Xbox 360 USB Sticks Will Likely Be Overpriced

[dmase]

If someone is willing to pay out 70 for a flash drive they may as well just shell out another 20 and get a terabyte external HD, or actually there are ones that cost 70 bucks that are 800gb that can fit in your pocket and you still have room for the cord. No setup for any of it plug it in and go.

 

[Woodsey]

MS's network adapter and LIVE fees put me off bothering to get a Gold account - I don't see why I should pay to "unlock" one half (multiplayer) of the game I've just bought. This is why I'm glad PC gaming doesn't have an owner - so to speak - and is why MS keep failing in their attempts to brand us.

Obviously they need to make a profit off of these things - but a reasonable profit that doesn't kick the consumer in the balls would be nice.

When compared to the 512mb Xbox Memory Card, which still sells for $30

What the fu-

You're kidding?! That's like £20 for something that can't hold a single demo!

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Add in the fact that the branded drives will come pre-formatted for the Xbox 360, which makes them more expensive to manufacture, and that they likely won't be using cut-rate memory, and the price isn't too surprising.

Dude, this is Microsoft were talking about. Lords of the Red Ring of Death because they used the cheapest components available for the early versions of the x360. As for jacking up the price for pre-formatting, it takes all of what, 2 minutes to format a flash drive? They're just being same old greedy Microsoft.

 

[Virgil]

Can we use our own memory USB sticks though?

Yep - if you've got one, that's what you'll want to use. But any storage you set up to use on the Xbox can't be accessed by a PC without formatting it, so only use a flash drive you aren't planning on using for anything else.

Dude, this is Microsoft were talking about. Lords of the Red Ring of Death because they used the cheapest components available for the early versions of the x360. As for jacking up the price for pre-formatting, it takes all of what, 2 minutes to format a flash drive? They're just being same old greedy Microsoft.

The Xbox 360 problems were design flaws, not problems with component quality. They may have been failing, but it was high-quality components failing, not cheap ones. Of all of MS's faults, cut-rate hardware quality has never been one of them.

Also, taking 2 minutes for a single user to format a flash drive doesn't really speak to how much more it costs to mass-produce drives with a custom drive image preloaded. It's considerably more expensive than a blank drive. So much so that when we create our marketing kit flash drives, it's cheaper to copy them by hand in the office rather than having them loaded by a manufacturer.

 

[Prometherion]

Wow! Really? Microsoft charging extortionate prices for hardware?

If i knew how to imbed a picture into forum posts id post one which accurately describe my sarcasm.


And id place it,

here ---->

 

[slopeslider]

Can we use our own memory USB sticks though?

Yep - if you've got one, that's what you'll want to use. But any storage you set up to use on the Xbox can't be accessed by a PC without formatting it, so only use a flash drive you aren't planning on using for anything else.

Dude, this is Microsoft were talking about. Lords of the Red Ring of Death because they used the cheapest components available for the early versions of the x360. As for jacking up the price for pre-formatting, it takes all of what, 2 minutes to format a flash drive? They're just being same old greedy Microsoft.

The Xbox 360 problems were design flaws, not problems with component quality. They may have been failing, but it was high-quality components failing, not cheap ones. Of all of MS's faults, cut-rate hardware quality has never been one of them.

Also, taking 2 minutes for a single user to format a flash drive doesn't really speak to how much more it costs to mass-produce drives with a custom drive image preloaded. It's considerably more expensive than a blank drive. So much so that when we create our marketing kit flash drives, it's cheaper to copy them by hand in the office rather than having them loaded by a manufacturer.

So Microsoft had 3 options.
1. Pre-format the drives at a higher cost
2. Leave them blank and let them format on the users 360.
3. Don't produce anything and let us use our own, which will be formatted on the 360 like theirs would be, and save production money.
Why would they choose the most expensive and difficult option?
That's like them charging an extra $5 for mw2 with up to date patches out of the box. Just save yourself the work and let it update on it's own on our 360's.

 

[Chris^^]

MICROSOFT PRODUCTS OVERPRICED!?!?!?!!
who could ever dream of such a thing!?

 

[Outlaw Torn]

It's an official product from Microsoft. I don't think anyone spilt their milkshake after reading this.

 

[Treblaine]

Anyone surprised by this? I mean, Microsoft milks it up with their proprietary devices and system so that they and only they can make the most money. When the 360 first came out in it's 1st month or so, the official Xbox360 controller (by M$) was the only one available. They charge all their console developer's close to 10% or more for licensing fees to have their games on their systems (then again, so does Sony and I think Nintendo does too), which explains the $60 price point compared to PC's $50 price point.

And the sun will rise tomorrow.
not surprised in the least.

Took the words out of my mouth.

Just use a GENERIC USB STICK. Problem Solved.

Can't do it. M$ has hardcoded and used software updates that makes their systems only recognize their hardware pieces or licensed 3rd party companies only. And, with this, they most likely won't license it out to anyone.

WHAT!! but WHY!?!?

Why bother with the very open USB memory stick interface and then lock it down with propriety hard-coded firmware?!?!? I mean every single xbox has proprietary memory card ports?

Why would they tease us with the ability to plug any USB stick in only to get a "Ha Ha! Should have bought from us! Fuck the free market WE OWN YOU!!!"

Please, give me sources on this because I just can't believe even Microsoft would do such a thing.

 

[Varun Garuda Maharaj]

I seriously doubt the prices will be any lower than what the gamestop listings are. As you've pointed out, they always tend to be horrendously overpriced. The hard drives and the network adapter are prime examples. No shocker here.

For real, 1)we already have to pay for Xbox LIVE, 2)our lives are already hard enough with the expensive attachments

 

[uppitycracker]

I seriously doubt the prices will be any lower than what the gamestop listings are. As you've pointed out, they always tend to be horrendously overpriced. The hard drives and the network adapter are prime examples. No shocker here.

For real, 1)we already have to pay for Xbox LIVE, 2)our lives are already hard enough with the expensive attachments

you forgot about persistent hardware failure lol. just lost another xbox... luckily it was being lent to a friend because we, for some reason, had two of them.

 

[Scrythe]

Sweet mother of Thor, for the price of that 16GB stick, it should be able to fix me a steak and lick my fucking feet!

I'm almost 100% sure that this decision was specifically marketed towards morons.

 

[Varun Garuda Maharaj]

thats why we Xbots walk by faith and not by sight

 

[SaintWaldo]

...Not that companies like Microsoft and Sony are expected to provide a good value for accessories...

Wait, why drag Sony into this? The PS3 allows the use of standard, off the shelf SATA drives. In fact, they don't even MAKE drives intended to be used internally in a PS3. It's in no way similar to how Microsoft gouges it's customers with proprietary, overpriced drives.

...The fact remains that it would be a miracle if Microsoft, Sony, or any first-party put out a storage product that was reasonably priced...

If you only consider things like packaged external drives that aren't specifically for the console market, perhaps. Did you intend that to be the domain of this statement?

...I'm not bashing Microsoft at all...

So, you drag Sony in at the top on a MS only story, and then you don't extend the same "I'm not bashing" here? Wow.

...but at least we have other choices due to the USB interface that we didn't in previous generations...

Um, like the USB that was in the PS2? And the ability to use USB drives that was standard on PS3 from day one? With standard formatting?

Again, you're the one that brought Sony into this.

 

[SaintWaldo]

Ah, all companies do this. I bought a second PS3 controller, and found it didn't come with a cable. I could have spent $10 on an Official Sony Brand Charge Cable Accessory, or perhaps about $2 on a USB-to-Smaller-USB cable in Radio Shack. As it turned out, I had such a cable lying around.

At least Sony used a standard that allowed you to use a cheaper, non-proprietary replacement, and they don't alter it in a way that makes it unusable for anything else. Please understand the huge difference between the two example behaviors.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

In terms of criminal pricing, for ~$35 an 8GB USB stick is less of a rip-off than a 512MB mem card. I'm still excited about this move, but it looks like I won't be buying the XBox branded stick after all. And as far as those god-damned Wireless Network Adapters are concerned, I've got a lonely Linksys WRT54G here that is soon going to be flashed with DD-WRT and will be acting as my portable wireless antenna, and will be traveling with my XBox all over my house and over to my friend's places. A WRT54G goes for $40 and if you can manage to flash it with DD-WRT without bricking it, you'll have something that is infinitely more useful than the $80 XBox piece.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Overreact much? Come on NO one is forcing any of you to buy Microsoft( <<<--- Look how easy it is to spell with a regular S instead of $) branded usb drives. Really just looking for something to complain about are we? Our side is better your side is going down! /end sarcasm

XBox users aren't so much looking for things to complain about as much as tripping over them every 5 steps. XBox 360 is deceptively expensive, and it's worth educating people about.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Overreact much? Come on NO one is forcing any of you to buy Microsoft( <<<--- Look how easy it is to spell with a regular S instead of $) branded usb drives. Really just looking for something to complain about are we? Our side is better your side is going down! /end sarcasm

XBox users aren't so much looking for things to complain about as much as tripping over them every 5 steps. XBox 360 is deceptively expensive, and it's worth educating people about.

My house has 3 xboxes and one PS3 and I havent bought anything I didnt want. The Key word is want. I want xbox live, I want the extra controllers, I want that game and this game but I was never forced to buy anything.

But I agree that the average person dosent know better. It dosent help that shady retailers such as best buy spread mis-information. I heard a Rep of that establishment tell a customer that they needed the Xbox Memory Card to be able to run Netflix.

Well, if they don't have a hard-drive connected, then that's entirely true - you need storage and cache space for Netflix, which means either a hard-drive or a memory unit.

My biggest beef is over the Wireless Network adaptors, which need to be special made for the XBox because it lacks support for DLLs and therefore isn't compatible with the same PC product. Microsoft takes advantage of this situation to mark the product up to twice the price, essentially forcing people to pay for the brand-name rather than updating the console's hardware support. In this case the customer asks him/herself "do I want to invest in running cable all over my house in ways that are either unsafe or not-at-all cost effective or accept the markup on this wireless product", rather than just simply "do I want this." In that case it's a pressure sale and that's one of the tactics they employ that I don't agree with.