The average consumer does not care how it compares to a PC part. The average consumer sees a storage device that's almost the cost of the Series S.
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Pre-orders are up for Xbox's proprietary SSD at Best Buy ($219 for 1TB)
- Thread starter Belthazar90
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In Australia you can get a Series X (with the 1TB built in) for $750, $110-cheaper than a Series S with the expansion for $860 for only 500GB more.
You could even add a 2TB external HDD to the Series X and STILL be $10 cheaper and have more storage and a much better console.
Why would ANYBODY would buy the expansion for Series S, why bother even including the port on that system lol
You could even add a 2TB external HDD to the Series X and STILL be $10 cheaper and have more storage and a much better console.
Why would ANYBODY would buy the expansion for Series S, why bother even including the port on that system lol
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Your math is off. The Xbox One OS allocation is about 100GiB on 500GB drive while PS4's is about 50GiB on a 500GB drive and 60GiB on a 1TB.
Your average xbox owner isn't going to be buying these or any external storage device.
I'm not a fan of the price, but compared to other CFExpress type cards, it's not expensive. These aren't the same as a typical internal nvme ssd.
I'm not a fan of the price, but compared to other CFExpress type cards, it's not expensive. These aren't the same as a typical internal nvme ssd.
You are limited to about 100MB or so per second on the copy. So say 100GB / 17 min or so which is not too bad. You could bump it down significantly if you go for say SATA SSD that can do 500MB read/write approximately. 2TB can be had on sale for $150.
This logic only makes sense if you ignore that people buying the series S are more worried about face value costs. Long term costs probably don't make sense but at that point the console is a sunk cost. Upgrading the memory so you can enjoy more games isn't a consideration for most people upon initial purchase.
At some point the price will go down (as they bring out new larger sizes over time), and there will be sales even before RRP drops. If you were some kind of two-household system there's some utility where you could have the installs move from one console to another seamlessly in principle I guess but that seems very niche.
(I don't expect even power-users to mostly buy ultrafast expansion drives).
I deal with a lot of second hand consoles, mainly PS4 given its popularity, and the first thing people ask is "Is it only the 500GB?"
This just reemphasizes my primary point. People buying a next gen console with a second hand console budget might be surprised at the lower memory. Ultimately they are simply purchasing what is most affordable to them at the purchase date. Upgradability being an option makes the cheaper console just that more appealing.
Not to mention, by the time the console reaches a second hand market memory costs will be lower and the appeal to upgrading it will subsequently increase.
According to Jason Ronald (one of the Xbox architects), the game sizes on Series S will be 30% smaller (on average) than the same game on Series X. This claim can't be proven at this point in time. But let's just use this as a way to compare how this might look in the real world
Using an 85GB* game install size, with the FULL capacity of each SSD (i.e. 1024GB and 512GB, not factoring in the OS reserve), and allowing for a 30% smaller file size for the Series S version of the game, we could end up with something like this:
We still need to allow for the space that is reserved for the OS, but it's just a quick example of what we might see in real world use. And game sizes vary of course.
Using an 85GB* game install size, with the FULL capacity of each SSD (i.e. 1024GB and 512GB, not factoring in the OS reserve), and allowing for a 30% smaller file size for the Series S version of the game, we could end up with something like this:
- 12 games on Series X (1024GB of storage / 85GB per game)
- 8 games on Series S (512GB of storage / 59.5GB per game)
- 6 games on Series S if we use a 10% saving in game size (512/76.5) - just using a 'worst case' scenario for comparison here
We still need to allow for the space that is reserved for the OS, but it's just a quick example of what we might see in real world use. And game sizes vary of course.
Indeed. I'll wait 2tb minimum for 100-150. Right now too expensive and too small
I think these are 2013 allocation numbers, since then Xbox received many dashboard updates. Can anyone with a 500GB HDD drive confirm the reservation size?
- 138GB for the OS and apps on XB1. So that would mean 886GB and 374GB left.
- The architecture of the NAND also determine how much space needs to be left for wear.
- Most "1TB" drives are decimal TB not binary TiB nowadays. See datasheets of current PC drives.
- Once we start getting real next gen games, we might see a consistent 100GB games for AAAs
- There will be a few exceptions up to 200GB later in the generation.
- DLC tend to grow the game size significantly above the initial install size.
Is the average consumer going to have enough games installed at one time, or cares enough to not delete them to get it?
I am definitely more in the hardcore gamer crowd and I am not getting one. I will just delete those extra game I will never touch.
Telling yourself "Not gonna delete RDR2" for example when you know you wont touch it for month is not a "valid" excuse to then criticize the cost of this expansion.
It's so easy to fill up a hard drive though, Halo 5 is over a hundred GBs and so modern warfare is like 150, thats a quarter of your space with 2 games!
I was gonna grab this hard drive but after controls and games I don't wanna tack on an extra $240 in launch week.
Do we have recommendations on a good external hard drive for Xbox Series S?
I'll stick with the 1TB drive on my Series X, but the Series S I preordered for my kids is going to fill up fast. Most of their games will be Xbox One games and I'm ok with them having to move Series games from an external to the built in if needed. I get why these costs so much, but I don't see the need to invest in these right now.
I've never used an external drive on my consoles, so wondering if there are good recommendations?
I'll stick with the 1TB drive on my Series X, but the Series S I preordered for my kids is going to fill up fast. Most of their games will be Xbox One games and I'm ok with them having to move Series games from an external to the built in if needed. I get why these costs so much, but I don't see the need to invest in these right now.
I've never used an external drive on my consoles, so wondering if there are good recommendations?
That's fine, I don't have datacaps and I can wait an hour to download a game. I'll delete games when I'm not playing them or maybe move them to an external hard drive.
Hopefully these things plummet in price in a year or two.
Hopefully these things plummet in price in a year or two.
If the console craps out for whatever reason, would it be possible to make use of this expansion drive with a PC in any way?
I am not saying it is not easy but the 1GB on my One X gets me like 4-5 "big" games and like a dozen or more smaller one.
The average consumer is not gonna care that much IMO.
Just delete the game you are not using. If you really NEED to have 10+ games installed then yeah spend $200+ on. I just cannot see how spending $200 is better than just deleting a game and waiting for the other to be downloaded. The time is takes is not worth the money you'd have to spend. Hell just get a normal HDD and do a transfer, even better.
I don't play Modern Warfare but even if I did I still wouldn't have a problem.
What exactly are people comparing this to in order to determine this is a weird price?
What type of hot swappable PCI-e 4.0 SSD are you guys looking at? Because this is like the equivalent of a compact flash chip which is expensive AF.
That average consumer we keep talking about is also not going to want to open up their PS5 to stick in an Nvme drive lol
Are you getting these numbers from somewhere or just completely pulling them out of your ass?
The speeds (and hefty early adopter tax) are what's expensive about PC pcie 4.0 drives, not the interface. MS's cards are relatively slow and middling even by m.2 pcie 3.0 standards, and afaik we're not even sure these external cards have the controller on board. If they use the internal mc, that makes this price even more preposterous. It's just an educated guess based on the fact that consumers can buy significantly faster drives like the SX8200 for around $100/TB when on sale. Several parties are turning a profit on that, the retailer, oem, and brand that repackages it. Obviously we can reasonably infer the cost of a slow drive to the oem (Seagate) is going to be far lower than that, and the bulk volume discount MS negotiated similarly reduced. It's possible MS are giving retailers ridiculous margins on these to offset the loss of physical software sales.
But similar hot swappable drives ARE very expensive. Comparing them to normal internal nvme cards is silly.
They are targeting the normal console gamer who doesn't want to open up their console and install a PC part for more storage. Having that with fast speeds is expensive. That's why CFExpress chips are insanely priced. It's not as simple as just tossing an nvme card into a small piece of plastic.
They are, because they're a niche professional/business tool. It's a small market that is priced according to volume. Everyday computer users have no use for ultra high speed portable drives. If they did, they'd be much cheaper. Economies of scale.
But they don't and this technology is more practical for mass consumers. Smart choice by Microsoft.
Holy crap that memory card is tiny! Is like a Compact flash card size. I definitely never seen a SSD hard drive that small before
Really? Man is crazy! I remember buying a SSD like 2 years back and I thought it was small lol
Great idea!
You should tweet this idea to Phil. Maybe someone from Microsoft will see it?
Yep
And in all honesty, I'm not going to need it right away anyways.
Thanks mate. I think Microsoft is pretty good about scouring the internet for features and good ideas bubble up on their own. I'd imagine that they have a similar system in mind anyway.
As a Canadian this thing is $299. It's expensive I will probably never get it and live just fine with the 1TB internal. But it's not a ridiculous price when I go looking.
For a 1TB USB SSD drive it's $259.
www.canadacomputers.com
Sure it can be used for more stuff but it's also slower than if I were to get the expansion card and can't be used for series x games.
Even for NVME M2 internal drives. PCIE4 ones are all like 250+ for 1TB and there are lots of PCIE3 ones that get over 200 as well.
www.canadacomputers.com
www.canadacomputers.com
For a 1TB USB SSD drive it's $259.
Samsung T7 1TB USB3.2 Grey External Solid State Drive
SAMSUNG T7 1TB USB3.2 Grey External Solid State Drive (MU-PC1T0T/AM)
www.canadacomputers.com
Even for NVME M2 internal drives. PCIE4 ones are all like 250+ for 1TB and there are lots of PCIE3 ones that get over 200 as well.
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Yea they can be quite tiny. Something that tiny can hold 1TB of storage. I could not imagine that just 15 years ago. Lol. Microsoft uses that on some of their surface laptops and tablets. I wish they had went that route with the Series S/X. Makes things a lot more cheaper in the long run.
For comparison, Sony has their mini SSD that they use for their pro cinematography gear and they can go up to 2TB. I am definitely glad Sony did not decide to implement something like that on PS5, even though they are easy to pop in and out.
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I think mass consumers would rather pay $100 for a PC NVMe drive and spend 10 minutes with a screwdriver to install it than pay over $200 for something that's the same speed and hot swappable. At this price they're not going to buy multiple of these.
I disagree. I think most consumers would avoid buying another drive period over having to buy an NVME and install it.
Era really living in that hardcore gamer bubble
The bubble that buys Series X while mass market will shop by price and mostly buy the Series S (after launch when it's not supply limited) because it's cheaper? Mass market cares about price over features.
Mass market also cares about convenience, hence digital sales are increasing despite physical games being cheaper on average.