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."

Comments

Hard drive in some

[bsharitt]

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.

Re:Hard drive in some

[WorkEmail]

That is one possibilty, but I think they will want to keep things more simple than that. I know the games that are out for Xbox are made to recognize a HD. And they will want it to be backwards compatible, so I am guessing that when all is said and done it wil have a Hard Drive.

I have read articles that speculate that the PS3's content will all be online, the games you will download, etc. So Maybe Xbox will try to do some of that as well, focus more on the downloading of material and less on the games being in stores. It only makes sense if they can pull it off, they pay no shipping, no middle man, you just download the games right from them and that would be it, the only thing the stores would stock is the actual console itself and controlers.I don't think this is practical anytime in the next few years. I would guess maybe about 2007 or so something like that wil be done.

I am guessing the next Xbox will be the same exact thing almost, just more memory, faster memory, faster and bigger video card, and some new stuff to keep people from hacking it, and that will be about it. :)

Re:So what you're saying...

[MachDelta]

No, they're purchasing a whackload of that Flash memory they used on the Mars rovers. That way, peoples Xboxes will randomly lock up and refuse to do anything unless a tech support guy 8000 miles away sends it a command.

All in M$ style, of course.

M-Systems Disk On Chip in there?

[ObviousGuy]

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.

Re:M-Systems Disk On Chip in there?

[Innominate Milquetoa]

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.

Actually, I'd say it's to prevent people from putting their own 160G hard drives in and downloading game images to it. The XBox (not surprisingly) proved to be one of the easiest consoles to mod. There's even a purely software-based way to do it. Those who know this have approximately 2 legitimate copies of games (Halo and MechAssault), and about 30 illegitimate images sitting on their hard drives. A non-standard storage medium would make this kind of thing all that much harder.

Re:M-Systems Disk On Chip in there?

[EnglishTim]

Microsoft doesn't care about people putting other operating systems onto Xbox. It's not a big enough chunk of people to make any difference to them.

The main thing that will concern them is cost. Hard drives are big and expensive - the hard drive is probably the most expensive component in the Xbox. If they can get rid of it, it makes a lot more financial sense to them.

There is also the fact that the hard drive makes it easier to pirate games, but to be honest I don't think that's as big a problem as the sheer expense of it.

Backward Compatibility?

[aweraw]

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?

Re:Backward Compatibility?

[ottawanker]

From their website, they offer the following sizes of their 2.5 Inch IDE Plus product:

Capacity - Unformatted (MBytes) 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 3072, 4096, 5120, 6144, 7168, 8192, 9216, 10240, 12288, 14336, 16384, 18432, 20480, 22528, 24576, 26624, 28672, 30720, 32768, 34816, 36864, 38912, 40960, 43008, 45056, 47104

Re:Backward Compatibility?

[aweraw]

I have no doubt of that... but in terms of storage, how much is there going to be? Some games use swap space (though I'm not sure of the amount they utilize in terms of MB) I would expect that regardless of the hardware interface, they latency compared to an acctual hard drive will make them unplayable... In my experience, flash memory is *MUCH* slower than a fully fledged plater HD. Not to mention alot more expensive... The upside is, no moving parts to eventually wear down and fail...

/rant

Re:Backward Compatibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

From their website, the following is some performance information on the 2.5 Inch IDE Plus: Performance Burst Read/Write: 16.7 MBytes/sec DMA-2 transfer mode: Sustained Read: 8.3-8.7 MBytes/sec (up to 13MB/s with customize s/w) Sustained Write: 8.0-12.0 MBytes/sec PIO-4 transfer mode: Sustained Read: 7.3-7.6 MBytes/sec (r/w sector or multi 16 commands) Sustained Write: 7.7-10.1 MBytes/sec (r/w sector or multi 16 commands) Access time: 0.04 ms

Re:Backward Compatibility?

[addaon]

Check the price.

That's a nice drive and all, if a bit small. But check the price.

If XBox 2 is M-Sys, it's disk-on-chip.

DVD rw?

[Fiz Ocelot]

I wouldn't rule out MS putting in a re-writeable dvd drive. They retail under 100 bucks these days, so if they struck a deal with some company it could be rather cost effective.

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.

Re:DVD rw?

[Psykechan]

I wouldn't rule out MS putting in a re-writeable dvd drive.

I would. Large rewritable removable media is the last thing that MS wants. Built in DVD-R just screams for piracy. Besides, it's also a hassle to consumers that would have to switch discs frequently.

Look for extra game content to be stored online and distributed in a somewhat peer-to-peer model in the vein of BitTorrent. Be it a new multiplayer map or a single player campaign, the first user would download the content from the servers and the rest could get it from peers.

They [rewritable DVD drives] retail under 100 bucks these days, so if they struck a deal with some company it could be rather cost effective.

True. They may well be less than that in quantities but that doesn't automatically mean that they are cost effective. MS is finding the additional price for the built in hard disk drive in the current Xbox isn't cost effective and they probably get great deals on those.

Games didn't really use the HD much anyways.

From an end user standpoint, you're right. There are games that create obscenely large save games and a bit of downloadable content for others but aside from these (and custom soundtracks) the HDD doesn't seem to get much use.

The truth is that many games, mostly first and second party games, use it for virtual memory or for spooling data. A good chunk of the Xbox OS, such as the dashboard, is also on the drive. Granted the Xbox 2 will have much more than 64MB of RAM but developers will just have to deal with no HDD. Those that are programming for multiple platforms may not even notice.

An add-in hard disk drive could still be a viable option for games that absolutely need it but people will just have to plunk down more cash for it. Heck, people are already paying $200+ for Steel Battalion. Sony is banking on Final Fantasy XI to sell the PS2 HDD; MS could simply make it a requirement for Halo 3 if they want a maximum install base... and it's a bonus if it includes the ability to play old Xbox 1 games.

Re:DVD rw?

[bluGill]

Think Sega Dreamcast, IIRC many Sega games had two tracks, one normal CD track, and one higher density track. Build a two part DVD, the inner part normal pressed DVD, the outer part (basically whats left after your game) DVD+rw. All the game save files go on the disk, just like GBA cartrages store saved games. If you want to do game updates, just press only a loader and a couple graphics images, and burn the rest.

This has a good anti-piracy measure: just turn the write laser on in the pressed part, and if there is anything left you know it is a real pressed disk and legitimate.

Microsoft has the money to design such a disk, and setup the manufacturing. Volume sales might never make up for the costs, but they have already prooven they don't care about profit too much yet.

Note that if I were going to design this I'd use a DVD-RAM for the writeable section, both because give more write cycles, and it is rare enough that most people can't write it. Do your lasers right, and even if someone manages copy a game to a rw (+/-), they won't be able to save any of their games.

The only thing that is clear..

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

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.

other angles

[JDizzy]

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).

Piracy?

[almaon]

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...

Re:Piracy?

[NanoGator]

"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?"

No, not really. I think it had more to do with taking a loss on each unit and nobody making that effective of use of the drive. Piracy might be a distant 3rd.

No Influence, Here

[Undefined Parameter]

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

Re:Give...

[Deliveranc3]

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!

Re:So what you're saying...

[a_peckover]

PS2 Online is utterly useless in comparison, though. It's a free-for-all mess, not disimilar to online PC gaming. You have to enter your internet settings seperately for each game, have different user accounts for different publishers, there's no cross-game invitation or buddy system etc. Compare that to the integration and relative simplicity of XBox Live.

I talked with a few Microsoft execs

[gruntled]

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.

Ummm...Everyone missing the obvious here?

[GameNutz]

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

Re:So what you're saying...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

"You have to enter your internet settings seperately for each game"

Wrong. The disc that comes with the network adapter saves all connection settings to the memory card when you set it up. Have you actually played a PS2 online game?

"there's no cross-game invitation or buddy system etc."

Wrong again. EA Sports games include a buddy system and cross-game invitation. You noted that you need different user accounts for different publishers. You should realize that there is integration of user accounts and buddy systems within a publishers set of games.

"Compare that to the integration and relative simplicity of XBox Live."

Compare that to the price. I get all the online coddling I need from Sony for $0.00. Yeah, it's a free-for-all, just like PC gaming, which is fine by me. Playing games on the Internet with my PC has never been especially challenging, certainly not so challenging that I need to pay money for someone to handle some of the details of it. But I guess there's a market for people who need a little extra help. ;-)