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That's gonna be a nice thing to have once i get more money and am able to buy more arcade games for my system | |
Fantastic, I got tired of having to install games and then delete them when a new game came along. Finally I can just have them all installed and not have to worry. Though I do smell the terrible stench of piracy on the horizon with the foretold ability to play games from the external harddrive... | |
Will be nice. Somewhere else I can back stuff up to. Nice move Microsoft! | |
Great! Now I don't have to shell out for their ludicrously priced HDD. | |
So I can finally get the XBL update for KOTOR on my 360? Woo | |
took long enough | |
This would surely be excellent news! ... if I still had yet to fill my Elite 120gb hard drive. | |
Oh FFS ive brought a HDD and a MU in the last 3 monthes.... | |
Ill bet before this fuctionality comes out ms will make it so only thier usb units will work or some shit like that | |
If you ask me it should be possible to buy games pre-installed to a usb drive. | |
Ah, I love the smell of rumors in the morning, since lighting a candle usually removes it easily. If not Lysol. | |
Only 16gb? Only flashdrives? | |
I used my 300 gig HD to play music and movies if I recall. Maybe you'll be ok. | |
Yeah, at first I was excited, imagining using my 1TB hard drive for installing games to my heart's content, but that 2x16gb limit is kind of a downer. | |
I like how this is essentially a glorified Memory Card and people are acting like it's the second coming of Jesus. USB sticks have been around forever and these consoles have all had USB slots on them forever. Now, they finally decide to use them and it's a big deal. Way to be behind on the times Microsoft and act like it's innovative. | |
umm... am I the only one that read the 16gb maximum? That's dumb. If you're going to allow support for USB storage, go all out, let people connect their 500gb USB hard drives to it. Why create the support for the hard drives when you're going to limit it to 16gb dongle? This is nothing.. for the hassle, I'd rather get an HDD.. in fact, if they don't open up the 500gb support for portable HDs, then I may end up getting the 250gb HDD when I get some cash in my pants | |
As someone who's got a 20g drive and no interest in paying the exorbitant prices MS charges for it's HDD upgrades, this appeals to me. :) | |
I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about how technology works, but... | |
Boo. 16gb? boo!! I was hoping to buy another 1TB external and slap that in so I never had to worry about deleting crap from it again. | |
Finally. Took them long enough. Now I won't have to shell out for some more over priced Xbox HDD with it's special boy parts when I decide to get back into the MS side of console gaming. | |
Wait, 360 didn't have USB until now? Wow. It's about time, I'm glad they're getting it. | |
It did at one point, but they removed the option not long ago iirc.. now they're restoring it in a limited capacity. | |
There is a 200 GB difference between yours and his so it might not work. In spring... "Time to test it..." *Crosses fingers *360 Blows Up "NOOOOOO!" Eh hm. OT: Oh goody! Wonderful news for 360 Users | |
It recognizes my 500gb for media, but the rumor says 2 16gb flashdrives. I don't even know of a <80gb usb hdd that's still sold. | |
Well usb drives have always worked, but its nice to see that they're letting the 360 actually upload stuff to it now. | |
Now if only it'd get NTFS support so I could plug my external HD in to watch the movies I have on it. Works just fine with the Fat32-formatted USB thumb-drive, but it's annoying to transfer video files to it to watch on the big tv (and don't get me started on the whole media streaming thing...that's been nothing but an unworking headache for me.) | |
Not a bad idea, I have a few flash drives laying around, be nice to back up my save data in case my hdd goes south. | |
About fucking time. But what I'm looking forward to is when they open up access to USB hard-drives - even if just for music and videos. I think it's absurd that I have a whole hard-drive of music that the XBox won't even acknowledge. | |
I think this rumor is just that, a rumor. | |
Ahh well. Doesn't really matter to me (I have one of those 250Gb consoles released last year), so my storage space is fairly safe for the future. I've downloaded loads of stuff and am not even under 200GB yet. | |
Microsoft adding a feature which will SAVE their customers money? I won't believe it until I see it. Would be awesome if true, though...Rock Band songs are close to filling my 20GB HDD entirely. | |
Ok now I'm hoping that happens. Time to dig out the terrabyte drive. Maybe I can daisy chain all my drives together and make a wicked fireworks show that may also kill me. | |
Nobody is paying attention to the fact that this is intended to replace the memory cards (that few people own) and not the hard drives.
In the past few years, 2-8gb flash drives have become fairly cheap and common - it's probably getting more expensive for MS to make their memory cards than what they can sell them for. On top of that, very few people buy the memory cards, and there are now downloadable games that exceed the 512mb maximum capacity of the cards they sell. There are a number of good financial reasons to open that up. On the other hand, there aren't nearly as many good reasons for them to allow people to install any hard drive into their console to upgrade the storage that way, so it's unlikely that you'll see them change their policy on hard drives. | |
Lemme just push up my glasses for a sec: The XBox 360 Memory Unit operates on the same hardware stack as USB, but where USB has a 5v rail, XBox uses 3.3v. There is also hardware authentication, the same as in the controllers. What this means, in theory, is that a Memory Unit could be hacked to similar storage capacity as a USB stick for minimal cost. Since whatever file system the XBox 360 uses supports large drives, the only bottleneck is in the hardware at the USB-equivalent host controller (which is probably 1.1 speed, instead of 2.0). The same is probably true of the USB host proper. (The one used for controllers and media player functionality.) So, the software may support it, but you're probably not going to be happy playing direct download games from it. Great for save games and keeping your HDD clear of media though. I mean, Microsoft has to get paid. Don't they? | |
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Rumor: Xbox 360 to Get USB Storage Support
According to internal documents at Microsoft, USB mass storage support will be coming to the Xbox 360 this spring.
A document written by a senior software development engineer at Microsoft outlined how you will be able to plug in a USB drive to your Xbox 360 and directly download Xbox Live Arcade games, Xbox Live Indie games, Games on Demand, DLC and Title Updates directly to the drive. You will even be able to put a full disc-based onto the USB drive and run it from there, but you'll have to have the disc in the drive to authenticate it. While still not officially announced, if USB mass storage support is a reality, it may mean that Microsoft Memory Units for the Xbox may be cut out entirely. The update is slated for Spring 2010.
"USB storage devices may, however, have far greater memory capacity than MUs (at the date of writing, the largest MU is 512 MB), and may therefore support previously infeasible operations-such as installation of a full disc-based title," the document stated.
The document goes on to more technically describe how USB mass storage would function on the Xbox 360. When you first insert the device, you'll be prompted to do a "complete" format or a "customized" one. Selecting complete format will overwrite all that's on there while customize will allow you to keep music or other files on the drive.
The smallest size drive supported is 1 gig, and the process sets up a partition of 512mb for system and the rest of the drive as storage. Right now, the maximum supported size is 16gb and there's a hard limit on the number of drives you can have connected at any one time. Only the first two USB drives you connect will be recognized.
Still, with two 16g drives, you'd be able to sport 32g of storage without needing to purchase a pricey Xbox hard drive.
That's boon to all of you Xbox Arcade owners out there.
And for the record, I totally want to use that steampunk USB drive with my futuristic-looking Xbox. It'd be so anachronistic!
Source: Joystiq
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