Seriously, I thought 250GB was more than plenty, but apparently Microsoft thought we needed more...

Limited edition Gears of War console to have come with a 320GB HDD

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Xbox360/Conso ... r-3-Bundle

Thats a rhetorical question right? Dude you can never have enough. When I had my playstation I had a 500GB drive in it and space was getting to be an issue. The bigger the better just means that theres less of me having to play musical files and transfer stuff around just to keep it.

What boggles my mind is why only 320gb? The cheapest computers today have at least 500g and this is f*** Microsoft here...

yea my old x box had 120g and alway had to remove things to add a new game

Seriously guys? Unless you're loading up your hdd with movies or full games from the XBL marketplace there isn't really any need to have more than 250GB. Even if you install the games that you have on disk you still need to have the disk in to play it. I have one game installed and that's Bad Company 2 and that's only bc I was trying to keep the frame rate fairly high when I was playing in full rooms. I think I tried installing GTA 4 to keep it from freezing up my console but that didn't work so I uninstalled it. The only things that are on my hdd are XBLA games, demos, trials, and game saves. I think I have some music on there too but I generally just play music off the network when I want to stream it with my games.

Chaotic_Warlord wrote:Seriously, I thought 250GB was more than plenty, but apparently Microsoft thought we needed more...

You're complaining about MORE hard drive space?! The Hell?

My PS3 right now currently has 141 of 250GB free. I have several full PS3 games installed (these are games also available on disc, not "Arcade" style PSN games). I also have tons of classic PS1 games and other downloadable games installed. I've still got space left, but am also quietly hunting for a cheap 500GB 2.5'' laptop drive to upgrade again (my PS3 was a 120GB system out of the box). I have no movies or media on the console. All games. And if I want to continue buying downloaded games I'm going to need more space eventually.

Add to that the fact that hard drives are DIRT cheap these days (500GB in 2.5'' drive runs about $55) and it just seems stupid to offer anything less than 500GB in any console out of the box. There's no measurable savings to be had by choosing 250GB over 500GB. The enclosure size is the same. There's no logical reason to choose the smaller drive capacity.

ScorchedNX2K wrote:What boggles my mind is why only 320gb? The cheapest computers today have at least 500g and this is f**king Microsoft here...

Keep in mind those "cheapest computers" are running 3.5'' hard drives, while 360 and PS3 both use 2.5'' laptop drives. Laptop drives are a little pricier and much smaller than their 3.5'' desktop brethren, and because of this capacities have a lower ceiling and smaller capacities are more common than you'll see in 3.5'' format.

What gets me irate is MS's refusal to support non-MS hard drive swaps.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:
Keep in mind those "cheapest computers" are running 3.5'' hard drives, while 360 and PS3 both use 2.5'' laptop drives. Laptop drives are a little pricier and much smaller than their 3.5'' desktop brethren, and because of this capacities have a lower ceiling and smaller capacities are more common than you'll see in 3.5'' format.

What gets me irate is MS's refusal to support non-MS hard drive swaps.

I did not know that sir.

I'm with you OP, guess it's for the hardcore crowd.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:You're complaining about MORE hard drive space?! The Hell?

This. Music, video, DLC, Arcade Games, Demos, Games on Demand and games installed from disc...that HD gets filled up pretty quick. I've actually got a spare drive just loaded up with music that I use to stream music from at holidays or for parties & gatherings.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:What gets me irate is MS's refusal to support non-MS hard drive swaps.

With articles like this out there I'm actually surprised we haven't seen a third party like MadCatz or (perferably) Nyko market an adapter that will allow Xbox owners to utilize a third party HD of their choice. The main limiting factor is that the Xbox firmware won't recognize a HD larger than the largest size currently available from Microsoft. So right now it's limited to 250GB but in the future it will most likely be upped to 320GB - even if it does take a while for it to trickle down to the non-Gears Xbox owners out there.

I'm not complaining about having more space, just wondering why anyone would need much more that 250GB of storage on a console. I have a 120GB hdd on my 360 and I still have close to 90GB's free, and I have a butt load of XBLA games. I don't have any movies or music on my hdd drive because I stream music either through Last FM or through my computer and movies and tv I watch using Netflix and Hulu. Not to mention if I really wanted to watch something that isn't on either Netflix or Hulu I just turn on the Windows Media Center and stream from my laptop. I don't purchase full retail games through the XBox Marketplace bc frankly I'd rather have a physical disc in the event that I actually want to play the game on someone else's xbox, arcade games are small and fit on a jump drive, full retail games on the other hand generally do not.

Chaotic_Warlord wrote: I have a 120GB hdd on my 360 and I still have close to 90GB's free

I have a 20 GB hdd and I still have about 5 GB free (which is more than enough for me).

BusyBadger wrote:With articles like this out there I'm actually surprised we haven't seen a third party like MadCatz or (perferably) Nyko market an adapter that will allow Xbox owners to utilize a third party HD of their choice.

The problem isn't drive availability, it's support. MS intentionally supports only official drives, necessitating firmware hacks like the one used in that article for unofficial upgrades. It's effing SATA for Hell's sake. It's a STANDARD, which means it's easy to support "any" drive. But they don't. Instead, you have support only for drives compatible with official firmware. Which means unofficial sizes are out as well.

When you upgrade a PS3's hard drive, there's none of this mess involved. Pick a capacity (making sure the enclosure will fit in the PS3 itself), slide the drive in the PS3, start the console and let it format/install OS and you're done. No futzing with firmware, no making sure your serial number works with the firmware you've chosen, no being stuck to the tiny out-of-box official capacities. MS doesn't do this because they want to sell more console accessories. They're bastards.

The point I'm getting at, I guess, is that even MadCatz couldn't do drives unless they chose exactly the right drive in stock capacities. So sure you could save some money on a 250GB drive over the MS offering, but you still won't really have any more freedom as far as upgrading.

Oh, and PS3 hdd upgrades are warranty-covered. 360 upgrades to MadCatz drives wouldn't be.

I would be shocked if MS allowed Madcatz to do that. From my understanding MS has some royalty deal with( forget which ATI for then gen or some deal with Nvidia from last gen) to pay a certian percentage per drive sale. Thats they cost so mcuh and have had 1 price drop that lasted a week since the console laucnhed.

It is easier with the new 360's than the older Pro models. All you have to do is get the right sized and model drive, flash the firmware and slide a generic looking hdd caddy instead of having to hack open that retarted HDD enclosure.

Morph wrote:It is easier with the new 360's than the older Pro models. All you have to do is get the right sized and model drive, flash the firmware and slide a generic looking hdd caddy instead of having to hack open that retarted HDD enclosure.

That the only benefit that comes to mind from the 1st Gen HDD not working on the new slim 360s.

We've got to take what we can get.

I have one of the original 360's ( well of the the pre Jasper's) and will be looking to upgrade to one of the new models so I might suck it up and get this one even though Im not a huge fan of GOW. Kinda hope they release a Battlefield or COD MW3 version with the 320 GB HDD. This way i won't have to worry about upgrading to a larger drive anytime soon.

The 320's will eventually trickle down to the mass market, in both a console with a 320 as well as being available on their own just like the 250's did. It might take a while though. That's pretty much what I am holding out for. Like you, I've got a pre-Jasper 360, it's had the RROD repair, I just hope it can make it until I'm ready to replace it with a new slim.

BusyBadger wrote: Like you, I've got a pre-Jasper 360, it's had the RROD repair, I just hope it can make it until I'm ready to replace it with a new slim.

You might not want to hold out for to long, I have a strong suspicion that when the new update comes in the fall it will brick all the old consoles like ours, which is why I'm probably going to get a new system by September. Judging by all the features that are going to be packed into this new update (Youtube, Bing Search, Skype, Streaming TV) and the strong push to get everyone to start using the Kinect, I really don't think that our old systems will be able to handle it. I'm just going to suck up the $300 and get a 250GB with Kinect bundle and give my old console to my mom so she can step into the 21st century. I don't even know if the Kinect works with our old pre-Jasper units otherwise I'd have one already. Not to mention expect to see a lot of 3D stuff coming in the very near future, since that is obviously where the future of gaming is headed. I know there are a bunch of games that already support 3D, but this year was the year of the Kinect games @ E3, so now that the developers have gotten a handle on putting Kinect functionality into more than just kiddie and sports games (the Kinect demo for Ghost Recon Future Soldier was F'ing amazing), don't be surprised if the big key word at next years E3 is "real 3D". Next thing you know we'll be using brain waves to play our games or the tech that was used "Gamer" (which was a pretty decent movie btw) will be used in 2 or 3 years.