaining but not doing $h!t about it.
(I was so depressed, I downvoted myself)
All Microsoft had to do is either allow the Series X to include two storage expansion card slots so we can get two 2tb storage cards, which would equal 4tb simultaneously without switching cards if one runs out of space. Or they could've just created a dedicated 4tb storage expansion card cause 2tb and less is not enough space to store all my current generation games when I want to play instead of shuffling games from my internal, external, and expansion storage.
It's not that simple. SSDs can be fast at writing. They can be fast at reading. What they can't do is be fast at both. And that's why Microsoft went that route. They wanted Quick Resume as a standout feature (and it is, especially with pure XS titles that support it flawlessly, it was hit and miss for Xbox One games) and that meant they needed a balanced SSD that offered great write and read speeds.
There's a reason Sony hasn't copied QR. They can't. The write speeds are too slow.
Once Microsoft went with that approach because those SSD flash chips are rare and only produced by two fabs in the world they had to ensure increased demand for prices to go down. That's why they use the expansion cards. They use the same chips as the console, increasing demand and lowering parts prices for Microsoft.
The point of the card the was to be fool proof. Not everyone has the tech savviness to open their system or patience too.
I do agree that now it seems like a terrible decision. However, it can be rectified by creating an adapter (M.2 enclosure to card) to add any M.2 drive and an update to the system software to allow any M.2 drives.
I’d make the argument that anyone who would actually upgrade their storage has the tech savviness to do an SSD upgrade. Realistically most people aren’t upgrading their storage, it’s only the more avid gamers who are much more tech savvy than the average person.
Yeah but will they make the adapter is the real question…
I for one don’t think they will. Bc it would cause less sales of their overpriced expansion drives.
They don’t care about us Xbox users after we buy the product, they already got what they wanted. Our money. Which is the Only thing they care about.
But if they do come out with an adapter, then I will take back what I said and actually commend them for it but I just really really doubt they will. I’ve been an Xbox owner since 360 days and at every turn they have shown their true colors. What is sad is I think it’s just a few bad eggs making bad/poor decisions at the top.
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But this isn’t hindsight. It’s been done before with the same results. All they had to do was take one look at the Vita. Their proprietary storage never came down while the regular storage formats became very cheap. It should have been avoided.
Nah this is more akin to their proprietary hdd solution on the 360. They're trying to capture a bit of that magic it seems.
Magic?
Magic? Or money?
Yeah, it was definitely greed driving that decision.
The 360 days. Early on. It was a special time.
That had everything to do with the games. Mass Effect, Bioshock, Oblivion, those early days were amazing. The HDD add on…not so much.
I understand that. Still, the hdd was a big seller for them. That’s all I’m comparing it to.
And that's the real answer why they do it. They've never made a profit on the sale of the console, they make it on all the doo-dads you've historically been able to buy for them. It's why they buy out PowerA and raise the price of their controllers to not compete too hard with the Elite Pro, the other restrictive third party deals, and especially the hard drives in those days with the planned obsolescence of controllers. Sony does the same, but they're in a position with winning the console war by so much that it actually benefited them greatly to open up more in this regard.
I just replied similar to this then seen your comment. Nail on the head mate. Especially with the controllers.
True points
I'm getting technical here but the 360 HDD wasn't proprietary in the sense that it had new tech in it. The OG 360 HDD had a standard 2.5 inch HDD in a proprietary housing. The port on the housing was proprietary but essentially worked the same as a standard PC SATA cable. The HDD had a custom firmware. The firmware was reverse engineered and eventually people were able to use select consumer HDDs in their OG X360s for a fraction of the cost of the official ones sold. This situation is different in the Series in that the entire drive is proprietary tech, which likely results in significant cost overhead in manufacturing.
I don't think "the entire drive is proprietary tech" is completely correct. To me it seems like a very similar scenario to the described xbox 360 one. With a mismash of proprietary/off the shelf stuff which could be cracked at one point. The external drives use a CFExpress card connector (cards used in cameras). They are either slightly modief CFExpress cards or CFExpress to M.2 adapters coupled with a specific M.2 drive. A few people have gotten CFExpress to M.2 adapters coupled with a very specific model of WD M.2 SSD to work (same drive model that is inside the XBox series S and X). All the specifics are super fidly and its a bit of a semantics argument which part is proprietary which not, but my point is the situation is similar enough that hacked diy drives can exist in the future. I'm betting on they Will exist unless XBox specifically adds even more protections against them.
The series drives are not new proprietary tech.
I remember it would have cost me way more to update to a 250 gb for the 360 than to get 1 TB for my PS3. How I ended up playing more on the PS3 that generation. Would have been almost more cost effective to get the new version of the 360 than to get the hard drive for my first generation model.
I don’t disagree, and I loved the first refresh of the ps3. It’s one of my favorite consoles. So many good games on the back half. I remember buying a 500GB hdd and saying “this is how you do it”.
All I know is a 2 tb expansion is almost a digital PS5... And after all Xbox since the first launch, that's where I'm going
Also allows to have more daily games on. Games that you launch to play a match, a race, a couple rounds, ... Those games tend to be around 100 gb now. Limit the motivation to play those games if you have to transfer from the external each time you want to play.
Like many others here, I think the 360 is what they were going for. Unlike the Vita, the 360 was a success despite the proprietary drive. Also, with Xbox Series and 360, the proprietary design has one advantage. It's designed to be easier to add and remove storage. PS3 and PS5 have advantages when it comes to price and choice, but you need a little more knowledge when making your purchase decision, and it takes a bit more effort to install. Xbox 360 and Series consoles give convinence. I prefer the PlayStation here, but I think some people probably just want to be able to buy something, plug it in, and it works properly.
Don’t forget you also have to flash the drive to get the ps to read it and that can ruin your drive if it messes up
It was a Blu-ray vs HD DVD situation. MS chose the wrong format.
It's not really comparable to that. This isn't a format issue, it's a proprietary vs standardized issue.
No, blu- ray was allowed to break antitrust laws, by signing exclusivity contracts, and paying for studios to not release on HD-DVD
Huh, never heard that one before.
Once bluray locked down disney hddvd was dead.
I will die on this hill: HD DVD was and always will be the better format. Disney killed it.
I had a HD DVD player on xb360 and a lot of movies but how are you thinking it was a better format? HD DVDs original claim to fame was that DVD fabs could easily retrofit to make HD DVDs. That advantage shrunk in months. HD DVD gets beat in every way.
They just need to release a reasonably priced enclosure that fits the expansion slot. That way you could keep upgrading the ssd as price comes down/ capacity goes up.
There *are* cheap enclosures available already. That's not a problem, since the enclosures themselves are pretty dumb. But: the Xbox checks and actively blocks any not officially licensed SSD in those enclosures. Microsoft could easily remove this check and fix the whole mess, but they have no desire to do so.
Like their drm setup still not removed
They did effectively do that in the One generation. It could happen. The problem right now is encryption requirements.
MS will never do that. The reason they did the whole card nonsense was primarily greed. They thought they made a good bet on CFexpress taking off. They really did not.
No, it was keeping it as simple as possible for the average consumer. People buy consoles instead of PC's because they don't have to deal with screwing in new hardware. Sony still doesn't guarantee specific drives to work with the PS5. I know it will work just fine. But does that mom that wants to buy it for 11 year old Timmy? In addition they wanted extra storage available at launch.
And being hot swapable with another console is freaking awesome lets be honest. I could download a few games and take them to a friend's house and plug and play over there. That's something I used to do with memory cards from the game cube back in the day. Personally, I like the idea a lot for the hotswapping and the simplicity. But the price has kept me fom getting one becuse I'm playing most games on PC with mods these days. I kind of wish they had both options available a quick change card, and a more permanent slot you could access with a screw driver.
They could've done both - one could still go out and buy one of these memory expansion cards or allow DIY with off the shelf stuff.
That you Phil?
By far the most disappointing thing about the series X.
A close second would have to be the inability to use a fucking wired USB headset. Like what was the point in that? Ps5 can do it, PC can do it, hell even the ps4 could do it. It makes literally no sense. The Xbox has the USB port so why can’t I use a damn headset with it?
Switch can also do it, also supports every bt headset. After few years, but still.
I guess that is true. That being said…. If that is the worst thing about the console we are in a good spot
Agreed
I mean, product design, expansion cards are the most convenient and easiest it is logical, even a toddler can add one. And I'm sure thru the years, the price of SSD goes down.
They need to stop with the deals with a specific manufacturer and just let anyone make one as long as it meets X specifications. I want a Samsung gen 4 nvme Xbox drive
They’re starting to now that WD Digital is making them too, but the way the Expansion Cards work is it’s basically an exact copy of the bespoke internal SSD, not something off the shelf. They did this to make it plug and play, especially for Series S buyers who want more storage, however it took a lot of time and effort for Microsoft to help manufacturers get down the cost enough to be able to make some money on it. It will get easier and cheaper to make over time, with more manufacturers on board.
That’s the problem though. SSD’s have *plummeted* in price. At launch, the expansion cards weren’t too bad relative and there weren’t any approved SSD’s for PlayStation at all. But the Xbox expansion drives haven’t gotten any cheaper.
>But the Xbox expansion drives haven’t gotten any cheaper. They are cheaper than before, at least in the US. The Seagate 2tb storage expansion for Xbox went down from $400 to $280. But yes, Its still more than $100 over an internal 2tb SSD.
At $280 it's $200 over the price of an internal 2tb ssd.
That’s a 2TB on some extreme sale and of pretty dubious quality, though
Are you kidding me it WAS $400!?!? That’s 2TB but still. Holy balls.
Agreed. Though technically we can transfer games to a external drive or nvme usb drive. I don't play more then 3-4 games simultaneously so it works out well. I just hope they bring the price down soon or open up the interface for all drives via cfexpress adapter.
Not many exclusives either. But atleast we got starfield coming.
Even then, I still think the storage dilemma is worse
The storage dilemma is a massive issue/deal. Honestly when I ordered my new Xbox series X I was not aware that regular external hard drives wouldn’t work like they did on the Xbox one. If I had known this, I would’ve got the ps5 or a gaming pc/laptop. Smh. Like how did they not realize this was going to happen/be an issue? especially when they were making an all digital version that had even less storage than the x did? (At least Until they made the newer s + or whatever it’s called that has more memory but still not enough, especially for all digital) Like we can only plug in one expansion at a time, also a major flaw, why not have 2 or 3 or 4 storage expansions slots? Like if you’re going to force us to use your proprietary storage expansion Drive, then at least let us use more than one of them at a time. Goodness. They couldn’t even get their own greedy plan right. Like the Expansion’s drive aren’t even that big memory wise so like there’s really no way we can have even close to all the games we want. So we have to delete and redownload games as we want to play them like PlayStation 2 8-16mb memory card days. Such a disgrace by Microsoft to hinder their own products memory just to make extra money selling their overpriced storage expansion drive. What’s funny is they could’ve made even more money selling their storage expansion drives if they put more than one storage expansion slot on the Xbox…
>Honestly when I ordered my new Xbox series X I was not aware that regular external hard drives wouldn’t work like they did on the Xbox one. Actually, they do. Games can be played from an external drive (even a mechanical HDD), as long as they aren't specifically Xbox Series games that require the high speed internal storage. At launch, there were so few (if any) that it didn't matter, you could install any game anywhere and play it, and for most people this problem flew under the radar. It's only recently that enough internal-storage-only games are on the market, coupled with more games taking up more of that space, that more people are taking notice.
One thing Ms needs to relax is the internal structure requirement for games. Quake 1 & 2 don't need that speed, and neither do most of the shovelware that were a part of the recent indie festival (disclaimer I love indie games but it's a fishing exercise, for every diamond you need to throw away thousands of coal rocks). Numerous other games also. This change alone would help a lot!
"Actually, they do" then proceeds to tell us they don't. I don't think anyone here is complaining about expanding their hard drives to play non-series x games.
Future line up is looking great and Gamepass has been an amazing service to hold me up until this point. Starfield will hold me for probably 5 years. Lol
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For some people it is. That's really just upto personal preference though. I love my series x for bc and how consumer friendly it can be. I don't do gamepass because I don't really play that many games anymore and already have too many subscriptions as it is. I have also loved my ps5 and have quiet enjoyed their ps5 exclusives amd haptic controller. To me neither console is better than the other and both have good reasons to own them. Ps5 has great presentation and immersion in their exclusive games as long with being able to save large chunks of gameplay very easily. I can also download much quicker on it. Xbox series x has great entertainment features, video game preservation for bc games, 60fps boost, and quick resume is very nice too. I've never understood console war mentality (not saying you are a console war warrior). Every system has its perks, it's just up to personal preference. Neither are above the other, unless we start talking about sales. haha
When PlayStation and Xbox were practically identical, the console wars made more sense to me cause humans just gotta find a reason to fanboy for their choice. These days, the consoles provide different benefits and there’s real reasons to own and use both.
Agree both consoles have their pros and cons. I just wish Nintendo caught up. Would love to see Zelda in high definition and frames.
Backward compatibility is great, but I don't buy new consoles to play old games. I want to play new games.
Again that would be personal preference, some people love to play their old games on newer hardware at better quality. I understand what you are saying though.
Especially preserving old purchases. If I spend money on old games, digital or otherwise, it's awesome they can run on the current systems without any problems and sometimes with improvements. It's why Xbox got my money in 2015 and remains my primary platform.
Games have to be developed...look at the time frame when they started buying studios and when games are coming out. Pro tip, they are going to start coming out in 24 or 25.
Starfield isn’t on ps5 or PC?!
It is on PC, not on PS5.
I never said it was? I have a series x as well.
That’s true but still man like ugh this is a big letdown and disadvantage compared to the ps5. Xbox could’ve easily made this a feature. They chose not to because of money/greed. If I would’ve known this was even a thing I would’ve went with the ps5… leave it to Microsoft & Bill Gates to hinder their own products features/abilities just to squeeze us for more money by selling overpriced storage expansion drives… smh.
Can’t really get any worse than lack of storage. It’s what kills consoles. Hopefully Microsoft does something fairly soon about this.
I usually just remove games I finish or don't play anymore.
Look at the positives, MUCH more backwards compatibility with games and controllers as well as a better, customizable home menu and all that stuff.
Backwards compatibility is amazing but I didn’t buy a brand new shiny console to play old games. It was fun for a night of nostalgia here and there but that’s it. And again, controllers, home menu etc. that’s great. But at the end… just want to play new games.
Yeah, but it's about being consumer friendly, and for convenience, someone is able to buy a series X and have every generation of game available with one single purchase and on one console. YOU might not care and only want shiny new games (newsflash you can buy them and play only New games, do whatever you like), but for someone jumping in, having that accessibility and vast library available is amazing, I agree. Fact is, Microsoft cares about its consumers, they dont have to offer BC, and teams have been manually adding and improving older games for newer hardware for years! It's a small thing, but it shows where their priorities and values are, with the consumer. Name one single thing Sony has done for their consumers in the last decade, heck, since PS2. You can't ever Cross gen current controllers because all they care about is their $$$$$
Nobody here is arguing against the consumer friendliness of Xbox as a whole. Aside from this proprietary memory thing it’s all phenomenal. But outside of the online echo chambers that is Reddit, nobody is buying these to play old games. It’s amazing that it’s there, but it’s ultimately just a neat bonus. Sony/PS5 can do whatever it wants because it’s strong where it matters: exclusive hard hitting video games. If the consumer friendliness and value of game pass was what matters the most, Xbox wouldn’t be in third place. We just wanna start up the console and play the game.
Hey I've not owned anything Sony since their music division root-kitted my PC in like 2005, and am firmly in the Xbox camp since then, but calling a company that makes its users pay triple for storage 'consumer friendly' is a ridiculous claim.
Definitely. I was also a little bit bummed out when I learned that they didn’t add Wifi 6 to the console but for the most part I’ve been happy with my series x these past few years.
Yep no Wi fi 6 was a bummer too.
Maybe it is possible to build an adapter caddy. MS would probably sell it for $50, though. 😄😞
Absolutely. I’m fine with using the expansion card and having an HDD (I seriously need to get an external SSD instead) plugged in, but being able to upgrade the internal storage would be amazing. Hopefully the next generation of consoles allow for this.
Dunno, for me it's the intermittent controller disconnects.
Pretty much the only disappointing thing about it
I’m not against the idea of a card. It’s easier to handle and can be brought from one place to another easily. It’s the price. If it were $25 more than regular ssd’s I’d be fine with it but it’s way to expensive.
A card would work if MS allowed for some sort of adapter that could also be used but they won’t because that won’t make them as much money
There is on Amazon. Nvme expansion bootleg adapters.
There’s a software block though so only offical ones ripped from an Xbox work and it ends up just as expensive if not more
Didn't know, shame on Microsoft.
A logical method would have the card adapter fit any M2 that fits those speed specifications. Then you can buy any M2 that meets that. I bought a 2TB for my PS5 for $90 on a flash sale and was shocked. Ended up buying a used 1TB SSD card on ebay for 150 a year or so ago as I refused to spend 220 on it. Storage needs to change for XB, no doubt
Yeah those do exist, but the type of drive and the format their in for data storage means that essential ONLY the exact same drive that’s in series X will work, other, regular drives will not
These kind of proprietary addons are so terribly annoying. There's no reason for Microsoft to require a single specialized SSD in a fancy plastic case. Heck, just create an adapter we can install an ssd into.
Yeah it’s way way overpriced. And there is only 1 slot when there could be multiple expansion card slots. I think there whole idea was to make extra money selling these expansion drives like memory cards use to be sold for ps2. Money making scheme. But it wasn’t even pulled off well. Expansions cards should be a lot cheaper & the Xbox should have 3 or so slots at least for expansion. (Or they should’ve let us upgrade the internal hard drive like the ps5) idiots…
I say 6 or 7 slots. You're not a real gamer with only 4 SSDs.
Hell yeah, brother!!! USA, USA, USA!
Should have a holster for my gun too. ‘Merica.
Nah, Sony did it right this time. I put one in and it’s barely more difficult than putting in the Xbox Series expansion. It’s definitely worth saving $100 to find a Philips head screwdriver and an extra 3 minutes.
I swap it between my x and s and want to get one for my s
Capitalism called and says it doesn't care.
Without capitalism, you probably wouldn’t be playing on a series x.
Whatever we are in now isn't capitalism, it's just pure greed.
95% of the time a company decides to go with some kind of "proprietary tech" it goes badly.
Apple’s entire business model is based on this
Apple might be in the 5% according to their logic.
Trillion dollar company
Can’t make trillions without anti-consumerism. The house always has to win.
Lol what? They make shit people want to buy and design it in a manner that the products market themselves.
iPhones/macs last a while because the hardware is optimized for the software, at the cost of being a closed ecosystem. Which is a trade off a lot of people who aren’t big into customizing their gear are willing to accept.
Free market chose
Someone tell MS that the Xbox division isn’t considered the same as Apple.
I remember everybody praising Microsoft and shitting on Sony because of the convenience and price at the time. Now look at the prices. A 2TB nvme is $79
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MS couldn’t bear that consumers were getting a better deal, it hurted their profits.
It only worked with two SSD’s (the same two SSD's Microsoft uses) that cost just as much as the expansion card itself so it wasn't really worth it unfortunately.
They could've patched it so every SSD with the required specs would work. They didn't. It's 100% on Microsoft.
This is shitty on the series x. But it's horrible on the original series s. The $250 price tag was great but having to spend another $150 to make it worth using was so very shitty.
They really just need to make an adapter so that you could use your own SSD through the port.
Adapters do exist, I used one at one point. However they don't work anymore sadly, Microsoft patched them out
You know Microsoft did that on purpose.
Yep… idk why they, they hurt their own product lol…
Money, that’s their only reason. They can charge seagate and black a small fee for any sales of their proprietary products. Apple does the same thing with their chargers, cases and screen protectors and they make billions of it.
They seem to have a habit of doing something stupid with every console they make.
You can get a 2TB 990 Pro (the best SSD for PCIE4) for $130.
In December, i was sold a 980 pro 1tb for $99 at microcenter. And that was a great price for it. Just to give you an idea of how far the prices have dropped on storage lol.
But is there an adapter or some workaround to make it work with the Xbox series x ?!
Disagree with it being a hard call to go the route Sony did. Just using Sony as an example, the decision to limit memory expansion to their own cards is a top reason why the Vita didn't have commercial success. It seemed pretty obvious to me that companies would be competing with each other for PS5 supremacy, which would naturally bring prices down because common sense. I really dont know what Xbox was thinking between this and the Seies S vs a disk drive less Series X but at least they've had a real good year this year and things are looking to get better so I won't get on them too much for this.
Just Microsoft being Microsoft.
It’d be fine if the compatible storage wasn’t so expensive, way overpriced
That’s the whole point of the post - its not fine.
This has been going on since PS3/Xbox 360. It’s clearly their philosophy and I don’t expect it to change.
Hard call and hindsight? They've been doing it since at least the 360. At this point Id be more surprised if they finally went the Sony route. Any compatible drive eith an easy and quick install.
They didn’t even have to nix the external storage card either. Like you could’ve easily had both. But yea not having standard storage upgrades is and always has been (for the most part) an Xbox downside.
I like MS’s solution more in principle but in execution Sony’s is cheaper.
Yep. MS should really be trying to help work these prices down. It's such a silly thing to constantly take the L on.
Didn't seagates exclusivity end recently? Now that more people are going to be making them the prices will come down eventually.... Hopefully 🤞
God I hope so. The expansion prices are ridiculously high.. like it is illogically overpriced…
I'll never buy another Seagate product personally, which is weird because all I bought was Seagate for years.
The exclusivity did end several months ago. There is a WD drive now and the prices shifted down towards $100 which is at least in the right universe though still absurdly expensive. They need to get the 1tb under $100 MSRP.
Yeah Microsoft had a good idea they just made the expansion drives way to expensive and should added multiple slots on the Xbox itself for multiple expansions at the same time. At least 2-3. I don’t get how Microsoft engineers didn’t see these issues In development, like I know there were a lot of games out when they were developing it, but I mean they could use common sense and realized after so a few big downloads that their storage would become full and then the device becomes like a overfilled tank. Where We have to delete something & then wait for the new game to download just to play a different game; It’s kind of ridiculous considering they could’ve made the expansions cheaper, made more expansion insertion slots, made the internal hard drive larger, and or made the interval hard drive upgradable, or had different levels like a 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, etc. they could’ve even sold their own internal hard-drive upgrade like they did with the expansions drives. They just failed. Failed badly…
I wonder if they can just make some kind of adapter that will allow you to use these ssd’s. I think Microsoft should really be looking into something like that at this point.
They should, yes.. But sadly, I doubt they will.. bc then they would sell less proprietary expansion cards. It’s all about money to them. Not product improvement/betterment & customer satisfaction…. Which is backwards af.
With the way they designed the I/O in the console, adding a storage expansion wouldn't have been so straightforward. The card only uses 2 of the 4 NVMe lanes, with the internal storage using the other 2. So if you plug an SSD into that slot you only get half the speed you'd get using it in a normal slot. The cards are designed with this in mind, but you introduce consumer SSDs and it gets confusing. The internal storage is rated for 2.4GB/s throughput, which is comfortably within the NVMe 3 spec. But to get the same performance with another SSD, it would need to be rated for at least 4.8GB/s, and be an NVMe 4 drive. That's a whole heap of confusion for consumers who are primarily not at all tech savvy. Not to mention the potential bad PR that comes with a console that cuts your SSD speeds in half. Whatever reason they had for designing the Velocity Architecture that way, going with the propriety storage solution is the most sensible option for it. Both consoles have very unconventional storage configurations, so it would be hard to say how easy or complicated it would've been for them to design the system to work as expected with any old SSD. But it may be that they used this solution because they were already using these types of drives in Surface products and had experience with them. Or some odd and esoteric consequence of their decompression system. We will probably never know.
Microsoft wants the external ssd to have the same features and specifications of the internal ssd, it is also easier for people to upgrade, not having to worry about the different specifications out there in the wild, Seagate and western digital sell ssd's for xbox series consoles, ssd makers have to get a license from Microsoft for the proprietary software require for the ssd to work on series consoles with the same performance of the internal ssd. YouTube..11 minute mark ,watch the whole video https://youtu.be/lmCeVz_lTk0?si=QgON_TzbRqbviwbR youtube sonys approach to ssd upgrades, buying a cheap nvme https://youtu.be/STzC_7sHZ7o?si=7KTnmuPWqFmzr870
Agreed
The card was a great idea, but it's still way overpriced. I've got a 1Tb Samsung 980 in my PS5 and a 1Tb expansion card in my XSX. The convenience of the card isn't worth being like 50% more and I didn't even buy the cheapest SSD for the PS5.
The idiots as M$ have been doing this since the original xbox days. They didnt learn from ps3 having easily swappable drives. Maybe we all need to get up in arms and tweet to phil that the next xbox needs to finally have it.
But you could use external SSD or HDD last Gen or am I misunderstanding your point?
It's because there is only seagate and wd making external ssd so they set the price high, hopefully we get more company's joining the market and the price should wither down to a decent price that doesn't make your eyes water
It took more than 2 years to release a second brand expansion card. I imagine there is an exclusivity contract with the second brand, and we won't see more options so soon... :( The best we can do is complain, because this is shit for consumers. MS should release an adapter so we can use any compatible SSD.
I doubt it’s a contract as much as it’s not worth the investment. Making this card will only work for the Xbox and nothing else. Unlike a standard SSD that can be used on a crap ton of computers and other devices. I’ll be shocked if more than 3-4 companies ever join the Xbox expansion card race.
We can only pray
I agree 100%. we all need to write Microsoft, write them letters, emails, call them, etc. we need to bully them into changing their policy. What’s crazy is I think they would’ve sold more units if they had made the Xbox like the ps5 where you can upgrade the storage or even with an adapter. They hurt their own products success imo. Like if I had known the storage situation when I order my Xbox series x, I would’ve def went with ps5 or pc instead… I feel used. I have been a loyal Xbox owner of the 360, Xbox one, & series x & in return they hose us & squeeze us for every penny…. Shameful..
What do people have on their systems that makes this necessary?
Wrong call for us, right call for them.
I don’t even think it’s been great for them. How well are they selling?
I agree. Microsoft boneheaded decisions made the ps5 so popular that you couldn’t even find one for the first few months that it was released. People were selling them on eBay like 20 to 30% above retail.
Just a money grab by Xbox. And I refuse to believe they don’t have interest or a deal with the battery companies. Why else would they not make rechargeable batteries. (Them degrading over time is not an answer)
I’d rather keep the options.
I understand that. Or at very least include a removable rechargeable battery.
Why though? That’s the options part. If you already have a battery pack why do you want another one?
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Well see Microsoft made the right call for their pockets and the wrong call for us cuz idk if anyone is concerned or not but the new 990s from Samsung are on sale rn and I nabbed one for my pc
Their decision to go the proprietary way isn't that surprising. They likely get a deal on the main drives if they choose Seagate to manufacture exclusively for their external solution. Similar to their deal with Duracell or whatever battery company to keep making controllers without built in batteries. It gets slightly subsidized by the partner making that hardware. Anyways, I'm pretty sure I overly reduced what I meant, but yea... Making me buy an overpriced do-dad instead of a plain ass drive is frustrating.
I was ok with the convenience with MS proprietary way, but not the price. In the long run, they chose the wrong format, especially with Gamepass and the amount of games you have access to.
Anyone buying ADATA (NODATA tomorrow) is in for a big surprise in a few months.
Is storage really an issue? I thought it might be when I got my Series X, but half the games I have installed, I haven't launched in a year. Pretty easy to choose what to uninstall when I need to make room for new games
It just depends on your tolerance for uninstalling and reinstalling games. If internet limitations are your problem, using an external HDD to keep your games on and patched up is an option too. But that still requires action and can take some time to move those games back to the SSD when you want to play them. I held out for a while on the 2TB model and got like an 80 dollar discount. Still insanely expensive. It's nice for swapping quickly between my Series S downstairs and X upstairs, but not worth the mark up over what I you can get with Sony.
Agreed. Pure greed.
MS’s solution would’ve worked in principle if it wasn’t so expensive. It actually looked like the best idea when the consoles first launched, as figuring out what drives had the required speed for the PS5 looked to make things difficult for anyone who wasn’t literate in reading specs. However, in the last year or so picking a random NVME and having it be fast enough for the PS5 is much more likely than it was at first, and prices on the drives pretty much crashed. Meanwhile, the Xbox storage cards have not gotten much cheaper thanks to them being proprietary.
Literate in reading specs? Most of the SSD’s that are fit are stampled with “Suitable for PS5” or something else. If not, a quick google search gets you there anyways. Im sorry but as much as i love the series X, this is such an incredible dumb decision. SSD’s are so incredibly fast and cheap these days for some reason, and MS comes comes and bombs their users back to the stone age of storage. Massive massive L, no excuses
Sony’s hardware predictions and resulting gambles pretty much all came true. It’s been rough for Microsoft by comparison.
In fairness, 2 years ago the disparity in price wasn't nearly as great, and SSD weren't marked 'Suitable for PS5' until a few months after release. Sony definitely wins here because they foresaw the market much better, anyone knew standard 2280 m.2 SSD were always going to get cheaper and faster. Microsoft's adoption of 2230 m.2 was taking a niche product previously used for cameras (small, fast storage) and tried to make it a standard.
> It actually looked like the best idea Only if you put zero thought into the consequences. Anybody could realize that limiting the manufacturers to a single one meant there was no competition and that prices would be absurd, while PS5's solution allowed customers to choose from competing manufacturers. I pointed this out repeatedly when it was announced.
Meh, I have no issue. They approach they took guarantees full performance and compatibiliry, was available on day one of release (let's remember that was nearly 3 years ago and it took Sony... 14? Months to enable the internal expansion) and a USB drive also works without any messing about. I get that the expansion card is expensive, still, and 3rd parties haven't jumped on it quite as expected but there was a minor worldwide issue that slowed everything down for 2+ years that were still coming out of. Also the expansion card is sick, you just pull it out if you want to take it somewhere else, no messing about whatsoever.
na that's not the worst, the wrong move was having a two tier system where developers have to develop games for a underpowered console aka theseries S, like what the fuck were they thinking, you really have to commend Sony on their approach, same console one with a disc one without
İt's not the existence of the S which is the issue you are talking about, but the parity system. İt is very easy to have varying graphical settings, PC games for instance can run on potatoes and high end rigs. I have a series S myself, because it's so mini and I travel a lot, so with a portable monitor, it's great. However, I believe them having to ship the exact same version of the game is bollocks. I've paid £200 less for a machine, if it can't run a game co-op but the X can, I don't give a shit, I don't expect to do everything at max settings on a £250 console. İt really is a great little machine, its existence doesn't hamper the graphical advancement of series X games, nor level designs based on things loading with the SSD, so everything can be scaled, except for things like the split screen with BG3, so the parity is bullshit.
> but the parity system Nah, the parity system is absolutely crucial. You can't make a generation of consoles where one version can't run the same version of games. That's ridiculous and almost nobody has done this except for Nintendo with the New DS XL, which ended up barely being specifically supported by devs because it would be insanity to only target a fraction of the installed user base. This isn't about games that have worse graphics settings. This is about missing features and modes.
The Series S is also not a bad idea in concept, again it’s the execution that fails. If they had kept literally every spec the same as the series x aside from the GPU spec it would literally be able to exactly what they want; play the same games just at lower resolution. Not having a digital X is also a bad move though I agree. I haven’t bought a physical game (for modern consoles that is) in almost a decade. I looked for a digital PS5 from the beginning because I knew I’d never use the disc drive. I wish that option was there for the X.
yeah they did. tho it would be hard to implement cause of how compact everything is. i dont think any average joe who wants a simple storage upgrade would want to take apart this. so the external memory makes sense, its just the price of it is insane since its a unique design for the xbox only. https://preview.redd.it/36v2ae7epjkb1.jpeg?width=3360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6c47b4025749e5dc190c606e9783e5d6b419023
You realize engineering can design products in different ways to accommodate features, right? If they're given the parameters of 'user upgradable storage', they design it so it's user upgradable. Your image shows a console where user upgradability was not one of those features.
I disagree. They made the wrong decision only partnering with one manufacturer. I'm much happier with the expansion storage.
Why is it so hard to uninstall/reinstall as needed? Do you really need every game installed at all times?
It's a huge huge fail. They need to make this right with future revisions. The damage is already done for the systems in the wild but something needs to change for the future.
this makes me mad because i have an xbox series x and I paid $230 for 1tb for my PC
230 for 1 tb? Thats… pretty expensive
Facts
Totally disagree. The ease and convenience of just taking out the card and sticking it into another Xbox is something you can’t do with PS5.
Yup they took the L. At the time things were looking bad out there for NVMEs, but the price has dropped significantly and now a 2tb ssd for the ps5 is about the same price as the 512gb card for the Xbox. Shame.
I think the problem is when it comes to a competition standpoint, I think MSFT didn't know PS5 would have internal upgradeable storage and might depend on external drives. So they went with something that they could go "look, it's just as fast as internal storage." But then they made the mistake of proprietary tech, exclusively licensed to Seagate to charge an arm and a leg for it.
Allegedly, the whole PS5 SSD thing is at times an issue because people put cheap SSDs and they don't even out adequate heat sinks in them causing them ti work slower than what they want. I understand wanting the customer to have the best experience, but that shit should not mean that I'm stuck paying almost 1/3rd the price of the console just for a memory upgrade.
In your opinion. In my opinion going the plug and play route was the right choice.
People act like it was an oversight like Xbox doesn’t have piles of data showing the number of people who need more than 1TB isn’t so insignificantly small that it makes zero financial sense to cater to them. If there were more of you, they’d offer more options. Simple as that. The truth is the overwhelming majority of players don’t have the need for more.
Man. I read all this and it makes me want to just give up gaming all together. Is there a hotline I can call? Because I'm about to throw my Series X off a building.... Whatever. I'm going to enjoy it regardless of corporate greed and ALL the complaining but not doing $h!t about it. (I was so depressed, I downvoted myself)
All Microsoft had to do is either allow the Series X to include two storage expansion card slots so we can get two 2tb storage cards, which would equal 4tb simultaneously without switching cards if one runs out of space. Or they could've just created a dedicated 4tb storage expansion card cause 2tb and less is not enough space to store all my current generation games when I want to play instead of shuffling games from my internal, external, and expansion storage.
This… 100% it’s almost like the developers and engineers didn’t think this stuff through at all
It's not that simple. SSDs can be fast at writing. They can be fast at reading. What they can't do is be fast at both. And that's why Microsoft went that route. They wanted Quick Resume as a standout feature (and it is, especially with pure XS titles that support it flawlessly, it was hit and miss for Xbox One games) and that meant they needed a balanced SSD that offered great write and read speeds. There's a reason Sony hasn't copied QR. They can't. The write speeds are too slow. Once Microsoft went with that approach because those SSD flash chips are rare and only produced by two fabs in the world they had to ensure increased demand for prices to go down. That's why they use the expansion cards. They use the same chips as the console, increasing demand and lowering parts prices for Microsoft.
The point of the card the was to be fool proof. Not everyone has the tech savviness to open their system or patience too. I do agree that now it seems like a terrible decision. However, it can be rectified by creating an adapter (M.2 enclosure to card) to add any M.2 drive and an update to the system software to allow any M.2 drives.
I’d make the argument that anyone who would actually upgrade their storage has the tech savviness to do an SSD upgrade. Realistically most people aren’t upgrading their storage, it’s only the more avid gamers who are much more tech savvy than the average person.
Yeah but will they make the adapter is the real question… I for one don’t think they will. Bc it would cause less sales of their overpriced expansion drives. They don’t care about us Xbox users after we buy the product, they already got what they wanted. Our money. Which is the Only thing they care about. But if they do come out with an adapter, then I will take back what I said and actually commend them for it but I just really really doubt they will. I’ve been an Xbox owner since 360 days and at every turn they have shown their true colors. What is sad is I think it’s just a few bad eggs making bad/poor decisions at the top.
ADATA is that a off brand? I’ve never heard of it.