It's Official - No Hard Drive in Xbox 2
A saw over at Evilavatar.com
CEO of partner company and memory device provider M-Systems, Dov Moran confirmed today that the next version of the Xbox will not ship with a hard drive. Team Xbox has the story.
"It's a cooperation agreement. The potential isn't clear, but it's in the billions of dollars. Microsoft has taken the hard disk out of its Xbox. The only thing left will be a CD; that's all. At some point, when users want to save their e-mail messages, copy music, or anything like that, the only storage they'll have is what we give them. It's worth hundreds of millions to the company, spread over a few years, and we'll be the main supplier for it; and I hope the sole supplier. "Meanwhile, development is intense, and requires expenses, although not major ones. We'll start supply only in 2005."
Personally I am VERY surprised and disappointed if this is true. Bad decisions IMO and truly moves them away from having any hope of being a convergence solution. I know that I probable will not buy one unless things become very skewed with the competition. I should mention that I still don't think this is true.
-Griffon
Did Samurai Jack ever get back to the past?
Gettin'' ganked by the M is a lesson.
Booooo
SteamId = RevenantKel
This is a mistake.
For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. ~Ron Shelton, Bull Durham, 1988
wow! didnt see that one coming...
I think in the last 3 months with Ed Fries leaving the Xbox 2 team has obviously changed its focus dramatically on what the xbox 2 will be..
You can toss out PVR, Set top box etc...
Looks like it will be a gaming platform and thats all...
Possibly this may be a huge mistake for Microsoft if Sony moves in the PVR direction.
Lets start eating some shoes!
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Nintendo will crush Microsoft with use of the might hammer bros!
For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. ~Ron Shelton, Bull Durham, 1988
Or you could read this as MS is taking the HD out so that we can put one of our data storage solutions in there instead. Maybe? Ah, crap.
I don''t want to have to buy some kind of external memory cards!
True..but at $29 a pop they wont be more than 8mb-16mb flash ram...
And since when were memory cards strictly sourced from one company? Whats to stop a Third Party from making memory cards for the xbox2?
Considering a 1gb SD Flash Card is $300+ and the CF 1GB cards are like $150+ having any sort of large amount of flash ram is way more expensive than a HD.
I''m telling you no more than a little over 3 months ago.. in November when we last talked to MS about HomePlug for the Xbox 2 they were all about the HD..
Then Ed Fries leaves.. and they switched up the teams and some of the guys we used to talk to were gone... and then...well it appears that something shifted in the company and the whole PVR/Set Top angle is out the door.
I''m not convinced it had anything to do with Cost though really...
I think they want to be viewed as a Gaming System only... and that the HD was holding them back and opening them up to hacks.
A 40gb HD translated to them about $20 in manuf. cost.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
MS does it again. ""Bend over world, you''re gonna like it!""
Graktar, Orc Hunter
So we are expected to pay $300 for a CD? Not even a DVD? No RAM? No MB or ATI vid card?
This story has a curious odor my friends.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Until it comes out, I still refuse to believe they could be quite this dense. I really don''t know what I would do about it, I really, really don''t.
"THE HELL ASS BALLS." - Prederick, expressing frustration in the time-honored way.
Well we know what Ridlin will do...
Didn''t someone say webcam?
Well, that ensures XBox 2 games won''t be any more advanced than current ones (in terms of depth, not graphics). I think KotOR pushes the limits on what you can do with a console considering the inability to patch possible show-stopping bugs. With no hard drive in the XBox 2, MS couldn''t even backtrack on their stance of ""no patches over MS Live.""
The wording of the article does sound a little off. The way they worded that part is just strange. I think that the HD was probably the thing about the X-box that separated it from any other console. Games could be updated, new maps and music could be downloaded. It was almost as good as having a pc!
Just playing, but really I think that if they remove the HD and it starts needing a Memory card like other consoles, what will separate it from any other console?
You know that the games will flock to Sony, if history repeats itself for a 3rd time, so that will definitely be a downside to the Xbox 2. It can only have so many downsides...
Tobyus
Still searching for the perfect game...
Last edited by Tobyus on Sep 14, 2006 - 02:06 PM; edited 1,000,000 times in total
Did you guys read the end of the article?
This company makes flash drives up to 47 GB. If they stick a 10 to 40 GB flash drive in their system this is going to be superior to a hard drive in many ways. The more advanced IDE and SCSI drives claim to ''eliminate seek times'' even the lower end IDE one has a seek time of <0.1ms. The only way I can see that this is worse than a hard disk is the transfer rates are pretty pitiful maxing out at about 40MB/s on a SCSI bus. If they implement some kind of technology like this I am all for getting rid of the harddrive. Of course I am sure they cost more too so I would think that the cost/mb would be the thing to worry about.
Of course if they are just going to be making big memory cards that could be annoying. But from a business point of view it would make sense, I mean think about how many memory cards I have for my PS2 (5) compared to Xbox(0). Thats around and extra $125 to Sony by my count.
Then again the guy being interviewed was talking about storing music/email and such so I assume these will be fairly large, either way I don''t think it''s really something to worry about too much. I would prefer a large drive like the Xbox but if they do go the memory card route I am going to assume they will be pretty large >512MB I would think, but the fact that they chose this particular company seems to indicate some kind of large multi GB flash disk to me.
PSN ID: Stric9
I guess, but I won''t buy something that is a PVR that I can''t self upgrade. Locking it in a proprietary hardware will thin out a bigger chunk of their prospective audience then they think.
There is also ZERO chance any kind of large flash storage system will be able to come in a at a lower component price then a 40 some odd gig drive. If they where able to do that then I could go buy one right now at fry''s instead of a HD.
-Griffon
Did Samurai Jack ever get back to the past?
If Sony were smart, they''d put a hard drive (size doesn''t matter) into the PS3.
"Men like sex, thus boobies! Oogaba!" - dejanzie
"If ads put your sanity to the test
come on down to Rat Boy's nest!
light up a stogie, and soon you'll see
how rock can be commercial-free!
'I'd hit it!'" - HP Lovesauce
An 8gb Compact Flash card costs $5,999
A 47GB Flash Memory Card sold to the Dept. of Defense probably costs closer to $100,000
I somehow doubt anything close to the size needed to match the functionallity of a hard drive is going to show up in the Xbox 2..
Unless of course Microsoft knows something about Flash Memory prices dropping drastically by ''06
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Heck, I''m starting to think that the lack of hard drive argument is keeping ms ahead of the game (no pun intended). How much controversy is going around sony''s box...none so what does ms do but ""leak"" info to people about the xbox has no HD...I''m gonna believe it when the thing is released.
Quote from a conversation about the Flagship forum closure:
LobersterMobster: Official forums are closing today.
Farscry: Holy crap, what?!
LobesterMobster: OFFICIAL FORUMS ARE CLOSING TODAY!
I just don''t get why they would take out the HD. Right now, it''s really pretty much the only thing the XBox has that sets it apart from other consoles. I hope they clear this up once and for all at E3.
"Anakin, as embodied by [Hayden] Christensen, is the kind of needlessly moody kid you might see getting punched out in a Dairy Queen parking lot."
"”Paul Tatara on SW:Episode II
Going solid state makes sense if they don''t make it too expensive. I would imagine a lot of that six grand goes to the form factor. If they don''t have to built it physically small and can keep the seek/access times, the price point should come down.
Besides, do they even need that much space? Other than downloaded content, most games don''t seem to consume a lot of space. I don''t think my half-dozen KOTOR saves have even made a dent in the thing.
And, just to keep the pot stirring, Microsoft has announcedthat this is nothing more than speculation by Moran. Maybe M-Systems is only providing those abhorrent memory cards and nobody told them.
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit. - Oscar Wilde
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.) - Roedy Green
Not a true answer but sort of puts it all in perspective. I assume sobody is about to have to do the apolgy dance on a certin MS CEO''s desk.
-Griffon
Did Samurai Jack ever get back to the past?
I don''t even see the need for a new game console. Xbox is all the speed I need, and developers are taking years to make games to live up to its potential. Ninja Gaiden is as fast as I could want a game to be.
With a newer console, the development time will be extended even more for quality games. Am I missing something here?
"I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb." -Charles K.
Trial balloon perhaps? Microsoft lets a 3rd party announce no hard drive, and watches for reaction while still maintaining the ability to say ""We haven''t announced the specs"".
I dunno, MS''s comment on the matter seems to be a pretty big pimp slap. I don''t think any company would subject themselves to becoming a lightning rod soley to test market for their potential business partner. I think they got a little uppity without knowing all the facts. Point is, there *will* be mass storage of some sort in XB2. It would be so ass-facedly stupid to not have that. Noone said that a standard hard drive has to be the mass storage, though. Hell, maybe it''s a microdrive; they''re getting cheap, high capacity, and they''re small -- TAHT WAYY TEH XBOX2 WONT B SOOO HUGGE!!!!!LOL!1
I generated a virtual world in the toilet bowl this morning.
-- Podunk on the PS3's mystical, magical abilities
Okay okay, sorry I''m late!!
Remember, I said HD or something that can hold gigs of space.
Could this thing hold a few gigs of space, yes it could.
Do we know any real details, no.
Is there a possiblity that with all these xbox rumors of late that MS is possible screwing around trying to get sony to ""show their hand""?
Yes there is.
Don''t freak out yet people. Let me stink my shoes up some more first.
Xbox 2 will have gigs of space, or I will eat my shoe!!!
wait and see. I''m not going anywhere.
Consoles are dying!!!! argghgghh!!! *gurgle gurgle*
Sorry, I just had to
Xbox Live: Kooter06
ITS TEH END!!!!!!11
"THE HELL ASS BALLS." - Prederick, expressing frustration in the time-honored way.
What type of sauce will you like with your shoe? Microsoft wants to make money a cheaper to produce console will help with that.
For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. ~Ron Shelton, Bull Durham, 1988
This guy is coming from a company with 1 successful quarter out of 11 YEARS ! I wouldn''t trust him any more that I could throw him.
End of line
Shouldn''t this company be making components for the Phantom?
I generated a virtual world in the toilet bowl this morning.
-- Podunk on the PS3's mystical, magical abilities