In March Microsoft announced that USB Mass Storage would be making its way to the Xbox 360 and in April the update came. Two months later, Microsoft finally ships the first official Xbox 360 branded USB Flash drives, but they’re ridiculously over-priced.
Microsoft’s USB mass storage support was launched to phase out Microsoft’s dreaded Memory Unit sticks and add the ability to store backup games, downloadable content, Games on Demand, Xbox Live arcade games, and title updates to any USB flash drive or external hard drive – in addition to movies, music, and pictures that were already supported on the Xbox 360 before the USB mass storage update.
While having the ability to store saved games and data from your Xbox 360 to USB storage devices is awesome – and allows you to burn all Microsoft Memory Unit sticks – you’ll be limited to using a maximum of 32GB of external storage drive space via two USB flash drives or external hard drives (16GB max each). You’re allowed to use just about any USB flash drive or external hard drive with your Xbox 360, but there’s only one (well, two) official Xbox 360 USB flash drives.
The official Microsoft Xbox 360 SanDisk USB flash drives sport an all black exterior and official Xbox 360 branding – and “that about it”. The official Xbox 360 USB flash drives come in 8GB and 16GB variants and cost $35 and $70 respectively. Wait, wuh? In my humble opinion, USB flash drive prices are already over-priced as is, but you’ll easily find equal USB flash drives at half the price of what Microsoft is asking at just about any electronics store – after all, the official Xbox 360 USB flash drive is just a SanDisk flash drive painted black with a Xbox 360 logo on it.
At $70 a pop for the official Xbox 360 flash drive, you’ll be forced to fork over $140 to acquire the maximum 36GB of allowed USB mass storage space supported on the Xbox 360 – which is more than the cost of a 1 Terabyte external hard drive (27 times more storage space). Seeing how the official Xbox 360 USB flash drives are destined to fail and collect dust in gaming and electronic stores; I warn you to not be a fool that’s easily parted from his/her money and wait until the prices drop – which is inevitable – before nabbing one of these over-priced flash drives.
For more read USB Mass Storage Support is Now Available for the Xbox 360, Cool Ways USB Mass Storage Will Change the Xbox 360 Forever, and New Xbox 360 Spring 2010 Update Will Allow USB Mass Storage.
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