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Xbox 2 Storage Supplier Says No Hard Drive
Loadmaster writes "Dov Moran of M-Systems, who recently closed a deal with Microsoft to provide 'customized memory units' for the next Xbox, spills the beans. He says Xbox 2 will not have a hard drive in an interview with the Israeli website Globes Online. No details on how their memory solution will replace the HDD, though." Regardless, Moran seems pretty confident in the agreement with Microsoft, so it's likely that the Xbox 2's storage system is now in M-System's hands. S!: Also worth noting is a GameSpot story which has an Xbox spokesperson claiming: "Mr. Moran is aimlessly speculating... we've made no such announcements about future Xbox products and services."
So what you're saying is that Microsoft is totally abandoning their online strategy?
That or they're selling the hard drive as an extra to squeeze more cash out of people.
The first seems unlikely, the second is just bleh.
Guess I'll stick to Nintendo.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
I'm guessing that their base game unit will not have a hard drive, but they will have a more expensive deluxe PVR model that will have a harddrive.
I for one would love to see more solid-state parts used in these game consoles. The more moving parts a thing has, the more likely it is that those things will break. By removing them and replacing them with solid-state devices, it makes the failure rate of the these things due to hardware failure drop considerably.
But that's just the consumer's POV.
More to the heart of the matter, Microsoft would likely be doing this because of the inability of hackers to easily replace the contents of a DOC with their own personal OS image, be it Linux or NetBSD. The reprogrammable DOC is great in its ease of update, if you've got the programming hardware. Otherwise, you have to find a way using the existing OS to update the OS image. You can be sure that MS will make that close to impossible.
But then again, I've never really cared about Linux on the XBox. It always seemed like one of those Everest platforms: you do it because it's there.
I have been pwned because my
So i guess this rules out any question of backward compatibility for Xbox games that make use of the hard drive... That is unless of course they stock the XB2 with 10G of flash memory, in which case, it's price tag is going to be astronomical... and what about the touted "Media Center" functionality of the Xbox? How will you rip your songs to the HDD if there isn't one?
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Games didn't really use the HD much anyways. And I bet one dvd-rw would be enough to hold all the extra game content you download for a very long time.
Is that Dov Moran of M-Systems is a blithering idiot. To shoot off your mouth like that on a Microsoft deal has to be like pissing on the third rail. Especially after the SCO shit this morning.
I predict he will be looking for a new job tomorrow.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Maybe Microsoft also is also looking for ways to lockdown the hardware, and prevent people from installing linux. Possibly using a more compact form of memory which they can control better. You know the old moto: "embrace and extend". Microsoft need only pervert something for their proprietary needs, and lockout reverse engineering.
Another issue might be simply mechanical, hence the notion of reducing the need for moving parts. Since solidstate memory is increasing in capacity, and price. One cannot arge against the percieved advantage of having a hdd for large scale storage. I dump entire CD's to my xbox, and play them in games, or use the xbox as a primitive juke to play the entire collection. So possibly Microsoft is opening up an after market for add-on hard drives? Their stance being that you get "enough" storage for game-state saves, and if you need more get an add on memory module for your controller, or get the option hard drive. It certaily helps to leave space for the the extra hardware in the enclosure just in case they decide to include them later on (depending on what sony does).
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
Is it just me, or is the concept of the Xbox 2 not having a hard-drive seem possible as a direct influence of piracy?
With modchips and the internal drive, being able to play disk images right off the harddisk seems like this could be an issue for Microsoft.
Fastest way to find a needle in a haystack? Burn down the haystack...
Taking out the harddrive would be just that, elimating the problem.
Course it could be just a cost factor, who knows. All arm-chair analtics...
I really do hope that they include the hardrive... It is the only reason i would buy a game console, otherwise you have to pay hundreds of dollars in accessories, and it adds general value to the console. It would be a typical microsoft move to not incorperate it.
I think it's obvious. They gonna build in a hdd that's called "XBOX superhyperdrive". The only thing that will change is the interface, so that no linux-driver exists and many people will have to stick to their old xbox-linux-router (until some guys figure it out, again).
Well, it looks like I'm in the minority who don't believe this guy.
I don't think he knows what he's talking about; the way that he keeps mentioning that he's looking out for the company's long-term survivability in regards to the company's track record of red ink reminds me of Tom Smykowski's nervous, angry interview with the Bobs in Office Space. The fact that he said that the Xbox 2 was going to have a "CD," not even a "CD Drive," rather than a DVD drive of some sort tells me that he's not at all familiar with what the specs of the Xbox 2 will be.
If I read the article correctly, M-Systems has had a total of one quarter of profit in fifteen years of existence, and this quarter will have them back in red ink. It sounds to me like the poor guy's in the process of jumping ship ("I personally own a lot of shares in the company, and I sell shares every quarter....") but doesn't want the public shareholders to beat him to it, so he's trying to sell everything M-Systems is doing as a Real Big Thing(TM), which will bring in "hundreds of millions to the company, spread over a few years...." In other words, I don't think M-Systems is anywhere near as important in the Xbox 2 development process as Mr. Moran would like to have us believe.
Then again, if such is the case we're back to square one with conflicting rumors and no solid statement from Microsoft either way. I'm hoping Microsoft does decide to include backward-compatability. If they don't, I'll not even begin to consider purchasing one for a few years.
~UP
Eat the Path.
Good thinking... and you're right.
The PSX already has this feature!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Roger this, when I bought my Xbox I had already planned to buy a PS3 with backward compatability, whichever console maker brings the HD wins, HD and PVR wins, HD PVR and Free online play teh win!
I'm increasingly displeased with Slashdot Games, which posts unconfirmed rumors that have to do with insignificant details of next-generation console hardware. I don't care how many buttons the next PlayStation will have on its controller, or whether XBox Next will have a hard disk, especially if I can't be told for certain. Rumors are not "news for nerds, stuff that matters." I may move to exclude Games from my homepage, or to quit Slashdot entirely, not that you care.
i looked into SSD as a replacement for a hard drive a few weeks ago. m-sys was one of the MOST expensive out there. i'm talking on the order of a dollar a MEGABYTE. by 1997 standards, that's not bad... but you're talking 20 grand for a 20 gigabyte drive. it's cheaper PER MEG than the sony memory cards which are 8mb each at like $25 ... but, really, what the hell are you going to store on 8mb that'll make a difference?
Don't expect Xbox 2 to offer a PVR. Microsoft already tried playing with PVRs with their UltimateTV service, which flopped.
And they can't just throw in the ultimate tv software, that's for set-top boxes, and runs the same OS as WebTV. They'd need to design something new, from the ground up, and I don't think they'd want to take the risk.
The HDD don't get used much? So where do you think all that cached information from the game is going?
Although this isn't confirmed information (lack of HDD), I can say that I'm 99.9% sure I wouldn't buy Xbox 2 if it lacked a HDD.
over the past week for a story on cheating online that's running Monday in the SJMN. Some tidbits: One fellow told me that MS folks were "extremely surprised" by the Linux hacks. Another fellow told me that the hard drive has been "critical" for pushing patches down the pipe.
Ok, the obvious answer here is:
Microsoft wants out of the office and onto the TV. Steve Ballmer has always stated that there is a bigger play for the XBox outside of video games. Would not be suprised to see a windows component for the xbox that allows, over your home network, to stream media from your pc to the tv. The HD for the XBox will be your PC.
This is a model that they have been pushing on for quite some time now and by tethering the 2 together, they reinforce their position in the home requiring XBox users to run Windows on their pc for the additional features the platform provides.
You heard it here first.
-GN
The main reason why M$ fear the hard drive is the compatibility with PC. They don't want some techie to put something on a disk while it is in the PC, then transfer it over to the Xbox. Last thing M$ wants to hear is an unstable console.
It makes sense to do away with having your console being the place where your saves games are and tie it to an on line player profile. Mobile profiles are possible with memory cartrages but it involves hassle. Being able to continue your Halo campaign around your friends place by entering your login details is far nicer than having to take anything physical with you.
The possiblilty of custom settings for all your games being instantly accessable to you as long as you have a net connection is a great idea, but I don't know if MS are removing the hard disk for this reason. It is possible that because they are moving into the home entertainment business they will want to sell you a PVR as well. If this was a software addon to the XBox 2 then you could pirate it, but it is harder when there is no hard disk. If they get the PVR expansion to authenticate against the XBox 2 (which would basically be a video in and a hard disk in a matching box) then they keep the option secure. Of course you would have to hack your XBox 2 to get the new encoder working if they did hardware authentication anyway, but as has been pointed out no hard disk is a great cost saving. Selling a hard disk as an extra to turn your XBox 2 into a media centre (for which they all ready have an OS) is a good business idea. Of course nobody will want one if it is as ugly as the current XBox.
Myself I will stick with emulating classics and MythTV (when I get it working, KnoppMyth will either receive praise or curses tomorrow when I erase Windows from my PVR).
just because it is not a hard disc drive does not mean they wont have multiple gigs of storage.
Frankly sir, microsoft doesn't even need to offer me a bios. That's where free online gaming comes in :)
Given the news we've all heard of the Apple based dev kits and now the lack of a hard drive, it seems pretty clear to me that Microsoft has decided to start over again on the XBox.
This can be a good thing of course, because in some sense it means that they are serious about making a real games console this time. Not that the first attempt was so bad, but they have learned from their first foray into the console business.
One thing they have learned is that they need to keep costs low and make things small and cute (kawaii..;-)). Dumping the hard drive is one way to do this. The hd wasn't being used for much anyway, not enough to make it standard issue. On the other hand, the broadband connectivity has been a big hit.
My guess is that the flash memory storage will be at least 128MB standard. They will also, as others have speculated here, likely provide online storage. Having dumped Asheron's Call duties, they may have additional capacity for simple storage. Another benefit for MS is of course making more bucks selling memory cards. See, they've learned!
Finally, I would speculate that they are getting some design help from Apple, or the Apple connected. If this is true, expect one very sexy little console late next year in time for XMas (especially if you see a price drop to $99 late this year). A sleek little machine will help them in Japan too, where the XBox's large size was another strike against it. If my wildest speculations are right, the devil better'd bundle up because we could see Gates _and_ Jobs unveil the new machine together!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
1: dont sell with drives 2: wait 3 months after launch then offer expensive hard drives 3:profit