Rumor: Xbox 360 to Get USB Storage Support

Pingieking

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Sep 19, 2009
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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.
 

Valiance

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Jan 14, 2009
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Wait, 360 didn't have USB until now? Wow.

It's about time, I'm glad they're getting it.
 

Altorin

Jack of No Trades
May 16, 2008
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Valiance said:
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.
 

Nouw

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Mar 18, 2009
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Lono Shrugged said:
slopeslider said:
Only 16gb? Only flashdrives?
My 500gb usb hdd is rendered useless.
I used my 300 gig HD to play music and movies if I recall. Maybe you'll be ok.
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
 

slopeslider

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Mar 19, 2009
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Nouw said:
Lono Shrugged said:
slopeslider said:
Only 16gb? Only flashdrives?
My 500gb usb hdd is rendered useless.
I used my 300 gig HD to play music and movies if I recall. Maybe you'll be ok.
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.
 

ItsAPaul

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Mar 4, 2009
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Well usb drives have always worked, but its nice to see that they're letting the 360 actually upload stuff to it now.
 

TraumaHound

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Jan 11, 2009
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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.)
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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Sep 6, 2009
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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.
 

300lb. Samoan

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Mar 25, 2009
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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.
 
Dec 16, 2009
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I think this rumor is just that, a rumor.
Look at M$'s track record, why would they allow customers to use a storage device that the sale of which gave no profit to M$?
 

MurderousToaster

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Aug 9, 2008
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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.
 

Lono Shrugged

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May 7, 2009
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Nouw said:
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

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.
 

Virgil

#virgil { display:none; }
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Jun 13, 2002
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BlindMessiah94 said:
I like how this is essentially a glorified Memory Card and people are acting like it's the second coming of Jesus.
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.

Mr Ink 5000 said:
Look at M$'s track record, why would they allow customers to use a storage device that the sale of which gave no profit to M$?
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.
 

CaptainCrunch

Imp-imation Department
Jul 21, 2008
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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?
 

Baby Tea

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Sep 18, 2008
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300lb. Samoan said:
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.
Well you can already play MP3's from a USB drive.
And WMVs, though not Divx or XVid or anything like that.

Greater media support would be awesome, but I'm liking this move too.
Hopefully this is more then a rumor.
 

Wicky_42

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Sep 15, 2008
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I don't see why they don't just go the whole hog and support USb storage media generally. The Windows 7 release is incredible for its driver support for hardware, so should not 360 owners look to expect similar service?

Is that the principle divide between consoles and PCs - that PC users are used to expecting more from and having more control over their platform, whilst console users tend to use it as-is for gaming? I mean, every time I've considered getting a current-gen console, there's always a story popping up where Sony or Microsoft are fucking their customers gently one way or another. Perhaps I'm too used to just being able to find fixes for my problems myself. Can't play Xvid? Download a codec pack. Hardware or software problems? Google and fix.

I think I'd be FAR too frustrated at not being able to do what I wanted with the hardware I'd purchased to use a console much. I'd feel like I was almost renting it, and there's little excuse for that (now that consoles are becoming more and more like computers) beyond corporate greed.
 

300lb. Samoan

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Baby Tea said:
300lb. Samoan said:
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.
Well you can already play MP3's from a USB drive.
And WMVs, though not Divx or XVid or anything like that.

Greater media support would be awesome, but I'm liking this move too.
Hopefully this is more then a rumor.
That's just the thing, I already use my XBox and USB drive for music and movies all the time. Although it's kind of fun to pick through my computer's collection and select what I want to watch/listen to and move it to the jump-drive, I really see no reason why I couldn't just connect my 500mb drive and go to town. Supposedly there are some hard-drives that register internally as USB jumpdrives that the XBox will read from, but I believe the models are rather old and obscure and I'm not going to replace my perfectly good drive just to buy one with an interesting technical quirk.
 

Nouw

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Mar 18, 2009
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Lono Shrugged said:
Nouw said:
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

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.
I can see it now...
 

jimduckie

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Mar 4, 2009
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gee its about fucking time ,they should of done it at the start ... now just add some new games to god , drop facebook and twitter and add acess to email and i'll be happy

oh yeah almost forgot , drop the prices for game on demand and dlc and you might sell more ... 25 bucks for old games is stupid