Upcoming Xbox 360 update locking out 'unauthorized' Memory Units

by Ben Gilbert on Oct 17th 2009 7:00PM

Don't worry, folks -- Microsoft knows you really hate those subversive little devils making third-party Memory Units, what with their 2GB and 4GB offerings for the Xbox 360. In an effort to stamp out these Doris Dogooders from your Xbox Live Experience™, Microsoft's Major Nelson announced on his blog yesterday that "When Preview Program members start receiving the Xbox 360 system update next week, one of the changes is that unauthorized Memory Units will no longer work."

In plain English, this means that any third-party Memory Unit you might have been using will be rendered useless. Mr. Hryb suggests moving any saves on said devices get moved to an authorized one, unless losing access to "stored profile or saves games" simply ain't no thang for you.

Source

Tags: dashboard-update, dashboard-update-fall-2009, datel, Datel-Max-Memory, major-nelson, memory-card, memory-unit, microsoft, third-party, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (234)

bit of a dick move

Yeah dude, totally a dick move. Super Dick. And unnecessary.

they're a bit ripping off gamers' money

Who the fuck doesn't have a hard drive anyway to be fair.

Hey, hey, the language...

Let's tone it town there pay cable.

DOWN... dammit.

@Paulo:

People who have multiple Xboxen have to keep their profile and saves on a memory card if they want to play on those machines. I've got one in the living room and another in the bedroom (it doubles as a Media Center Extender). One could recover their profile, but save games are horse of a different color.

The hard drives are detachable you know :S

Well I guess no one hear has heard Dane Cook. Either that or they have and realize he's a douchebag...

@Paulo Back when my buddy and I both had 360s I kept my profile on a 256 mem card I picked up dirt cheap so when we played Rock Band and other co-op funtimes at his house, I could get achievements. For me, not having to wait 45 minutes to recover my gamertag was worth the minor inconvenience of having to have my memory card plugged into my system. I also had a 20 gig hard drive, back in the old days when that's all there was AND WE LIKED IT!

@paulo xbox 360 arcade sku doesn't have that much memory so they depends on memory stick

I'm in the specialty retail channel and I've never seen a 3rd party memory card - either new or being traded in.

non-issue except for the two people that own them.

This is the exact first thought I have, except replace "bit of a" with "total".

I mean, I don't use third party mem units (on the 360 or any other console). But you know what? When manufacturers stop making official ones, third party are crazy easy to pick up from anywhere and use as an alternative if you have to. Total dick move.

Its all his fault!

http://www.chrisd.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/bill_gates_money.jpg

I really wish saved games were in the cloud.

+1 sony. you can use almost any usb device for saves on PS3. (though some games don't allow you to copy.)

Damn you Microsoft and your peripheral fascism. $159.99 + tax ($180) Canadian for a 120GB HDD.

What about 3rd party Hard Drive?

@jeremy23jacinto
"they're a bit ripping off gamers' money"

shocking!! who would've thought microsoft would do such a horrible thing? why would you even say false things?

I really think a lot of people are missing it - Major's post said STORAGE DEVICES not just MEMORY UNITS. This means he's talking about hard drives as well, which makes this really god damn evil.

Everyone knows the MS hard drives cost 10x what they are worth, and plenty of folks have replaced their sata drives with new, bigger, cheaper ones.

What a huge dick move. LOWER THE HARD DRIVE PRICES.

It is pretty stupid when you can buy 4GB on usb/SDHC/duo for about £10.. but only 512MB MS for £29.99..

I have a 120gb hard drive for sale for anyone getting so screwed over by this.

$90 plus shipping! Weeeeeeeeeeeeee000t. Im in Canada.

@TipTup: Not if you're a Sidekick user...

The solution is actually pretty simple.

Call MS's tech support 800 number and complain. No, they won't fix the problem, however, each call costs them money. Make the call take as long as possible. Call often. You could easily waste more of their money than they stand to make through this anti-competitive practice.

Here's the number: Toll free: (800) 4MY-XBOX

Give it a call. Take as long as you like. Make sure you tell them why, so they can properly account for the increase in cost.

One other thing to consider, a number of people on eBay sell replacement hard drives that are listed as "used", but are, in fact, upgraded models that have had the appropriate partitioning/formatting applied to drives of the same model as those used by the larger versions.

So, there's going to be a non-zero number of people who've bought drives thinking they were perfectly legit -- hell, I'd include anyone who bought a drive at Best Buy, like those "max memory" cards -- who are now screwed because MS is taking deliberate action to disable their hardware.

I would *not* be surprised to see a class action suit develop from this, given the number of people who have no reason to believe that their storage devices are about to stop working.

It really is an amazingly stupid move, exposing themselves to that sort of potential court case.

i never even seen these 3rd party memory units. wtf mircosoft

I never knew these existed. Nice idea...too bad I just found out it right before the beginning of the end of these.

Same here. Never seen nor heard of such an option. How many people seriously have these?

I never heard of it either. I wish I did when I bought the elite.
Kinda makes me wonder what else is out there.

its not the saving aspect that they're worried about its people taking the data off these saves transferring them to their computer and either distributing the save files or hacking their gamerscores is what they're discouraging.

Microsoft really wants all of your money.

Yup, but doing this they now blow the doors open on ridiculous overpriced memory cards, just like those highway robbery priced Hard drives.

$29.99 for 512mbof memory is now your cheapest choice.
What a great deal....not.

Microsoft doesn't want your money, because so many people pay for Xbox 360 items anyway. Nuff said.

That explains why the only accessory that wasn't making millions of dollars was the memory unit.

In these hard times, even Microsoft needs an extra income...

512 mbs? For ONLY $29.99!>#*

What could one do with sooooooooooooo much memory for soooooo cheap?@!?@

I don't own one (memory units) but I thought about using one of these to back up saves. All I can say is "booooo". Can't wait to twitter this when I get into the beta.

Yeah, I hate updates like these. I still remember when I was able to hook up my iPod to my 360 and it would work :(

That's a dick move on MS' part, they're really desperate to keep their overpriced storage devices as the only option.

I feel like upgrading my ps3 drive now, just to spit in Microsoft's face.

A tiny ass microsoft 1st party memory card is like 40 bucks lol. I put a 320gb harddrive in my ps3 for 70.

Not only overpriced but tiny as hell. I was always extremely surprised that the huge hunk of plastic called the Memory Unit stored only 512MB instead of the 8GB it could've easily fit (fitted, fat?).

@Residentevil72501 (PSN: rankore):

Yes, Microsoft is ripping us off. But a PS2 8MB memory card is still $25 from Sony. I KNOW they can do better than that.

But don't they get a cut of that 3rd party stuff, though? Licensing fees, at least?

Key word: unauthorized. The ones that are licensed by Microsoft (third-party) won't be locked out.

Yea I think people are jumping overboard. I mean they are just locking down unauthorized 3rd party memory units. There will still be cheaper 3rd party memory units you can buy and not let the over priced status of Official 360 memory units rape your wallet.

I could understand people going over a fit if they decided to lock memory units to just one console that would be a dick move. So far how ever they haven't reached that point just chill out for now.

Like hell Microsoft would have even licensed a 3rd party memory unit that stores more and costs less than their own product. Then that means they would have to lower their price and once again, like hell they're gonna do that.

I don't blame them, those things are garbage. They're more likely to corrupt your saves than anything.

Deluded fanboy?

Definetly! Especially considering all they sell is A 512meg! Ugh!!

Let's organize!
More people will show up if we say we'll have punch & pie.

I dont understand why this guy is getting downvotes when he actually speaks the truth...unauthorised 3p cards are more likely to fuck out...

"They're more likely to corrupt your saves than anything."

Shillery at its finest. You take corporate FUD hook, line, and sinker don't you? How are those Monster cables treating you? Does your TV look hella crisp and sound super real?

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Upcoming Xbox 360 update locking out 'unauthorized' Memory Units

Reader Comments (234)

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