Microsoft reveals 100GB 360 drive at X06 Korea
by Christopher Grant 
{ Oct 19th 2006 at 10:55AM }
Apparently, Microsoft couldn't squeeze all the announcements they had into TGS and X06 in Barcelona, so they saved one for the X06 event going down in Korea. Trailing slides of 360 peripherals we've already seen -- like the Vision camera, wireless headset, wireless gaming receiver, and the 256MB Memory Unit -- was this shot of a 100GB hard drive, courtesy Korean gaming site Game Inside. While there is no mention of price for the unit, it is supposed to debut in March 2007. Though the images look legit, there doesn't appear to be any counterpart on Gamespot Korea's coverage of the presentation or the rest of the day's news.
Now the question becomes, will the new, larger hard drive come bundled with premium 360s? With Sony's PS3 units offering both 20GB and 60GB variations, and downloadable content becoming increasingly popular, it may be time for Microsoft to up the ante in drive capacity. Or it could be another expensive add-on, appealing to only the most hardcore gamers who've already filled their 20GB (more like 17GB actually) hard drives with horse armor, Madden training videos, and gamertag pics. With 100GB bare notebook drives going for as much as $200 nowadays -- and Microsoft's 20GB drive going for $100 -- this could be one pricey peripheral.
[Via Engadget]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
> @ Oct 19th 2006 11:00AM
LOL ... MS giving user more "choice" with MS-spec HDDs.
ash @ Oct 19th 2006 11:01AM
would be nice if ms allowed self hd upgrades and hd transfers.... i'd easily trade my 60GB 2.5" external hd with the 20GB one in the xbox....
Lord_Satorious @ Oct 19th 2006 11:05AM
More like 13 GB actually. Hopefully 100 GB is at least 93 GB, if they're getting the 100 GB by dividing by 1024 and not 1000 MB per gig. Anyway, I've filled my 20 GB drive with mostly videos and a few demos. If you have Xbox Live, it's easy to download a dozen gigs of stuff.
Draco @ Oct 19th 2006 11:06AM
if the 20GB one costs 100$ (30$ to buy retail laptop) I wonder what they will charge for the 100GB one (which sell for laptops in the 150-250$ range) is this going to be a 300$ add-on?
Apoklypse @ Oct 19th 2006 11:06AM
I want to go on record and say that is photoshopped on there. Same thing goes for the 256MB on the memory card.
If I am wrong, I'm wrong- but I'm just not sold on this at all.
Lorben @ Oct 19th 2006 11:06AM
"With 100GB bare notebook drives going for as much as $200 nowadays"
$200? Where are you buying your hard drives? 100GB 2.5 drives are around $100. Even 160GB drives are only $180.
crono141 @ Oct 19th 2006 11:06AM
Or, they could be doing away with the harddrive-less 360 bundle, making the current "premium" the core system, and selling the premium with the 100gb drive built in.
This is turning out to be a great pissing contest between MS and Sony.
Embassy @ Oct 19th 2006 11:09AM
i mean hey...i wanna hook up my own HDD as much as the next guy..but from a business perspective thats totally retarded and is just asking for the 360 to be hacked instantly.
Saneless @ Oct 19th 2006 11:07AM
All I know is I'm not getting a 360 till it gets a larger hard drive. Plain and simple.
Clay @ Oct 19th 2006 11:08AM
Well i always thought the reason the 20GB was so xpensive was so people wouldnt just buy the core system +HD and maybe be able to get all the components of the premium for cheeper then the premium bundle... if that makes sense... SO i bet 20gb price eaither drops or they stop making it, and they put this on the premiums w/ no price drop
eskwyre @ Oct 19th 2006 11:09AM
i'll stick with my PS3, upgradable, non-proprietary 2.5" hdd thank you very much.
MMurdock @ Oct 19th 2006 11:09AM
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&product_id=802467 FTW
Someone i know who has one loves it. I can agree. I find myself deleting demos, but most of the time the ones I delete are ones that need to be deleted (rumble roses)
HoodOrnament @ Oct 19th 2006 11:13AM
Well, it would be nice to see MS shift down and offer the 20GB with the core, and the 100GB with the premium with possibly only a $50 increase, that may attract new people. Another one of those moments it sucks to be an early adopter, but oh well.
footlong! @ Oct 19th 2006 11:15AM
apoklypse,
the 256mb memory card is entirely legit. it's been known to be in the works for a while now. it sparked debates on whether or not that meant microsoft would increase the maximum memory usage for live arcade games.
otherwise i can totally understand your disbelief of that images legitmacy. the text looks out of place and fake. however, somebody may have altered the image just so a quick glance would reveal what it meant. ive seen it done on joystiq before where they add little captions like when they showed the wii's secret buttons and stuff.
DBX00 @ Oct 19th 2006 11:16AM
Why don't they just allow you to play demos and stuff from a USB drive. Wouldn't that simplify the whole issue of slowly increasing the proprietary hard drive.
gok @ Oct 19th 2006 11:17AM
I dont understand why someone would need that big hd. Sure there are lotsa demos, but you play through them in about 30mins usually and after that you can just delete them. And videos? Well I guess someone might dl those, personally I get all my xbox video goodness from xboxyde.com.
maximus @ Oct 19th 2006 11:18AM
So after slating Sony for bundling a 60GB hard disk and a Blu Ray player in the PS3 Microsoft are now pushing their own HD-DVD add on and a 100GB hard disk. Oh sorry i forgot, it's all about choice.. they know damn well most people will fill up 20GB quickly so here's the next way to squeeze more money out of the system that is soooo much cheaper than a PS3. Oh.
This one-upping each other will carry on and on and on.. oh and they'll be doing it with Apple in the Zune/iPod battle too. Play nicely children.
> @ Oct 19th 2006 11:21AM
"Why don't they just allow you to play demos and stuff from a USB drive. Wouldn't that simplify the whole issue of slowly increasing the proprietary hard drive."
That defeats the purpose of you having to go out and buy their proprietary HDD; otherwise, just put up with the hassles of deleting demos and videos after you're done with them.
360 is slowly turing into a franken-box 360 with add-ons up the wazoo..
WiFi
HDD
HD-DVD
... whats next? all proprietary spec, all in the name of offering 'choice' to the consumer.
DarkMavis @ Oct 19th 2006 11:21AM
I really want to buy a 360 and plan on getting one around Emergence Day but the thought of having a larger HD makes me want to wait. I don't want to wait until March 2007 though.
Dang, now I don't know what to do.
Player1 @ Oct 19th 2006 11:24AM
gok,
If you download arcade games, eventually you will fill up the 13G available on the standard drive.
My question is will MS provide a way to transfer files from you old drive to your new one? Do you have to buy a memory card to do it, or will that even work for transfering arcade games?
Jose @ Oct 19th 2006 11:30AM
Okay, so this is what I've been waiting for before showing any actual interrest in purchasing an Xbox360. Even if the 360 doesn't come bundled with it, which I really sincerily hope it does, if the cost of a Core sytem and the new 100gb HDD is still more affordable than the PS3, I know which one I'll be buying first. I can deal with a corded controller, no biggie.
AG @ Oct 19th 2006 11:33AM
See this is the problem with rushing a console to launch...
It is obvious MS didn't make the 360 very "future" proof so now they are paying the price.
The 360 seems is already outdated so now they are adding (what MS claims) "1080p capabilities" and now a bigger hard drive.
3-400 dollars later in add-ons Xbox 360 owners are gonna be kicking themselves for not getting a PS3 because they originally thought it was "overpriced".
The PS3 price seems better and better.
footlong! @ Oct 19th 2006 11:30AM
darkmavis,
buy the 360. this story is still kinda iffy so dont rest your decision entriely on this. besides, could you really wait 5 months to get the console you want? well maybe if you wanted the ps3 you could but thats another story. but the 360 is here and emergence day is nigh. go for it.
and you people (term used loosely) should be happy that sony and Microsoft are constantly one-upping eachother. its what makes great products. look at the handheld market. nintendo kicked ass with gameboy for the longest time. eventually it got kinda outdated. gba, gba sp, neither brought anything great to the market. then sony goes and makes the psp and nintendo shells out the ds. what if sony never made the psp? would we have the lovable ds today? who knows. so embrace competition people, dont criticize it.
Phranctoast @ Oct 19th 2006 11:32AM
18
yea i hear ya. the add ons are a bit much. It seems to me they realize their mistke for not includingit in the beginning. Og yeah..but..theyre giving people a better choice.
20.
I imiagine you could just DL them again. You already bought them, so you wont be charged to DL somehting you bought again. As long as your signed on under the profile you used to purchase you should be fine
Embassy @ Oct 19th 2006 11:44AM
i think people are forgetting...once u buy somethingo off XBL...u have access to it online forever..so all those arcade games u bought im sure u can jsut redownload those to the bigger HD...but when it comes to game saves...i dunno how they'll handle that.
Digi Smalls @ Oct 19th 2006 11:45AM
lets say you upgrade, how would you transfer from one HDD to the other?
4th dimension god @ Oct 19th 2006 11:38AM
"11. i'll stick with my PS3, upgradable, non-proprietary 2.5" hdd thank you very much."
The Xbox 360 HDD is not proprietary douche bag. The case that houses the HDD is proprietary but inside is a 2.5" SATA Drive
http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2610&p=5
Denney @ Oct 19th 2006 11:39AM
That hard drive better not cost £100 in the UK or im gonna give MS a kick in the balls
Scott @ Oct 19th 2006 11:40AM
#24 said - "It is obvious MS didn't make the 360 very "future" proof so now they are paying the price."
The fact that MS can send updates to the 360 OS to add features like 1080p and built their console so that it can accept HDDs of different sizes means it isn't future proof?
Wha?
Intangible 360 @ Oct 19th 2006 11:43AM
"...(more like 17GB actually)..."
Don't you mean more like 12GB? There is only 12 GB of usable space on the HDD, the rest is used for game updates, backwards compatability and game cacheing.
The Intangible Fact @ Oct 19th 2006 11:43AM
"The PS3 price seems better and better"
Yea if your a Sony die-hard fan! At least you can choose the upgrades with MS.
Kevin Sullivan @ Oct 19th 2006 11:49AM
Uh, Live Arcade games are 50MB a piece or less. You'd need to download 20, assuming they were all the max of 50MB (most aren't even close to that) in order to fill one GB.
HD space is only going to be an issue when stuff like Symphony of the Night starts rolling out that is going to take up hundreds of MB's and aren't deletable like demos.
Ironhide Delta @ Oct 19th 2006 11:49AM
*It is obvious MS didn't make the 360 very "future" proof so now they are paying the price.
The 360 seems is already outdated so now they are adding (what MS claims) "1080p capabilities" and now a bigger hard drive.
*
What a load of crap. What the hell do you call the updates? The simple fact that Microsoft has made the 360 updatable with firmware makes your comment as weak as Sony's claims that the future starts with them!
On a more tempermental tone, I echo the same sentiments posted before in regards to tranfering data and files. There had better be an easy way to do it, otherwise most people will just look at the 100g hdd and say "That's nice" and get back to thier gaming.
joe smith @ Oct 19th 2006 11:53AM
I would expect it to be an add-on for a while but to eventually replace the 20 Gig once they sell down current stock. I hope they have a good data transfer plan.
SuicideNinja @ Oct 19th 2006 12:32PM
It's amusing to me that hackers have gone to all these lengths on the DVD drive firmware...but none have attempted to do the same for the Hard Drive.
I find it hard to believe there isn't an alternative drive out there that could be used.
Also, Sony NEVER "promised" (which wouldn't set it in stone anyway) you didn't have to buy a Sony HDD to upgrade the PS3. Sony's middle name is proprietary, so don't get too excited.
It was a pain to use a non-Maxtor drive in the PS2's, so I don't see the PS3 being any more friendly.
riskbreaker @ Oct 19th 2006 12:01PM
28. based of the core system:
is paying $100 for a 20GB HDD really an upgrade?
is paying $200 for an HD-DVD that just plays movies and upgrade?
is paying $50 dollars for a non-rechargable (unless you pay $15 for charge and play kit) controller an upgrade?
At least with the ps3's base unit you dont have to worry about all those extra costs, i mean "choices" and if you want more functionality, you dont even have to buy sony brand products.
maximus @ Oct 19th 2006 12:05PM
"and you people (term used loosely) should be happy that sony and Microsoft are constantly one-upping eachother. its what makes great products. look at the handheld market. nintendo kicked ass with gameboy for the longest time. eventually it got kinda outdated. gba, gba sp, neither brought anything great to the market. then sony goes and makes the psp and nintendo shells out the ds. what if sony never made the psp? would we have the lovable ds today? who knows. so embrace competition people, dont criticize it."
I agree competition is fantastic for gamers as we get better products and more choice.. but the problem here is that MS have the financial clout to keep hammering Sony until either Sony just give up or disappear altogether. Then we're left with MS pretty much having a monopoly just like they have with Windows. Nintendo have gone off in another direction so they're not really affected. It'll be interesting to see just how long MS shareholders will accept them losing money on the gaming division and also on the Zune with it's huge task of taking on the iPod.
Andrew Yoon @ Oct 19th 2006 12:23PM
I agree with riskbreaker, but some people don't want to have that functionality added. People like myself do.
I hope that MS eventually updates the Xbox: $300 for the current Premium system; $400 for a new version w/ larger hard drive (60GB like the devkits, or 1000GB like this pic) and maybe one more added feature (wi-fi support?).
Foetoid @ Oct 19th 2006 12:07PM
I just wish Nintendo would clarify what is happening with thier HDD space. At first they let you use any USB-based external storage to save games/VC content, then they decided to do a backflip on that one, i mean wot the. Are they saying that is 512mb isnt enough we have to buy SD cards which if i know you can get up to 8 gig, but that is still a far cry from 100gig, and Sd cards are expensive. What are the chances that future firmware updates for the Wii allow DVD playback and usb storage mediums?
Embassy @ Oct 19th 2006 12:10PM
risk breaker,
wat if i dont want an HDD..???..and just want to play games and grab a memory card..??
wat if i dont have a 1080p TV and dont wat HD-DVD movies..???
and wat if i just wanna use cheap ol batteries in my controller?
see where im going...???...
> @ Oct 19th 2006 12:19PM
"I just wish Nintendo would clarify what is happening with thier HDD space. At first they let you use any USB-based external storage to save games/VC content, then they decided to do a backflip on that one, i mean wot the."
Panasonic is Nintendo's hardware partner (same with GC); they probably had a say in axing the USB/HDD in favour of only SD card storage.
idesignit @ Oct 19th 2006 12:27PM
Please MS give me the DirectTv connectivity you promised....I will buy the 100GB HD..... DirectTV ditched tivo... :( will MS be extending teh home media features directly to the 360 without having to port through a networked computer? And, will teh 100gb drive thus be the means to allow this??? I sure hope so
Lou D @ Oct 19th 2006 12:41PM
I wonder if Nintendo will eventually see Wii's with 4GB of internal flash. That would actually be smart business in a year.
PeteL @ Oct 19th 2006 12:42PM
I never filled up my 8GB xbox hard drive and I will never fill up my 20GB xbox 360 hard drive. I just delete the demos and trailers when I'm done. I've saved about 7 demos that I think I may get back to, but I'm too busy playing the games.
Bruce Wayne III @ Oct 19th 2006 12:46PM
"Also, Sony NEVER "promised" (which wouldn't set it in stone anyway) you didn't have to buy a Sony HDD to upgrade the PS3. Sony's middle name is proprietary, so don't get too excited."
Sony officially said that they won't market hard drive and that you can't buy any laptop 2.5" SATA drive, if you want to upgrade. That's a real option, isn't it?
Rayonic @ Oct 19th 2006 12:54PM
@ 32.:
Castlevania: SOTN will probably be a lot smaller than you think. After all that music is converted to MP3 (probably WMA), you don't have a ton of data left.
In other news, I'll probably rebuy SOTN if it comes with all the missing stuff from the Saturn version.
Bruce Wayne III @ Oct 19th 2006 12:47PM
Sony officially said that they won't market a hard drive and that you *CAN* buy any laptop 2.5" SATA drive, if you want to upgrade. That's a real option, isn't it?
EDITED: spelling...
epobirs @ Oct 19th 2006 12:58PM
#32
Actually, there is no reason Castlevania:SOTN shouldn't fit on a 64MB memory card preferred for XBLA games. The original PS1 game was a bit under 500MB of disc space but 95% of that is uncompressed audio files and poorly compressed FMV. The entire game will easily fit in less than 100MB and under 64MB with some work. Just converting the audio to high bit-rate WMA would clip off about 350MB.
Mcuh like Resident Evil II, the game could have been ported to the N64 with good results but by the time 64MB carts became reasonably priced it was no longer of interest to Konami. Nowadays, of course, that kind of space is trivial.
In general, most PS1 games can be reworked to the XBLA environment without excessive size.
epobirs @ Oct 19th 2006 1:00PM
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4459396?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
Fry's will sell you a high-end 100GB 2.5" drive today for $160. I imagine Microsoft can do much better when purchasing in quantities of 100,000 at a time. On top of that, areal densities continue to improve and prices drop accordingly.
In all likelihood, MS will drop the price of the 20GB unit to around $65 and sell the larger capacity drive for around $150 or less. This lets the Core System buyers become big XBLA customers for less and the existing big spenders get the space they need to have all of their purchases immediately available.
Draco @ Oct 19th 2006 12:55PM
100GB seems a little extreme on X360, I mean the Ps3 will download PS2/Ps1 games, so 100GB would be good for it, also it runs linux and so I would assume would need the same hard drive sizes as a PC.
but what would 100GB do on Xbox? I mean if arcade games only take up 50MB max, and there is not OS to install programs onto, do they expect us to use 100GB worth of demos at any given point?