It looks like the Xbox 360 will be getting USB mass storage support in Spring 2010. That’s the story from Joystiq, which obtained some nifty documentation and screenshots that show the console supporting USB storage. Here are some additional details:
According to the document, the USB mass storage device must be at least 1GB and the system will do a compatibility check. “The system partition occupies 512 MB of space, and by default the consumer partition occupies the remainder of the device capacity, or 16 GB, whichever is smaller.” Upon inserting a blank USB storage device, “consumers are offered two choices: ‘Configure now’ or ‘Customize’.” The “Configure now” option will use “the entire device capacity, up to the maximum of 512 MB plus 16 GB” meaning, regardless of the overall size of the device you’re using, the Xbox will only enable 16 GB of usable, non-system storage.
It’s great that the Xbox 360 will be supporting standard storage, but it kind of sucks that it’s limited to 16GB. It would have been nice if gamers could buy a standard USB hard drive instead of the proprietary and overpriced units sold by Microsoft. Looking on the bright side of life (always do this), at least overpriced memory units will soon be obsolete, hey?
What do you think of the upcoming USB storage support? Will it be useful? Or is 16GB of storage not enough?
@ Iceman
Arguably, you can have MULTIPLE 16 GB flash drives you can stuff data on.
This actually isn't that bad. I wonder if the xbox will recognize an already partitioned usb drive? in other words…say i have a 250gb drive…can't i just partition it into many 16gb modules?
This is quite nice if it isn't picky about xbox live profiles.
if it's too good to be true, then it is.
@N8R
I'm sure they have a way to prevent multiple USB drives because if they don't then that's a sure fire way to get around getting ripped off for a HDD and Microsoft won't stand for that.
@ RROD
It could still get equally expensive. We'll see. I don't know how they could without being obvious dicks about it. We'll see though.
@N8R
Well, they did set a 16gb limit didn't they?
this is interesting news. hopefully this will be able to support 3rd party usb drives, otherwise I don't really see the point.
Of course this also makes sense considering I was reading other people's comments about an xbox360 slim and how the hdd would be difficult to place on a unit like that because it is the width of the 360 itself…switching to usb drives does offer at least a bit of reasoning for what they could be planning on for the supposed xbox360 slim.
I have a 1tb drive sitting at home. Please, lift the limit Microsoft. Please…
@RRODisHere Joystiq claims that the limit is two drives. I don't know if that's per console or per account. I'm guessing it's the former.
@Raymond Padilla
Figures.
“According to the document, the USB mass storage device must be at least 1GB and the system will do a compatibility check.”
Does this mean that Microsoft will sell insanely overpriced proprietary USB drives and not allow 3rd party USB drives?
LOL @ RROD;
I was thinking the same thing. But, no, I interpret the article to mean that schmucks like me can buy a 16 GB flash drive on eBay… er, Amazon (through RPad.tv, of course) and use it to complement my 20 GB HDD that came with the Xbox. If this is the case, then it is a step in the right direction. I hate having to carefully decide what to keep and what to delete on my currently almost-full hard drive, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay Microsoft another penny for a grossly overpriced HDD upgrade. At least this way, I’ll have another extra 16 GB of stuff I can save on another more affordable drive.
-M
@Iceman
That’s perfectly understandable and I totally agree with you.
If Iceman’s analogy is correct, that basically means that it makes your game saves more portable. Like if you want to play Fallout 3 somewhere else and you bought all the DLC. You can take your flashdrive alone if your friend already has the disk.
at least it is something