Next gen storage expansion to cost mucho dineros

Solid state storage is going to be a major boon for gaming. Reducing load times, and allowing for far bigger words to run on next gen consoles. Yet there’s a pretty big catch to all that speed: limited space at sky high prices. Hmm, just like an apartment in Toronto.

The Xbox Series X only ships with 1TB of storage, the same as the current One X. Meanwhile, the Series S only packs 512GB into its stout frame. Gamers have already complained that this isn’t enough space for current gen games, let alone next gen ones. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2, or Call of Duty, already use well over 100 GB.

Well, if what they provide doesn’t meet your needs, there is, as always, an upgrade path. Microsoft is offering proprietary drives made by Seagate to expand the console duo’s storage capabilities. Pre-orders for the 1TB module have gone up on the official Xbox site and various retailers at a whopping $220 USD ($299 CAD).

In fairness to them, similarly spec’d PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs for PCs cost about the same. However, this is still a tall order when the upgrade costs almost as an entirely new console. A friendly reminder that the Series S runs at $299 USD.

Now, you can still use an external USB 3.0 drive to store your games. However, only Xbox One backwards compatible titles can actually be played off those drives. Series X/S games will only run off the internal storage, or the expansion module, if the game takes advantage of their new “Velocity Architecture”. Which will likely be anything that’s not an indie game. Though it is likely you’ll still be able to put those games into deep storage on the hard drive, to free up space without having to redownload them.

Sony meanwhile has once again adopted standardized storage. The PS5 will allow you to use any old PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD provided it meets a minimum transfer speed. Though most of the ones that do are just as expensive as Xbox’s. However, costs will likely decrease over time. Something which is unlikely with Microsoft’s proprietary solution, as that’s usually how things go for proprietary solutions.

Part of me wonders if they shouldn’t have compromised with SATA based SSDs for these consoles. The older technology is certainly cheaper than these PCIe 4.0 drives. While not as fast, they’re still substantially quicker than the mechanical drives used in current systems. As the world teeters on a global recession, these expensive drives may end up being too rich for a lot of peoples’ blood.