Wednesday, September 23rd 2020
Xbox Series X/S 1 TB NVMe Expansion Module Will Cost £159
The Xbox Series X & S consoles are now available to pre-order and come with 1 TB and 512 GB custom NVMe storage drives respectively. The two consoles both feature a custom port for an Xbox Storage card which features the same custom NVMe technology used in the internal drives. The consoles can still be expanded via an external USB storage device but will be limited by the bandwidth of USB 3.2.
The Xbox Series S will only support digital games and with the rise of Xbox Game Pass and ever-increasing game sizes the internal drive will quickly be exhausted. The price for a 1 TB expansion module will be £159 (~ 200 USD) which is fair considering the speeds offered by the drive and the mandatory Microsoft tax. The expansion modules do represent a considerate cost in comparison to the consoles with the 1 TB expansion module costing over 60% of the MSRP for an Xbox Series S.
Source:
Smyths Toys (via Games Radar)
The Xbox Series S will only support digital games and with the rise of Xbox Game Pass and ever-increasing game sizes the internal drive will quickly be exhausted. The price for a 1 TB expansion module will be £159 (~ 200 USD) which is fair considering the speeds offered by the drive and the mandatory Microsoft tax. The expansion modules do represent a considerate cost in comparison to the consoles with the 1 TB expansion module costing over 60% of the MSRP for an Xbox Series S.
35 Comments on Xbox Series X/S 1 TB NVMe Expansion Module Will Cost £159
www.polygon.com/2020/9/24/21454190/xbox-series-x-storage-expansion-card-price-seagate-ssd-1-tb-buy
"I expect issues with PS5 owners who don't understand PCIe 3.0 vs PCIe 4.0, and other such details. M.2 drives will all fit in the connector, but only some of them will be fast enough to work. "
This is my thought as well. With the SSD being a core component of the over all system arch for asset streaming (opposed to earlier generations where the HDD was just for cold storage or to load from instead of an optical disc) it will be imperative to have a correctly specced NVME drive to get the intended performance/compatibility. Again, I'm talking about the mass market console consumers here, not the enthusiasts such as us. An example, walk into WalMart's video game section and randomly ask customers if they even know what an NVME drive is in the first place. I would guess a large portion do not, much less have a clue what pcie gen 3/gen 4 is, or even know where to start as far as choosing/purchasing the correct one. Then, ask them to purchase for you a particular MS or Sony branded peripheral for a given system. I would guess that before they leave the store that most could probably pull that off. This was my thinking as to why I felt MS chose correctly. They have to target the majority of their buyers.
Now with that said, as an enthusiast I DO like that Sony gives that option for sure, I am with you from that perspective. It's just that we are a small minority of the overall market. It feels like Sony may be opening a can of worms. I think they could still offer a "Sony Brand" plug n play SSD similar to Xbox, while still giving the same option to upgrade yourself. That way the people without a clue can still upgrade their system easily and to spec, no thinking involved.
Sony knows what mistake they made with the Vita, and they're not making it again. Microsoft hasn't had the pleasure of dealing with this problem yet. Yeah, MicroSD cards could be "lower class" and too slow for the Vita or a Phone, or whatever, or maybe you want quality control. There's lots of good reasons to think this is a good idea.
Unfortunately, any "specialized" memory device is going to become exorbitantly expensive. There's no reason for the various memory producers to make XBox-branded SKUs, when they'd rather make a single M.2 form factor that works in the Laptop, Server, Desktop, AND PS5 market.Ah, I see. Well, I was stating that as a "lesser of two evils" thing. Sure, some people will have some issues if they take a screwdriver to their PS5 and start throwing parts into it. But the benefits are superior. The damage to the brand would be great when the XBox-specific memory stick prices go out-of-sync with the general M.2 prices.
But guess what? MicroSD cards got cheaper over time. Vita memory cards didn't.
they took out the Optical, no HDMI IN, you never remove features from customers. you always give them more. Wont let you play games on a monitor that will allow 120hz because it is over HDMI... why didnt you put a display port on the Xbox,... i know ive gotten off topic sorry... i could go on and on...
The lack of the toslink port is regrettable and Microsoft have mentioned this prior to launch as well. Their plans originally had the port in mind but it simply was too expensive.
HDMI in is a feature not many people used, but I agree it's a regrettable removal. It was nice.
The fact that your monitor has 120Hz but not over HDMI is not Microsoft's problem, it's your monitor (or cable's?) problem. The feature works just fine over HDMI to TVs (and certain monitors) that support it. (How else could they advertise 120Hz support when that's the only output and supposedly not possible over HDMI? Wouldn't that be straight up lying?) No single games console has ever had DP because the vast majority of console users will use a TV, not a monitor. It's simply added cost that isn't worth it for the few that benefit from it.