Xbox 360 premium bundle could ship with 100 GB HDD this spring

by James Ransom-Wiley on Mar 13th 2006 1:30PM

A new rumor, stemming from an alleged New Jersey Best Buy employee, claims that the Xbox 360 Premium bundle will ship with a 100 GB hard drive beginning in April. The "tip" reports that Best Buy store managers have been instructed to hold off from selling Premium bundles until next month when the upgraded package will be officially unveiled. However, the tipster was careful to note, "[The] 100 GIG HDD is not 100% offical [sic]."

It's hard to believe that Microsoft would initiate this move at this time. The Premium bundle has been flying off of shelves (at least, in North America and Europe) with a 20 GB HDD. Why make the change? And more importantly, why piss off early adopters just four months after launch? Increasing the size of the bundled HDD is something Microsoft might explore after Sony has made an official announcement regarding the PS3's HDD or if large-scale episodic content starts to jump off. But for now, the releases of games like GRAW, Burnout, and the forthcoming Oblivion are gonna motivate hardware sales next month, not empty space.

Source

Tags: Best Buy, BestBuy, hard drive, HardDrive, Xbox 360 Premium, Xbox-360, Xbox360Premium

Reader Comments (49)

All I can see is that if this happens they should offer early adopters a rebate. We're the ones who went out on a limb for them, are they at least going to show some appreciation?

Bah, whatever.

Microsoft are fucktards!

Why do this to MEEEEEEE! Now I have to buy one of those and transfer all my stuff across to my new one.

How annoying!

Just another way to milk the people for more money.

But unless you are downloading videos and such, what is the need for such a large drive?

chill out guys this is far from official news dont let what some best buy employee who realistcally knows no more than we do get your panties in a bunch. If best buy was really told this info it would be public knowledge they dont recieve "secret info" lol. Also i think they are more likely to just sell the 100GB hdd alone at first then later on they may include it in the premium package.

Everyone who believes this rumor, raise your hand.

Ok, everyone that raised their hand hop on that short yellow bus over there in the parking lot.

Finally, Xbox 1.5 turns 1.7!

Hopefully Xbox 1.85 will have HD-DVD movie playback and Wireless out of the box, and Xbox 2 will be the full-fledged next-gen package with HD-DVD games and 1 Gigabit ethernet capabilities, ready to launch next to PS3 in 2007. Or something like that.

An ALLEGED employee for a SELLER of Xbox equipment states HEARSAY on a MESSAGEBOARD, and you feel the need to make a headline and an article about it?

I know this is a blog, but this is a shoddy an attempt of journalism as I've ever seen.

My guess, if this is true, is that the new systems will cost an extra $50. Then they will release an external 80GB drive for $50, so that early adopters can upgrade for the same extra bit of money.

There's no way they would screw over the early adopters like that. We're a tempermental bunch. :)

Yep. They'd be much more likely to offer a larger HDD as an optional peripheral, or as part of some PREMIUM Premium bundle. The 20GB HDD is plenty for 95% of gamers. Hell, I downloaded just about everything I could last night and still didn't fill it up (I didn't download trailers, because once you watch them once they don't need to stay on the HDD).

True, this would be too early for such a change.

I could see this happening. Possibly eliminate the core version and offer two hard drives, one with the 20 (@$299) and one with the 100(@$399). Pretty smart of MS if this is true. Defiantly give me more incentive to buy one. I will probably still hold off until they get to 200 though.

@#11, that is what i could see happening, too. well maybe not 'could' but definately 'should'

Seeing as most people I know of that have a 360 mostly use it for arcade stuff, it seems like this would be a smart move. But I honestly don't see it happening so soon into the product's life span.

either way, the only next gen system i'm getting for the next couple years is Revolution. I'll get the 360 or ps3 about 4 or so years into the system's life.

But if there are any PS3 Suikoden games, I might have to get the system sooner. Or at least buy the games when they come out, seeing as for some reason they like to go out of print a few months after release. When did Suikoden 4 come out? mid january? it's already out of print.

/end rant

That's a good idea to lose the core system and offer 20 or 100 gb instead. I hope that'll happen.

Maybe it should be considered that 20GB hard drives in general aren't very popular (except for music products)? 40GB seems to be more of a standard, and they may actually save some money by going to a bigger drive. I know that doesn't seem to make sense, but consider demand. 20GB in a laptop or a desktop would seem somewhat of a joke nowadays. I've seen many cases where a 20GB drive costs as much or more than a larger drive. However, I will admit this doesn't seem to apply as much for 2.5" drives.

Incorrect. Best Buy is holding back its 360 units because it is having a giant April gaming promotion, featuring online contests, tons of 360s on a daily basis (or something like that), and a contest for its employees and Media Supervisors.

This was revealed to the supervisors on Saturday, after a previous e-mail noted that we should not expect our regular 360 shipments for a bit.

I can't wait to not get my hands on an xbox 360, AGAIN! Remember when Peter Moore said "Xbox 360's should be readily available in March"? Just get the damn 360's in the frigging stores already, its BS that there is even discussion about an upgraded package. People act like this thing has been gathering cobwebs on the shelves since its release. A big what the hell goes to Microsoft for their tardiness.

I'm not going to put much stock in a tip from a Best Buy employee. However, I do think a larger hardrive is inevitable and necessary. What I want to know is how am I going to transfer all my info from my 20Gb to a larger one? I don't want to lose all my save data or have to swap hardrives in and out to play certain games. Nor do I want to have to purchase a memory card just to transfer.

The comment by James (#14) makes more sense than anything else.

Especially since those of us who actually would know something about this due to whom we work for haven't heard ANYTHING about this.

How about pure speculation and stupid rumor? At least at this point - I'm not saying that it's a bad idea for implementation at SOME point in the future. But now? Dumb rumor started by someone who doesn't have a clue.

if they make it 100gb i want a free upgrade and ddata transfer cans is will get damn pissed

Yeah, Microsoft, who is struggling to get 360s into people's hands, is going to tell Best Buy and only Best Buy to take their units off of the shelves, and then go out and piss a lot of people off by giving the new buyers more for the same price.

Now that's business sense!

I would not trust an annonymous BB employee further than I could kill them.

M$ has a problem on their hands. The HD that comes with the 360 is small and they will have to offer larger ones in the future, but how will the current users upgrade? Perhaps they could give certain retailers upgrade stations that move data from one HD to the next.

Interesting thing is that I think I saw a way to use your PCs hard drive instead of M$s. The problem was that it still could be no larger than 20GB. That would mean the firmware would have to be upgraded (which is no big deal).

theres no hope in hell
do you know how much a 100gb 2.5" drive will cost

Cool, but hope you guys know that a 100GB 2.5" HDD costs more than $120 each, that being OEM prices and only 4200rpm. While 20GB 2.5" HD are about $50 per unit OEM price (Which is what the 360 is currently using). Come on, do the math, obviously NOTHING to get worked up about. (Unless the Premium is going for $499 with the 100GB HD).

How much space do you really need on a hard drive for your Xbox 360? Seriously, the first Xbox had an 8 gig hard drive and I haven't seen a single person (Either through friendship or from 4 and a half years working at a gaming store before I quit) who ever even has able to get the free space number to go down. 20 gigs is more than enough.

This really irks me, and I hope it's not true. I went out of my way to get a premium system on launch day, and to think now that they would release this would truly bother me. If Microsoft did release this, it would likely mean there will be larger content downloads (original Xbox titles?) that I probably won't be able to fit onto my suddenly tiny HD.

If this is true, I'm a little mad at Microsoft for being so cheap and sticking us with a 20. I'm sure many of us would have gladly paid $439 or something instead of $399 to get a 100gig.

Thanks, Microsoft, for pointing the console market down the long and annoying never-ending path of upgrades and inconveniences, like the PC market.

#21 - Good Job. Myth satisfactorily debunked. And now we know pretty much why M$ went with a 20GB HD.

We can also see how much money they make on peripherals. (as if people didn't already know that peripherals are a cash cow). So when an 2.5" 80GB HD comes avilable at around $50, M$ will release it for the 360 for a hundred.

Boo-hoo! I bought a piece of technology as soon as it was released--and then, months later, the price went down! Life's not fair!

Waa! I want Intel to give me money for reducing the price of their Intel P4s! Waa! Wal-Mart reduced the price of the toaster I bought last week! Waa! I paid almost $400 for an early-generation DVD player--and now, only years later, I'm hearing about new HD technology. I want my money back!

Seagate LD25 series is the hard drive for Xbox 360. This series of drives comes in storage capacities of 20GB, 30GB, and 40GB and has been optimised by Seagate for media streaming, power consumption, and content security. They do not have a 100GB option for the Xbox 360. This is a FAKE story. Look it up jerks, there is an official press release from Seagate on this subject.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/8487/Seagate-to-Supply-Hard-Drives-for-Xbox-360/

Everyone should remember the partnership MS signed with DirecTV.

Supposedly there will be a new "DirecTV blade" added to the dashboard, allowing the 360 to function as a DVR, which I think would be sweet.

Newer consoles shipping with a larger storage capacity makes perfect sense to me.

SO yeah It'd be sweet if I could even find a 360 on the shelf here in Northern Ohio. Wheres the promised March Second Coming?

I actually saw this post on Xbox.com forums.

I even have the link: http://forums.xbox.com/2951837/ShowPost.aspx

It's seems to me that it's bull. There's no way Microsoft would sell an extra 80 gig of space for the same price.

I guess if you can redownload everything from the marketplace you've bought, moving to a new drive shouldn't be too mich of a problem... except save games?

Just bring the HD-DVD drive out, i'm waiting for some hi def movies!

First off as other have said if there was a 100GB hard drive the cost of the 360 Premium would sky rocket to at or above $500.

Also as a Best Buy employee I can tell you this is horse crap. There has
been no mention of a 100GB hard drive ever. EVER!The fact
that you guys(Joystiq) posted this bullcrap, really has me concerned
about how much other stuff I read on here could be rumors from
anonymous employees.

dumb@$$ bestbuy all they ever do is hold $hit until they feel like selling it. I'm glad I never shop there. That place is filled with people who don't know what the FU

26- I hear ya. Why do you cry babies care if they come out with a bigger hard drive? You knew it would happen. Thats like my being pissed at Honda because the came out with a Civic thats better and badder then my 05 model. It happends you lil whiners. Hey I bought SinCity DVD, Guess what? They came out with the collectors edition right after, Oh well...Thats life and I could care less.

I'm nearly positive this is bull sh1t. Guys, research the cost of a 100 gb 2.5" sata hard drive. You will see that this drive will cost almost as much as a core system itself.

A 60 gb would be possible, and 80 gb maybe...but a 100 gb is not going to happen...ever...

Thought you guys may want to see this.

http://msmvps.com/blogs/glach/archive/2006/03/13/86257.aspx

Not true. We ran it by our dev and marketing teams, and we can confirm there are no plans for a bigger hard drive. I almost don't have to say that, since you all figured it out...

http://gamerscoreblog.com.

John

You STILL can't find a 360 by walking into a retail store. They're always sold out. It seems surprising they would change the configuration already, unless there was some issue with securing 20GB HDs.

Whaaaa....I know Joystiq reports from all diffrent sources, but a message board post from some guy who works in a Jersey Best Buy!!?? No seriously, really? That's your source? Have I slipped into some kind of bizzaro internet where fat 12 year old kids on gamefaqs.com are now game journalist getting the inside scoop before anyone else?

Sounds like an early April Fool's... "A new rumor, stemming from an alleged New Jersey Best Buy employee, claims that the Xbox 360 Premium bundle will ship with a 100 GB hard drive beginning in April."

BD, who needs gigibit ethernet? that is not a factor in nextgen gaming. I bet your hard drives in your home PC (and 99% of the peoples pcs) can't even keep up with gigabit bandwidth. besides, this is moot. who honestly needs 100 gb of storage on their xbox? if you have that much music, then you obviously have a computer or ipod to connect to it.

LMAO! What will you guys do when Microsoft comes out with the new and improved XBox several years from now? Whine because you have to get it too? Come on, business is business.

Being a 360 owner I can honestly say that I don't give a damn. If they release 100GB HDD I will buy it If I need it. No need to complain.

The source is a Best Buy employee? And this was taken seriously? I used to hold Joystiq.com to a higher standard but to pick this up and actually take up space to "report" it is silly.

If I only had a dollar for every time an alleged New Jersey Best Buy employee pulled one over on me...

I'd still be broke. This is the dumest fillage. I know it'll be slow until sonys "big news conference" but come on lets atleast make up a reliable source.

This just in my sisters friends cusin works for a trucking company that shiped an xbox and said that MS is secretly run by nintendo and that is why they are not looking to compete in the high end market.

#23 - yes, you may not know of anyone who filled up the Xbox 8 gig hard drive. But there's a big difference here - with 360 there are a lot more downloads available. Demos that range from 1/2 a gig to over 1 gig. Live arcade games. Trailers. Space for the BC emulators. That's all in addition to the game saves, ripped music, and downloaded game updates that were also on the original Xbox.

You do realize that a fresh 360 HDD only has about 13 gig available for storage, right? The rest is reserved for system functions, backwards compatibility, etc.

And if MS really plans to allow video storage, DVR functionality, etc... we're all going to have to buy new hard drives to use those features without them being crippled.

Oh, and I'm planning on getting FFXI for 360. On PS2, FFXI plus the Chains of Promathia expansion takes up a little over 9GB of the PS2 HDD. That's not including the forthcoming April expansion (all of which will be included in the 360 version). I'm thinking I need to buy a seperate 20GB drive just so I can play FFXI and not be crunched for space when I want to download demos.

I just heard a comment from a local Best Buy employee here in Austin that there has been "official news" from Microsoft that 500,000 units will be shipped to U.S. stores (not sure if that was to Best Buy stores or all stores in general), and they will be on the shelves "after Spring Break," on March 21. I asked him where he got his information, and he stated that the date was "on his computer screen," so therefore "it must be real."

I haven't found this "news" anywhere on my computer screen. Have any of you? It cracks me up that his personal measure of time was "after Spring Break." I figured this would be the best place to start a rant about a rumor started by a Best Buy employee... But I am wondering if there is any truth to it.

This is MOST likely a rumor that is false. I heard it from a Best Buy employee, at multiple locations, but nobody else, other than internet rumor mill. This drive might need to be upgraded in the future, with MMORPGs on the ticker, but for now, 20 GB is enuf...want more...it's probably going to cost more. Heck, it might be a Sony generated rumor to make people think twice about rushing out to get Xbox 360 this weekend.

Xbox 360 premium bundle could ship with 100 GB HDD this spring

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