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Gadgets Microsoft Hints at 80GB Xbox 360 Hard Drive
Chris Peredun - November 7, 2006 8:39 PM

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24 comment(s) - last by drobot.. on Nov 9 at 4:18 PM

Images courtesy of Flickr member "Plaid Ninja"

Expanded storage likely given new Video On Demand

At a recent Microsoft event to promote upcoming games and the new Video-On-Demand service, a retail Xbox 360 unit was shown with an 80GB hard drive installed. While it's 20GB short of the previously rumoured 100GB hard drive, it still offers a fourfold increase in storage capacity for users to download their new content onto. As with the stock 20GB hard drive, a portion will be allocated for system use. Nevertheless, the photo shown is purportedly of a stock Xbox 360 with an upgraded drive.

More detailed space requirements for the new Video-On-Demand service have come to light as well. A 44-minute TV episode weighs in at approximately 550MB in 480p widescreen and just under 2GB in 720p format. Movies are much larger with a two-hour movie reaching 1.7GB for a 480p version and 6GB for the 720p version. Although the Xbox 360 recently gained the ability to output 1080p, no content has been offered yet at this resolution.

Also being shown off was the HD-DVD drive in its retail packaging and in action.

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Nice, but..

By Clauzii on 11/7/2006 9:25:24 PM , Rating: 2

.. they should make it possible to use ALL sizes of HD-drive in my opinion, and drop all the "playing" around :)

RE: Nice, but..

By MonkeyPaw on 11/7/2006 9:36:46 PM , Rating: 5

Give it time. I'd imagine that sometime next year we will see a cooler-running 65nm model with built-in HD-DVD drive, HDMI, and 80gb HDD, with the 20GB model dropping to "Core" status. MS is doing rather well to keep the rumors and hype going. I figured that the 100GB drive was a sure thing, now here we are talking about 80GB. It's no coincidence that it's 20GB larger than the premium PS3 either. MS is probably waiting for the PS3 to launch, then they will start launching some new SKUs.

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RE: Nice, but..

By Serifan on 11/8/06, Rating: 0

RE: Nice, but..

By Perium on 11/7/2006 9:39:43 PM , Rating: 3

It would be nice to allow the use to upgrade it as he/she wants. Then you could get some real storage in that thing. Then again we can only wish for Microsoft to gain a little openness in its standards.

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RE: Nice, but..

By ViperROhb34 on 11/7/2006 9:54:26 PM , Rating: 2

I dont understand post like this. I mean YOU CAN use what you want. I ghosted my 20gig orginal HD to another larger laptop hardrive.. You speak of openness of standards.. like many others who don't know what they are talking about.

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RE: Nice, but..

By kamel5547 on 11/8/2006 12:00:57 AM , Rating: 2

Well technically what you are doing while possible probably violates 1) any license agreement included with the X-Box and 2) DMCA (due to its wonderful wording etc.).

WHat would be really nice is if they would just let you dump content onto a USB drive. AN open standard is not well you can hack around this, an open standard is you can do this, its allowed and we'll help you do this. Open standards are a great idea, locking your hard drive to try and block upgrades is terrible.

BTW your statement that you can upgrade the drive by ghosting it sounds very analageous to the usuage of (pick any of the following): torrents for pirating, DVD-decoders for copying, and various other ways of circumventing intellectual property rights. Possible? Yes. Legally allowed? No.

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RE: Nice, but..

By ViperROhb34 on 11/8/2006 9:23:40 AM , Rating: 3

Bullcrap

You show me where I'm illegally switching my hardrive.

#1 You can already use anyone's hardrive (data) on your xbox 360.. people do it all the time.. and when my cousin visits from out of the town.. he brings his

#2 They sell kits to transfer data to pc's.. whether it be saved games or whatever..or backup copies of your hardrive in case it crashes

MS cares about their data, not what hardrive is being used..
Cloning my own data is not a violation period.

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RE: Nice, but..

By ViperROhb34 on 11/8/2006 9:25:36 AM , Rating: 2

By the way they sell those 3rd party kits at Best Buy, and some stores like CompUsa..

Is it not illegal if i use that 3rd party kit instead of using Ghost.

Yeah Right

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RE: Nice, but..

By ViperROhb34 on 11/8/2006 9:33:14 AM , Rating: 2

And if you think about it further
You're only copying your own data when you Ghost the Hardrive... or even use a 3rd party Xbox 360 data kit.

You're not pirating a computer Operating System that already isn't on another Xbox 360..and it CAN'T be stolen or used "improperly" on another Wii, PS3 etc..

So it's nothing like copying an operating system that they sell for 199 dollars like Windows XP.

No one can install anything a non Xbox 360 system by copying it or the data...If you could maybe then MS would care !

Otherwise im copying downloads of games that I ( or anyone who has a 360 ) can already download for free.. like Demo's... saved games.. my pictures..

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RE: Nice, but..

By tuteja1986 on 11/7/2006 9:48:27 PM , Rating: 5

You can do a simple mod and make your own XBOX 360 comptiable Hard drive. http://360.xbox-hq.com/xbox-tutorials-17.html

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RE: Nice, but..

By Clauzii on 11/7/2006 10:21:10 PM , Rating: 1

COOL!

So it's somewhere around 160 Gigs at the moment max. without any limitations?

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RE: Nice, but..

By glennpratt on 11/8/2006 11:23:05 PM , Rating: 2

This does not work as far as I know. Microsoft locks the drive by the manufacturer's serial number and an encrypted and copyrighted PNG file on each disk... and people aren't sure if the key doesn't depend on other parameters such as disk geometry.

If someone want to confirm this, wonderful, but as far as I know it's total BS.

I'm a happy 360 owner, but I really wish they would drop this crap. Really I could care less about everyone else's usual point, but this one gets me.

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RE: Nice, but..

By daftrok on 11/8/2006 1:40:20 AM , Rating: 2

I was able to simply plug in my USB 80GB external HDD to this no problem, however the only problem that remains is the fact that I probably cannot save games on there (unless some firmware update is out there) nor save demos or downloads on it either. Maybe I'm just stupid and there is a way. Does anyone know how?

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RE: Nice, but..

By r0y on 11/8/2006 4:24:14 AM , Rating: 2

Oh aye, that would be the optimal solution. However I think MS wants to stick to a certain manufacture of HDDs and I believe offering a wide range of sizes could cause problems in terms of warranty/compatibility.

The way to go would be an external HDD housing attached via USB where users could pop in a HDD of choice to store downloaded content.

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.65 = :)

By radzer0 on 11/7/2006 10:17:18 PM , Rating: 2

I wanna get the new model when it comes out with hddvd and all built in, also cooler running. So im going to put off the hddvd drive for a little while.

A cooler running xbox would be nice, hdmi doesnt excite me as much as its gonna be atleast 2 years before i even consider a 1080p tv

Figure the new model will cost me around $260+tax (60 for the 2year warrenty that i wont go without again)

RE: .65 = :)

By Alpha4 on 11/7/2006 11:35:50 PM , Rating: 2

How do you figure its only going to cost you $200? (Minus the 2 year warranty). I doubt the price is going to drop that dramatically, if at all, assuming MS actually implements built-in HD-DVD and 80gb HDD.

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RE: .65 = :)

By UNCjigga on 11/7/2006 11:49:08 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, seriously, where did $200 come from? *IF* MS comes out with a new model anytime soon (built-in HD-DVD, 80GB drive, 65nm chip and other goodies) I expect it'll either cost the same as the $399 Premium package, or MS will release a new Xbox 360 Ultimate Edition at $499+ to compete with the PlayStation3.

Thing is, now that MS is pushing video on-demand at HD res I don't think a built-in HD-DVD is all that important. In fact, I'd rather have a built-in DVD burner with the upgraded HD--for archiving purchased content (MS could use a proprietary format to ensure content protection?) Though if MS allows unlimited downloads of purchased content to your Xbox, archiving wouldn't matter.

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RE: .65 = :)

By daftrok on 11/8/2006 4:01:49 PM , Rating: 2

They better not screw people over and make HD-DVD games. Then you would have to buy a 200 dollar accessory just to play a game (the most expensive accessory I have seen was for guitar hero and guitar hero 2 49.99-59.99).

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Not enough.

By therealnickdanger on 11/8/2006 9:33:16 AM , Rating: 2

Sorry MS, I'll go to bat for you most of the time, but just let us dowload content to media servers or external HDDs. 80GB, 100GB, even 200GB won't cut it if you really want to get serious about delivering video content. I currently have over 300GB of video, not including my entire DVD collection which I plan to run off my media server as well. I may represent a small group of users, but I'm pretty sure it's a growing group. I'm also aware that the PS3 supports most video types (read: not just WMV) over a network and on its HDD... C'mon MS, at least be competitive in this one area...

RE: Not enough.

By OrSin on 11/8/2006 9:46:28 AM , Rating: 2

IT not all MS fault. The MPA will not let them let oyu store movies on an external device. The mive then could be ripped to easily. Sure someo will find a way to rip it at some piont but this way its alot harder. Stop blaming companies for how others force them to use DRM.

How many other has any way to Download HD movies and save them to any medium. This is a good first step. I just want to know when I play HD Divx streamed from my MCE computer. Transcode get on the ball :)

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RE: Not enough.

By Trisped on 11/8/2006 2:34:57 PM , Rating: 2

200GB should allow you to save 354 TV shows at 550MB with 5.3GB for other stuff.

My main concern is the price. If the 20GB drive was $100 when it should have been $20-30, does that mean the 80GB drive will be $300-$400?

Personaly I would rather risk voiding the warnenty and make a 500GB 3.5HDD. That would only cost what, $200?

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Seriously frustrating

By othercents on 11/8/2006 11:34:12 AM , Rating: 4

I don't know what these designers are thinking, but if you are planning to download HD Video on any device it needs way more space than 100gb. I don't see why they are not using the new 250gb drives that are out. They are priced well and I believe that most people wouldn't mind paying $200 to get drive space that they won't have to worry about.

This is one of my biggest complaints about DVRs provided by cable companies like Comcast. They put 20gb drives in them and you can't record all your shows for the whole week without running out of space.

Other

how much is MS going to charge for basic accessories?

By drobot on 11/9/2006 4:18:52 PM , Rating: 2

I don't have a 360, and I want one, but now it seems like a PS3 will actually save me money.

XBOX 360 Pro = $400
HD DVD = $200
80gb HDD = $100+
Total = $700+....

PS3 = $600 out the gate w/bluetooth and blu-ray.

Why in the hell should I invest in a 360 now? Just for Gears of War? Xbox Live? Downloadable content?

Assuming I can get a ps3 at launch, which I'm pretty sure I can (I know a dude who know's a dude with a store that is getting them), is there really a reason to go with the 360 anymore?

How will you transfer all your data to a new hard drive?

By mellondust on 11/7/2006 11:51:47 PM , Rating: 1

If they come out with new hard drive, will they have to also come out with some additional hardware to allow you to transfer data from your old hard drive to the new one. I think some have said you could do it through a pc, but I don't think that would be practical for the masses. It would also be annoying to have to swap hard drives all the time depending on what you wanted to watch, play, or listen to if there is not an easy way to transfer the data. I'm interested to see how they would address this.