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Microsoft Docs Indicate Future Xbox 360 Support For USB Storage
Internal Microsoft documents obtained by Joystiq indicate that its Xbox 360 console will gain support for USB storage devices some time this Spring.
"According to the document, the USB mass storage device must be at least 1GB and the system will do a compatibility check. 'The system partition occupies 512 MB of space, and by default the consumer partition occupies the remainder of the device capacity, or 16 GB, whichever is smaller.' Upon inserting a blank USB storage device, 'consumers are offered two choices: "Configure now" or "Customize."' The 'Configure now' option will use 'the entire device capacity, up to the maximum of 512 MB plus 16 GB,' meaning, regardless of the overall size of the device you're using, the Xbox will only enable 16 GB of usable, non-system storage. The 'Customize' option will allow you to 'preserve some pre-existing, non-console data on the device' such as music."
There have also been rumors of a new, smaller form factor for the 360, and hacker Ben Heck has given his thoughts on some leaked motherboard pictures.
I'm surprised I haven't seen PS3 fanboys laughing about this before.. it's even worse than not being able to watch DVDs on your Wii's DVD drive..
which is totally what she said
They're still developing new Xbox 360 versions? Usually after so many years, there appear new consoles. But this time it seems none of the big 3 console makers has any plans for this.
Another indication that processing speeds aren't really increasing anymore these days?
Does this means i can use my simple USB stick instead of a memory card to keep my savegames on? (i have two xboxes, so i need portability)
Either MS just killed their memorycard business, or this usb stuff is rather useless..
Also, YAY now you can just get the cheapest arcade xbox you can find, and a $10 usb stick, and have massive fun
People, what a bunch of bastards
So you can connect an external storage unit, but it'll only use 16GB of it? That's a bit less then the size of the smallest 360 hard drive, which they don't even sell anymore.
I guess they don't want to cannibalize their outrageously priced upgrade drive business.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The 'Configure now' option will use 'the entire device capacity, up to the maximum of 512 MB plus 16 GB,'
So who sells 16.5 GB USB sticks?
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
...when I can hook up a mouse and keyboard and actually be able to control games with them. My own personal hell is to have to play CODMW2 with a damn joystick.
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I didn't say they don't have it, I said they haven't been enforcing/using it AFAIK. Now I know slightly better.
which is totally what she said
In TFA, they asked Heck whether the 16GB limit is a technological limitation of file systems or a deliberate choice. It seems pretty obvious to me that it's artificial and meant to protect their disk drive market. Considering that USB devices will, unlike now, be trusted storage where one can write DLC, XBLA games and even full game installs and GOD, there's no reason why one would use an externally powered USB drive instead of a small pendrive. That would mean 100$ for a 1TB drive, going in the drive maker's pockets, instead of 100$ for a 120GB drive, going in MS's pockets.
I haven't had the DVD problem, although to be honest I've played maybe one DVD on the system. I've been doing a LOT of UPnP playback from my media server though.
Could you elaborate on what about the PS3 sucks as bad as the Xbox? For a long time I was on the fence between buying a PS3 or 360, especially once FFXIII for 360 was announced. In the end I went with PS3 due to Blu-Ray. I'm glad I did, the PS3 seems to be COMPLETELY different in terms of Sony attitude compared to most of their products in regards to weird nonstandard technologies.
Storage is USB with no "oddball" restrictions. (Just lack of support for "oddball" configurations.)
Cameras are USB UVC devices
Wired headsets are USB audio compliant
Wireless headsets are Bluetooth
Standard USB keyboards/mice work fine
The internal hard drive is SATA and nothing (other than maybe power/thermal limits - is the stock hard drive 5400 RPM or 7200?) restricts you from putting a bigger one in.
I've actually been very pleasantly surprised by the system compared to what I expected prior to owning it. Without planning it, I have a massive pile of accessories for my PS3 which were bought for other purposes.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
That's only for Blu-Ray Movies... PS3 games use a different region encoding with numbers [1]=US and Japan [2]= Europe [3]=Asia [4]=Australia, and yes, it is a different numbering scheme than the R1, R2, etc. used for DVDs.
Go check your PS3 box or any of the game cases, they'll have the region logo on the back it's a little square with a portion of a globe and a number.
I've yet to see a game disc that enforces this, however Downloaded content IS region locked, though only to the account (IE: you can use European content on a US console if you're signed in with a European registered PSN account).
Collector's Edition
My xbox 360 has a 250GB external USB drive attached to it that is used to store copies of home movies.
Although the article isn't as clear as it could be, this is really about adding support for Xbox downloadable content to use USB storage.
Oh, and for a laugh - currently the Xbox can't read NTFS format drives. FAT isn't suitable. So... use a mac, format as HFS+, and the xbox will happily use them.
No updates, no new games. If you're not playing new games, why not buy a cheap DVD player? And watch new consoles come with the new firmware. Remember the old days of PSP hacking, when people would analyze the boxes to find a sign of what firmware they came with?
It almost seems like you are cheerleading their efforts to break someone's setup. The constant updates that these companies are throwing at us now are getting ridiculous. I don't like the idea of not owning the equipment in my home.
If this were any other consumer products, where 'unauthorized' repairs resulted in more than simply voiding your warranty, you would have consumer protection groups raising hell.
"Looks like you fitted your lawnmower with an aftermarket air filter. Don't worry, we fixed that for you and glued up the holes that you drilled to fit it. We also welded a piece of metal so it sticks out into the area where you had the old filter, just so you don't try it again."
Or if when you took your Toyota in for the recall, they ripped out your upgraded head unit and replaced your performance shocks with stock equipment.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Better yet, why buy a cheap DVD player? It's redundant.
Redundancy has its advantages. When you wear out the drive in a $30 DVD player, you're out $30. When you wear out the drive in an unhacked Wii console, you're out $75 for a drive replacement. But when you wear out the drive in a $200 hacked Wii, on the other hand, you're out $200 plus your savegames. HackMii.com appears to be down right now (returning only "502 Bad Gateway"), but it ran a story sometime last year about Nintendo repairing a console with a dead DVD drive after warranty expiration and charging the owner for a whole new Wii because it was found to have been modded.
It almost seems like you are cheerleading their efforts to break someone's setup.
Once I was looking to develop Wii homebrew games myself. But then I saw two drawbacks.
First, I ran into the so-called "homebrew complexity wall", where a lone developer with a day job will lack the time to provide both high-quality code and high-quality art. In order to replace notoriously bad programmer art, I'd have to charge for my game in order to afford to pay an artist. Reactions to the sale of copies of BootMii-related tools show that the Wii homebrew community likes to keep it strictly non-commercial. Or can you recommend a way to make programmer art better without sticking to making Tetris clones over and over?
Second, I worry that working on homebrew for current consoles, as opposed to PC games, will jeopardize my chances of being hired by an established video game studio once I move out of the backwoods town of 200,000 people where I currently live.
so couldnt you just make 16gb partitions and have it use multiple ones?
Maybe it has changed, but for a long time, most games had "dedicated" servers.
Yes, you had to trust the server admin, but at least they would have incentive to "play honest" - otherwise no one would use their server. Since dedicated server admins usually have a bit more invested into hosting a server (in terms of bandwidth, etc), they're less likely to screw around.
Client-side cheaters, on the other hand, can be douchebaggy on any server.
Also, as someone else said, a lot of games have hosted servers for non-MMOs. See battle.net for Diablo II as an older example.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
When MS dropped the hammer on Datel's large, 3rd party memory cards, they said they had to do it since those devices allowed cheating. That is, they were read/writable from non-Xboxes since they used SD cards for storage and thus you could easily mod saves.
How does MS square that with this action? This device is read/writeable from non-Xboxes since it's regular USB, isn't it?
I personally never believed that MS' actions were for any reason other than to protect their revenue stream. But can't really go back on their story now, can they? Can Datel sue over something like this if they do?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
One strange thing that the 360 supports: If you plug an iPod into the USB port, it recognizes it and lets you have almost complete control in playing music from it through the 360. I'm not 100% positive but I'm pretty sure it plays purchased AAC files not just MP3. If you plug an iPod into a PS3, it thinks it is an unknown USB device. You would think that the PS3 could get the MP3 files off the iPod but that doesn't seem to work.