[Rumor] Xbox 360 Getting USB Storage in Spring Update

[MachEnergy]

Originally Posted by Hawkzombie

Here's a solution: Get an external HDD, connect it to your computer. Take your USB drive and put whatever you want on it and move it to the HDD. Simply out whatever you want to use at the time on the USB drive and plug it in. Round about way to up the storage

This is exactly what I was thinking. And I would assume Microsoft would assume people would do this, which makes the whole size limit a moot point and simply an annoyance.

Oh speculate speculate speculate. How we love to speculate I swear, it's almost the best part of being a gamer.

[Wilkz07]

i was happy reading about this when i remember seeing a 2tb external hdd for 189 at futureshop... then unhappy when the capacity is 16gb. screw you ms.

[Gorvi]

Originally Posted by OldJadedGamer

I think you are misunderstanding what I said. Not the save file, the full game. Say I'm out of space on my HDD, I can't save Fat Princess to a USB stick.

When I'm installing Hot Shots Golf, I can't tell it to install to the USB drive instead of the internal HDD. Also, I can't put DLC for any game and run it off a USB stick nor can I install things like Home to it. All this is only for the internal HDD. The USB thing is for transferring save files back and forth only.

Ahh, ok, yeah, you're right on that. I misunderstood when you said save games.

[PathMaster]

I personally can not see them limiting this so low. MS knows that HDD space is cheap and that their customers WANT more of it. If they do intend to expand the Xbox platform, then a limit of 16 gb for two drives is ludicrously low. Unless this is intended for just USB flash drives. 16gb versions of those are NOT quite so cheap yet.

[Wraith]

How will running an installed game off a USB 2.0 flash drive compare to the standard 360 hard drives? Will USB hurt performance, or just up load/install times a bit?

[Nero F. Martin]

My only interest in a 360 is the HALO games. If you could play the original HALO games with just a USB device instead of needing the HD for backwards compatibility I'd be all over it. In the meantime I'll stick with my PS3.

[Mike Kelehan]

Originally Posted by Nero F. Martin

My only interest in a 360 is the HALO games. If you could play the original HALO games with just a USB device instead of needing the HD for backwards compatibility I'd be all over it. In the meantime I'll stick with my PS3.

You can't play Halo 2 online at all. Are you saying that their single player campaigns are the only reason you'd get a 360?

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by PathMaster

I personally can not see them limiting this so low. MS knows that HDD space is cheap and that their customers WANT more of it. If they do intend to expand the Xbox platform, then a limit of 16 gb for two drives is ludicrously low. Unless this is intended for just USB flash drives. 16gb versions of those are NOT quite so cheap yet.

I can easily see MS limiting this. Have you seen how overpriced their HDDs are? It's a joke.

[Xerxes]

Anti-Consumer as usual. Stay classy Microsoft.

[OldJadedGamer]

Originally Posted by Wraith

How will running an installed game off a USB 2.0 flash drive compare to the standard 360 hard drives? Will USB hurt performance, or just up load/install times a bit?

The Wii has a USB ISO loading and from what my friends tell me, it works fine.

[Yeti2005]

Originally Posted by OldJadedGamer

The Wii has a USB ISO loading and from what my friends tell me, it works fine.

Don't you have to have a hacked Wii for that?

Also I wonder how long before someone makes a device/hack that allows you to use over 16GB either by switching to different "partitions" on the fly or just out right taking out the restriction.

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by OldJadedGamer

The Wii has a USB ISO loading and from what my friends tell me, it works fine.

Yeah, but those are Wii games. How would ME2, AC2 or GTA4 work on USB?

[RandoM51]

Originally Posted by Wraith

Yeah, but those are Wii games. How would ME2, AC2 or GTA4 work on USB?

Good USB memory stick = 30MB/s reads, 15MB/s writes
12X DVD = 16MB/s reads(max), 8MB/s (average)

They'd probably work fine, considering the most frequently used data would be cached to the hard drive anyways, at least for those people with a hard drive. 360 does some generic caching(I really want to spell this cacheing instead), and games themselves can specifically cache things. Bioware pointedly did *not* make use of this with ME, perhaps they learned their lesson and did make use of it for ME2.

As far as the limit goes, software can "fix" that on a host pc and/or 3rd parties can produce USB memory devices with page buttons, just like they did for memory cards on the ps2. You'd have multiple partitions on the memory stick and the page button would choose which to present to the 360.

[Wraith]

But for people with no hdd, just USB drive...

Ah, you edited a bit. I guess getting a reasonably fast drive should work.

[RandoM51]

Hey, my editing was just grammar, not facts.

[Orca]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

Anti-Consumer as usual. Stay classy Microsoft.

How is adding a USB storage option anti-consumer? The 16 GB limit? For all we know that's the upper end storage limit for FATX.

[Hawkzombie]

Yeah, For a while I had it where you could play PS2 ISOs off a USB drive. Only problem was that it DOWNGRADED the USB to 1.0 instead of 2.0 because the PS2 only used 1.0 So FMVs were choppy. But the games played great.

Then my PS3 died

[Adam Blue]

Looks like Major Nelson is confirming this.

[Gorvi]

Originally Posted by Adam Blue

Looks like Major Nelson is confirming this.

Damn, good on them.