Upcoming Xbox 360 update locking out 'unauthorized' Memory Units
by Ben Gilbert 
{ Oct 17th 2009 at 7:00PM } 
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.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Paulo @ Oct 17th 2009 7:03PM
bit of a dick move
SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Oct 17th 2009 7:08PM
bit?
...
You're giving them too much credit.
Sinister Rouge @ Oct 17th 2009 7:27PM
Yeah dude, totally a dick move. Super Dick. And unnecessary.
jeremy23jacinto @ Oct 17th 2009 7:27PM
they're a bit ripping off gamers' money
Paulo @ Oct 17th 2009 8:09PM
Who the fuck doesn't have a hard drive anyway to be fair.
rooshma @ Oct 17th 2009 8:34PM
Hey, hey, the language...
Let's tone it town there pay cable.
rooshma @ Oct 17th 2009 8:45PM
DOWN... dammit.
SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Oct 17th 2009 8:54PM
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
brad77 @ Oct 17th 2009 8:58PM
@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.
Paulo @ Oct 17th 2009 9:06PM
The hard drives are detachable you know :S
rooshma @ Oct 17th 2009 9:24PM
Well I guess no one hear has heard Dane Cook. Either that or they have and realize he's a douchebag...
EshuElegbara @ Oct 17th 2009 9:31PM
@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!
jcj2391 @ Oct 17th 2009 10:10PM
@paulo xbox 360 arcade sku doesn't have that much memory so they depends on memory stick
OnToGloryReturns @ Oct 17th 2009 10:39PM
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.
Demaar @ Oct 17th 2009 10:53PM
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.
Brodo @ Oct 18th 2009 12:12AM
Its all his fault!
http://www.chrisd.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/bill_gates_money.jpg
Tiptup300 @ Oct 18th 2009 12:26AM
I really wish saved games were in the cloud.
MakoXL @ Oct 18th 2009 1:01AM
+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.
Ori @ Oct 18th 2009 1:51AM
What about 3rd party Hard Drive?
Johnny @ Oct 18th 2009 9:37AM
@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?
whiskeyseven @ Oct 18th 2009 11:51AM
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.
Mazrael @ Oct 18th 2009 12:45PM
It is pretty stupid when you can buy 4GB on usb/SDHC/duo for about £10.. but only 512MB MS for £29.99..
Travis @ Oct 18th 2009 1:24PM
I have a 120gb hard drive for sale for anyone getting so screwed over by this.
$90 plus shipping! Weeeeeeeeeeeeee000t. Im in Canada.
warlock7 @ Oct 18th 2009 5:49PM
@TipTup: Not if you're a Sidekick user...
xaiax @ Oct 18th 2009 10:40PM
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.
xaiax @ Oct 18th 2009 10:47PM
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.
lazyykid @ Oct 17th 2009 7:04PM
i never even seen these 3rd party memory units. wtf mircosoft
Chicago Mafia @ Oct 17th 2009 8:02PM
I never knew these existed. Nice idea...too bad I just found out it right before the beginning of the end of these.
nick @ Oct 17th 2009 8:53PM
Same here. Never seen nor heard of such an option. How many people seriously have these?
greqo @ Oct 17th 2009 9:34PM
I never heard of it either. I wish I did when I bought the elite.
Kinda makes me wonder what else is out there.
Swagman @ Oct 18th 2009 1:28AM
http://uk.codejunkies.com/Products/XB360-MAX-Memory-4GB__EF000778.aspx
I've seen these. They came out earlier this year. Even almost picked one up. But decided to stay my hand until now.
There are a great many reasons to own one of these:
4GB (or 2GB depending on the model) of internal memory
Compatibility with 16GB microSDHC cards to expand/combine memory
Likely to see a firmware update to support 32GB microSDHC cards
One of the features to this particular memory unit, is that it's BIOS can be rewritten, supposedly just in case Microsoft does what they are doing with the new update and lock this product out. At least that was in the Max Memory literature. And it is also the only reason that I decided not to buy one just yet.
Knowing that Microsoft was guaranteed to brick this device, I decided to wait and see how long they were able to get a new firmware update for the Max Memory after the first time Microsoft bricked them. If the turnaround time is fast enough (or comes at all), then I will buy one of these in a heartbeat, and happily extend my middle finger at the guys in Redmond, WA.
If the firmware update does not come, overturning Microsoft's dick move, then I have not lost a thing. So now it is all a matter of waiting to see how long before these will be flashed to bypass Microsoft's ass hat maneuver. I hope soon . . . very soon. As we are not likely to see another "fix" from Microsoft until sometime next summer at the earliest . . . and then the cycle will start anew.
DeepFriedSushi @ Oct 18th 2009 6:36AM
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.
fundando @ Oct 17th 2009 7:04PM
Microsoft really wants all of your money.
Obie @ Oct 17th 2009 7:36PM
Yup, but doing this they now blow the doors open on ridiculous overpriced memory cards, just like those highway robbery priced Hard drives.
fundando @ Oct 17th 2009 8:03PM
$29.99 for 512mbof memory is now your cheapest choice.
What a great deal....not.
Rugged Savior @ Oct 17th 2009 8:57PM
Microsoft doesn't want your money, because so many people pay for Xbox 360 items anyway. Nuff said.
Ridgecity @ Oct 17th 2009 9:28PM
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...
D-Whizzle @ Oct 18th 2009 3:32AM
512 mbs? For ONLY $29.99!>#*
What could one do with sooooooooooooo much memory for soooooo cheap?@!?@
MarkHawk @ Oct 17th 2009 7:04PM
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.
philmcphail @ Oct 18th 2009 12:44PM
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 :(
tmacairjordan87 @ Oct 17th 2009 7:04PM
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.
Residentevil72501 (PSN: rankore) @ Oct 17th 2009 8:05PM
A tiny ass microsoft 1st party memory card is like 40 bucks lol. I put a 320gb harddrive in my ps3 for 70.
CH3BURASHKA @ Oct 17th 2009 10:45PM
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?).
PeacefulOutrage @ Oct 18th 2009 10:49PM
@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.
Mr Khan @ Oct 17th 2009 7:04PM
But don't they get a cut of that 3rd party stuff, though? Licensing fees, at least?
Ron @ Oct 17th 2009 7:56PM
Key word: unauthorized. The ones that are licensed by Microsoft (third-party) won't be locked out.
Stevetrop @ Oct 17th 2009 9:57PM
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.
BlazeKing @ Oct 17th 2009 10:12PM
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.
Neuromancer @ Oct 17th 2009 7:05PM
I don't blame them, those things are garbage. They're more likely to corrupt your saves than anything.
Ashitaka @ Oct 17th 2009 7:10PM
Deluded fanboy?