Xbox One won’t support external storage at launch

If you’re hoping to expand your Xbox One’s storage, you might be out of luck. Microsoft has confirmed that external USB drives will not be supported at launch. Xbox Community Manager Larry Hryb confirmed the news in a podcast recorded at PAX. “My understanding is that feature will not be there at launch because the team’s working on other things. It’s definitely on the list; I don’t know when it will come in, though,” said Hyrb.

The Xbox One supports a 500 GB hard drive, which should be more than enough room for games. However, it cannot be upgraded by the end user. At least not until someone figures out how to hack the system.

On the other end of the spectrum, Sony has confirmed that the PS4 will support USB storage at launch, but only for media. Games cannot be stored on external drives, an issue which carries over from the PS3. However, end users will be able to replace the internal drive with a larger one. The Wii U does support USB storage for games and can handle drive sizes up to 2TB.

Source: Major Nelson, Twitter, via ArsTechnica