Computing giant Microsoft has had a long history of strange proprietary peripherals dating back to the original Xbox. From expansion packs to strangely shaped swappable hard drives, every Xbox system has had some form of storage "solution." With the launch of Xbox Series X, Microsoft looks to be doing it again with a custom Seagate NVME designed to work specifically with the new console.

In the past, storage solutions like expansion packs were rarely needed due to the file size of games being much smaller. With every new console generation, game sizes go up and with that, so does the need for more storage. The next generation of consoles is no exception, and the need for more storage could quickly raise the consumers' total cost for the console.

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Old Storage Issues

The original Xbox featured expandable storage with the "Xbox Memory Card" and its whopping 8MB of added memory. The idea of installing games to a console was still far from regular back then, and these devices were mainly used to transfer save files between systems. Most original Xbox users never needed the memory card due to the console's 8GB internal hard drive.

Microsoft continued the memory card trend on the Xbox 360 with the "Xbox 360 Memory Card." In the 360 generation, memory cards came in three sizes, 64MB, 256MB, and 512MB. While larger than the previous 8MB memory card, these cards were still too small to fit full games because 360 titles averaged between 4 and 8GBs in file size. Again memory cards were reserved for oddly specific situations of save file sharing, and the addition of cloud storage on the 360 made them virtually useless.

That same generation kicked off the Xbox 360's swappable hard drive gimmick. System models had different sizes, including a proprietary hard drive module that would click onto the side. Users wanting to upgrade would have to remove the old module and swap a new one in. As games became bigger and load times increased, this practically became a necessity. The mid-life line refresh, Xbox 360 S, changed the hard drive system to be more akin to swapping a laptop drive, but size limitations remained a problem. With the Xbox One line of consoles, swapping hard drives was done away with, although models still released with different capacity hard drives. Users were given the option of expanding their hard drive space with a USB 3.0 external hard drive, thus putting us in the position we're in today.

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Current Storage Problems

With some video games such as Call of Duty pushing file sizes of near 200GB, console storage is more valuable than ever. Previous console generations have seen the implementation of expanded memory in many forms, and it looks like next-gen consoles will repeat that trend. The Series X features only 1TB of internal memory, which has gamers worried about the very limited amount of games they can have installed at one time.

While 1TB may be enough for a few games, that internal hard drive size will ultimately lead to frequent uninstalling and re-downloading of games as users want to play them. Again, this is where modern video game file sizes become an issue. Downloading 100GBs or more for each game could take hours or even days, depending on a player's internet connection. Most internet service providers in the States cap consumer downloads at 1TB a month to make matters worse.

Combined massive downloads with the required bandwidth to stream or play games online and most gamers will quickly go over their allotted download caps in the next-gen. The easiest solution for this is to increases console memory, but that can get expensive quickly. This generation already has generic USB 3.0 "Game Drives" retailing for anywhere from $90 to $214.99. That massive price is for a standard USB device and not any new or proprietary tech.

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Storage Solutions

Series X Storage

Microsoft's answer to the next-gen storage crisis is powerful, but could nearly double some console's cost for consumers. Available now for pre-order, the Seagate 1TB PCI Express Gen4 NVMe game drive is retailing for $219.99. Microsoft has said that Xbox One and 360 games will be playable off standard USB storage, but Series X games will need to utilize the new technology in the NVMe drives.

While having 2TB of total storage is ideal for Series X, the combined price of over $700 is not. Players could look to save space by installing older games on regular USB storage, but even those devices cost more than a new game or controller. Xbox has said that players can store Series X titles on generic USB drives, but they will need to be transferred to internal memory or the custom Seagate drives before being playable.

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