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Xbox Series X expansion card revealed

Yeah... As I re-watch Cerny yet again it seems all but certain that the PS5 SSD is built-in, and the M2 bay is just for additional storage.

I change my stance on this. I prefer that method to the proprietary Xbox cards as I'm not very trusting when it comes to Seagate. That, and the "Sony certified" drives will definitely come down in price over time.
 

marquimvfs

Member
MS technology with those cards and the slot has me intrigued.
I would like that to be incorperated into pc mainboards. That would make upgrading/swapping storage so comfy for everyone.


I feel the same regarding that. Im hoping it isn't nothing alien, just a NVME inside a case. If that's the case, M$ and Seagate could push for a new EPCIE standard and make external storage faster...
 

Handy Fake

Member
Yeah... As I re-watch Cerny yet again it seems all but certain that the PS5 SSD is built-in, and the M2 bay is just for additional storage.

I change my stance on this. I prefer that method to the proprietary Xbox cards as I'm not very trusting when it comes to Seagate. That, and the "Sony certified" drives will definitely come down in price over time.
That's how I've been understanding it. I thought I was going mad.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Thanks, I thought that.. but someone in the thread gave me the impression that was false.

However found this from VG247 which is.. interesting..

Unfortunately, those drives will still be slower than the internal drive, because so few of the currently available PCIe 4.0-based options can match the speed of Sony’s own custom drive. There’s also another problem, and it has to do with how PS5 assigns data priorities.

The internal drive has access to up to six priority levels, whereas the off-the-shelf drives can only have two. The good news is that, for older games (PS4), any USB hard drive will work. You can play those games off the drive itself, or use it for storage and move them to the SSD before playing.

I think regardless games are going to be coded to handle different speeds; especially 3rd parties obviously.. but Sony pushing the limits will be interesting with people using expanded drives.

I'd assume it's going to be recommended that their "push the limits" first party games get put on the main internal.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Yeah... As I re-watch Cerny yet again it seems all but certain that the PS5 SSD is built-in, and the M2 bay is just for additional storage.

I change my stance on this. I prefer that method to the proprietary Xbox cards as I'm not very trusting when it comes to Seagate. That, and the "Sony certified" drives will definitely come down in price over time.
These aren't mechanical drives though; not sure if Seagates rep follows them to SSD?
 

longdi

Banned
I see a road map that says 2020, do you really expect proprietary tech to be cheaper then a standard drive of the same storage capacity :pie_roffles: good luck with that.
Sounds like your making excuses now.

Certainly cheaper than 7gbs ones for a while.

And even if it is ~$20 more expensive than standard equivalent speed drives. It is dirt change for plug and plug portability, built in heatsink with 100% sustained performance.

There are times when prop storage is bad, but now is not the time. This seems almost certain to end up a smart choice by Phil Xbox.
 
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Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
PC parts are common to have HUGE profit margins, even up to 60-70%, Samsung, Crusial, Kingston etc. won't drop those just because PS5 can also use their drives now, if anything, they will want to capitalize on that even further, more potential customer base = more potential profit. Because it's all just a business, and those companies aren't interested in anything else than making huge money, like the childish console wars you are apparently into...

Bwhahahaha seriously stop it you're gonna give me a heart attack, laughing that much cannot be healthy :messenger_beaming::messenger_beaming::messenger_beaming:

A large chunk of PC components are commodified which means the only difference between them is price which means the market is constantly being pushed downward. Samsung, Crucial, Kingston, etc drop prices ALL THE TIME because otherwise their products just wouldn't sell. Why do you think these companies try to get into the gaming market? Because a few rgbs here, the right influencer backing there and you can maybe get out of the commodity trap, but I digress. Let me show you what "becoming a commodity" means in a super competitive market:


ssd-prices-fall-4.png


And you're going to say.... uh that's some cheapo stuff the real gear doesn't go down, yadda yadda...

I've got bad news for you buddy: the gold standard of consumer ssds has long been considering the samsung evo line of nvme ssd's. In 2018, 1 terabyte of samsung evo nvme ssd was 400$. Now? it can be had for the measly price of 169.99$

If you want to console WARZZ at least base your arguments on realistic situations, look at @X-Fighter post: a valid criticism is that messaging will always be challenging and there's a reasonable chance the less informed consumers will buy the wrong drives. You see that? Reasonable. Realistic.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
It’s a segue to what they state that those games CAN be played from a USB 3.2 HDD, but the optimized ones SHOULD be played from SSD.

It’s referring to XSX-optimized (enhanced) games, not XSX games.

I mean.. that MIGHT be what they mean. But an XSX game is an XSX optimized game as well, particularly in the MS PR sense since they are going hard on the cross-gen "a game is a game you choose your device" concept.

I'd say this statement doesn't rule out that MS will let games play from slower drives. But it doesn't rule it in either.

I personally wish both companies would just require their fastest SSD for anything next gen.
 

DESTROYA

Member
Certainly cheaper than 7gbs ones for a while.

And even if it is ~$20 more expensive than standard equivalent speed drives. It is dirt change for plug and plug portability, built in heatsink with 100% sustained performance.

There times when prop storage is bad, but now is not the time. This seems almost certain a smart choice by Phil Xbox.
More convenient , sure but I think this proprietary storage solution like every custom solution will be expensive. Proprietary is always a bad because it limits your choices, Phil might of dropped the ball on this because it won’t be cheap. I highly doubt it will be only $20 more
 

Dural

Member
It wont run. The expansion card contains the same drive as the one inside XSX which has the features like Velocity Architecture. The games wont run from any other storage.

We'll see, I have a feeling we'll see adapters fairly quickly out of China that allow other M.2 NVME drives to work. There might be some sort of proprietary firmware or software on the drive that would have to be reverse engineered, but if the cost of the expansion card is high enough it will be done as it was for the 360.
 

marquimvfs

Member
Certainly cheaper than 7gbs ones for a while.

And even if it is ~$20 more expensive than standard equivalent speed drives. It is dirt change for plug and plug portability, built in heatsink with 100% sustained performance.

There are times when prop storage is bad, but now is not the time. This seems almost certain to end up a smart choice by Phil Xbox.
I feel the same here, if its a good solution or not only depends on price. The thing is, M$ so far never priced a hardware (regarding videogames) they sell accordingly to the market. I think, disbelief in the brand considered, Seagate will manage to price it more fairly.
 

longdi

Banned
More convenient , sure but I think this proprietary storage solution like every custom solution will be expensive. Proprietary is always a bad because it limits your choices, Phil might of dropped the ball on this because it won’t be cheap. I highly doubt it will be only $20 more

It will still be cheaper than what you need to buy to add space to PS5...for a while. Dang! :messenger_spock:

You see, here is another problem relying on off-the-shell, you are at the mercy of the controller developers.

Look at the release cadence i posted ealier, it takes ~2 years to get speeds doubled, and that is before the virus situation. Happy waiting for your cheap 6~7gbs ssd buyable from newegg.

Like i said, situation today does not tie with history. Phil Xbox is setting a new chapter with storage because SSD != HDD or Memory cards.

To Sony, if you cant easily add cheap storage, too bad. Because they are building their own island, the #psecosystem. The clues are in the ssd, the dualsense.
 
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So, the PS Vita strategy of pricier proprietary storage to offset the reduced main console costs?! Didn’t people here hate and mock it (part of the whole “proprietary standards is anti consumer” movement every time Sony launched any of its own home grown tech)?

PS Vita was just proprietary to be proprietary. Microsoft has come with a solution that easily slots into the console, with a minimal size. Making it less scary for casuals to increase their storage capacity, as it's even simpler than having to use a screwdriver and taking out the old one and inserting the new one (which isn't hard, but the general consumer can often balk at the concept). I wonder if it has the ability to easily bring it with you to a friend as well, then plug it in and continue playing it, which would be a plus.

It'll also depend on the price as well.
 
I think that at first Microsoft will have cheaper expansion cards just because their NVMe solution requires lower speeds than Sony's. I fully expect "Sony approved" NVMe drives to cost 300€+ for 1TB at first.

But later? I expect prices to drop and then Sony will have the advantage but not for Microsoft since there is only one manufacturer.

I just don't understand why Microsoft won't let more manufacturers to create these cards so price can drop. Because as far as i know, only Segate is making them

Maybe they have others lined up or in talks with them. I'm pretty sure others will come about eventually.

Interesting to note here is that this kind of illustrates some of the other differences in each system's SSDs: people keep insisting the PS5's SSD is proprietary when in fact that is the flash memory controller itself, not necessarily the SSD. XSX seems to be going with a custom SSD in terms of build and form factor for sure, but maybe a slightly less custom flash memory controller?

Anyway, I'm curious if the OS will be able to run data off both internal and external drive simultaneously, even if games themselves can't target the external drive because it isn't a guaranteed thing to be present with all systems. It could help with increased data streaming throughput for example.

Technically should be possible, I mean you can already use multiple drives in PCs nowadays. There's some things to do with RAID configurations on that front though, but there should be a RAID config that' approximate to the scenario I'm envisioning here.
 

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
We'll see, I have a feeling we'll see adapters fairly quickly out of China that allow other M.2 NVME drives to work. There might be some sort of proprietary firmware or software on the drive that would have to be reverse engineered, but if the cost of the expansion card is high enough it will be done as it was for the 360.
The slot is not proprietary, its the standard m.2. slot. The NVMe drive inside is.
 

marquimvfs

Member
PS Vita was just proprietary to be proprietary. Microsoft has come with a solution that easily slots into the console, with a minimal size. Making it less scary for casuals to increase their storage capacity, as it's even simpler than having to use a screwdriver and taking out the old one and inserting the new one (which isn't hard, but the general consumer can often balk at the concept). I wonder if it has the ability to easily bring it with you to a friend as well, then plug it in and continue playing it, which would be a plus.

It'll also depend on the price as well.
In other words, just like the 360 HDD, just faster...
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Bwhahahaha seriously stop it you're gonna give me a heart attack, laughing that much cannot be healthy :messenger_beaming::messenger_beaming::messenger_beaming:

A large chunk of PC components are commodified which means the only difference between them is price which means the market is constantly being pushed downward. Samsung, Crucial, Kingston, etc drop prices ALL THE TIME because otherwise their products just wouldn't sell. Why do you think these companies try to get into the gaming market? Because a few rgbs here, the right influencer backing there and you can maybe get out of the commodity trap, but I digress. Let me show you what "becoming a commodity" means in a super competitive market:


ssd-prices-fall-4.png


And you're going to say.... uh that's some cheapo stuff the real gear doesn't go down, yadda yadda...

I've got bad news for you buddy: the gold standard of consumer ssds has long been considering the samsung evo line of nvme ssd's. In 2018, 1 terabyte of samsung evo nvme ssd was 400$. Now? it can be had for the measly price of 169.99$

If you want to console WARZZ at least base your arguments on realistic situations, look at @X-Fighter post: a valid criticism is that messaging will always be challenging and there's a reasonable chance the less informed consumers will buy the wrong drives. You see that? Reasonable. Realistic.

Well, OK wise guy, list me 10 drives that support AT LEAST 5.5GB's read speed along with their prices. GO!
 

dolabla

Member
To make digital look somewhat like you own the games, they need to make it where you can carry these around and insert into any Series X and play like you would a disc (except everything is already installed). I hope that's in the plans.
 

marquimvfs

Member
To be precise, more like the Seagate External drives for Xbox One.
That wasn't proprietary... If I want to use a Seagate external XBO drive on my PC I can, can't I? And I'm trying to be optimistic. By being manufactured and sold by Seagate, I think there's a possibility that it will be cheaper than something made in house.

Bernkastel Bernkastel it's confirmed that the connection (I mean, everyone knows that the bus is, I mean the physical slot) will be the standard m2?
 
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DaGwaphics

Member
Check the link, it wasn't yet. If the connection was standard instead of that proprietary bullshit case you could even use regular 3.5 drives like adaptors on the PS3.

Also the price for double the storage and better performance even in 2.5 inch HDDs was still cheaper at $0.28 per gig.


I'm not sure why anyone would try and defend the extortianate prices MS charged. They even went out of their way to ban anyone who tried to use regular ones.

Regular HDD prices over the years
Check 2009.

Since MS was selling 250GB drives for $130 (in 2010), there was a markup, but not nearly to the extreme of the Sony storage cards. XSX & PS5 are a bit different in terms of storage. Unlike the PS3, you can't just stick any budget drive in there. There's a very good chance that even at a price premium, the 4 channel XSX drives are cheaper for the duration of the generation (in comparison to the 8 channel drives needed for PS5).
 
Bwahahaha.

I get it, we're in prime console warzz season and whatnot but rofl...

option a) Propietary Microsoft Drive: you are the mercy of microsoft who are free to price the storage as they will enabling them to implement storage tiered sales strategy as apple does. History shows propietary interfaces on standard components have always resulted in price gouging.

option b) Standard nvme interface on the PS5: Sony releases a list of compatible SSDS. You go to the market and find the cheapest drive from their list. Because these drives use an industry standard interface, you'll find vendors competing for price in the market. History shows that the absence of propietary storage ensures the largest availability and the lowest price since the user benefits from market forces.

And somehow, in a fit of fanboy logic you conclude that option a is the best one for the consumer.

You do realize that a non-customized NVME SSD would need to be 7GB/s to run on the PS5 right? I mean Sony covered this. Their drive has a ton of customizations and flash which is why its not a fat 1TB.

There are no 7GB/s SSDs in the market and their position in the pipeline is a year or two out. A 7GB/s SSD will be extremely expensive because A) the market is small in PCs for this size and B) the speeds are absurd so you pay the premium.

In summary, an open standard for storage solutions is only beneficial to the consumer if the options exist. When the options exist their prices will be incredibly high because the production runs will be incredibly small and the storage providers will add their "high-end" premium to these drives. These SSD manufacturers are not expecting to sell millions of these drives at these prices any time soon. This isn't like the old days where the proprietary storage had significant premiums over the existing cheaper tech. Sony's SD cards were not high end SD cards they were boilerplate ones that had existed for years.

Right now the cheapest PCI4 SSD at 1TB gets up to 5000/4400 and is typically $270 and is on sale for $199 with out a heatsink.

https://www.newegg.com/sabrent-rocket-nvme-4-0-1tb/p/1Z4-00H3-00016?&quicklink=true

When 7GB/s SSDs release what do you think the price will be? Do you really think this will even be in the realm of accessible to add storage?

While there are negatives to proprietary storage in this situation it makes sense because the tech is still so expensive. By making it proprietary, you are able to agree to the number of drives to be made and require the market exist. By leaving it to the open market, you are entirely reliant on the product existing and the pricing being attractive. Why would the SSD manufacturers do anything different than what they have historically done and sell these drives at what the market will bear? The only reason they would bring down these prices is because they have a contract with someone like MS/Sony to make a set amount for $X price.
 
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Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
That wasn't proprietary... If I want to use a Seagate external XBO drive on my PC I can, can't I?
There were proprietary Xbox One external hard drives from Seagate. They were only around 20 USD more expensive than equivalent(but slightly worse, the exact thing isnt sold without Xbox branding) Seagate external hard drives. Which makes me curious about these price expectations of it costing more than PS5 certified drives. The expansion card uses the same drive as inside XSX, so its actually mass produced unlike Xbox One hard drives.
What makes people here think the expansion card will have Vita like price difference to an equivalent storage drive ?
 

marquimvfs

Member
I've never owned a Xbox console, but from what I see in the search I did, probably yeah. Ps Vita was basically a microSD with a shell made properiatory to sell their own memory cards at atrocious prices.
I had a 360. It was a good console, just left it aside for PS3 when its games began to attract me more. The hard drive was a good solution, well built and easy to install, just badly priced.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
And tell me, fanboy, can you buy a console that uses them right now? GO!

Answer the question please. PS5 is not out there, but will be soon, which still doesn't change the fact that it will use the widely popular, standardized M.2 format, Mark Cerny himself confirmed it, on a live event. Now list of the M.2 drives with at least 5.5GB's read speeds please. And their price of course.
 

JimboJones

Member
I hope they ditch the mem cards in the future when nvme prices drop, I mean we went from memory cards and a proprietary shell HDD for 360 to being able to use any usb memory solution by the end of the gen with the old memory cards be totally defunct.

Both solutions are not really ideal at the moment but that's the price of being an early adopter.
 

marquimvfs

Member
There were proprietary Xbox One external hard drives from Seagate. They were only around 20 USD more expensive than equivalent(but slightly worse, the exact thing isnt sold without Xbox branding) Seagate external hard drives.
I always saw them as a standard external drive that was somehow, certified an had an Xbox logo in it. Please, tell me what was the difference between it and the Seagate PS4 external disk, or any disk. The connection is different?


What makes people here think the expansion card will have Vita like price difference to an equivalent storage drive ?
The historic of Microsoft (and Sony, to an extent, saw Vita mentioned?) prices on consoles add-ons is what making people worried.
 

MayauMiao

Member
There were proprietary Xbox One external hard drives from Seagate. They were only around 20 USD more expensive than equivalent(but slightly worse, the exact thing isnt sold without Xbox branding) Seagate external hard drives. Which makes me curious about these price expectations of it costing more than PS5 certified drives. The expansion card uses the same drive as inside XSX, so its actually mass produced unlike Xbox One hard drives.
What makes people here think the expansion card will have Vita like price difference to an equivalent storage drive ?

By the design itself (case, size of card) and probably licensing that Seagate has to pay MS to be their exclusive SSD manufacturer.
 

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
I always saw them as a standard external drive that was somehow, certified an had an Xbox logo in it. Please, tell me what was the difference between it and the Seagate PS4 external disk, or any disk. The connection is different?



The historic of Microsoft (and Sony, to an extent, saw Vita mentioned?) prices on consoles add-ons is what making people worried.
Microsoft considers it official though, you wont find that exact drive anywhere else. Unlike Western Digital, if you open a Seagate external drive you will find an internal hard drive from another vendor like Samsung etc, they only design the enclosure. In this case, Microsoft has designed the internal drive(the same mass produced XSX internal drive, so its cheap) and Seagate designed the enclosure as specified by Microsoft.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Microsoft considers it official though, you wont find that exact drive anywhere else. Unlike Western Digital, if you open a Seagate external drive you will find an internal hard drive from another vendor like Samsung etc, they only design the enclosure. In this case, Microsoft has designed the internal drive(the same mass produced XSX internal drive, so its cheap) and Seagate designed the enclosure as specified by Microsoft.

I think SeaGate did design the drive, if I'm not mistaken. Aren't they just using the same SeaGate drives that will be offered in most of the upcoming surface products?
 
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marquimvfs

Member
Microsoft considers it official though, you wont find that exact drive anywhere else. Unlike Western Digital, if you open a Seagate external drive you will find an internal hard drive from another vendor like Samsung etc, they only design the enclosure. In this case, Microsoft has designed the internal drive(the same mass produced XSX internal drive, so its cheap) and Seagate designed the enclosure as specified by Microsoft.

I see your point, but that doesn't mean the disks were proprietary. Just official branded. They work with every USB device that I want, no?
 
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All we really need to know is the price. Everything else was already known.

I am gonna hope for 150 bucks. I would expect PS5 compatible HDs to be considerably more expensive, just due to their advanced nature,

If the XsX Storage Expansion costs more than 150 for 1TB, that will be a little much imo.
 

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
By the design itself (case, size of card) and probably licensing that Seagate has to pay MS to be their exclusive SSD manufacturer.
Lets not make assumptions of things we dont know of. There could very well be other manufacturers later(if we are assuming). There are many companies making accessories for Xbox One, no one is asked to pay licensing fee. The PDP Talon Xbox Media remote(which Microsoft now advertises themselves, since its better) was cheaper then the official Xbox One media remote.
 
Just checked at Amazon, a 360 500GB disk cost the same as a 1TB hdd.

I was more thinking about during the last generation, when it was relevant. I used old GAF threads to find out the comparison between PS Vita memory cards and mSDs. MicroSDs have gotten even cheaper now, while Vita cards have gotten more expensive. A microSD card mentioned in one of the GAF threads, having 128gb, costs about $20 now (cost about $40 back then). A 32gb Vita card costs about $70 (about $58 back then). 64gb $107 back then, $123 now. Sony really screwed their consumers on Vita memory cards.
 
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longdi

Banned
I believe the portable form factor Series X uses, is not proprietary. It is part of nvme specs. The software inside, i dont know.

It will be interesting once both consoles launch later this year, and fanboys do up a price comparison.

How much you need to pay for a 1.8TB PS5 vs 2TB Series X. I wonder which will be cheaper. :messenger_spock:
 
I'm so torn on this. On one hand, I'm sure Microsoft's solution will be more expensive than just buying your own drive.

On the other hand, these cards take any guesswork out of upgrading and they do just that, upgrade your storage.

PS5 seems a bit more consumer-friendly in terms of pricing, but you'll have to be careful about getting a "certified" drive. As I understand it, you'll also be replacing the internal drive entirely, which means you need to shell out more for larger storage than the base drive.

Edit: Mark Cerny states that there is an M2 "bay" in the PS5, but he doesn't seem to clearly state whether that's in addition to where the default SSD will be. It could be replacing the original drive entirely (ALA PS4), or additional storage. If it's the latter, prices could certainly be more consumer friendly in time vs the Xbox approach.

Between the two, I'm more in favor of Microsoft's strategy for day one.

After fully researching this, I like Sony's strategy better. Picking your own drive might be a bit more complicated for some, but it'll certainly be cheaper over time.

The PS5 will require a drive not only up to a technical specification but also a particular size (specific dimensions), we don't know when they will even be available and I would bet my left arm that they cost a good deal more than the XsX drives.

I still don't like that we don't know for sure if it is an actual expansion or if it is a replacement scenario. They would have to have the expansion bay cooled as well as the main internal. These drives can get hot. That is why the XsX cards have a special heatsink.
 

longdi

Banned
The PS5 will require a drive not only up to a technical specification but also a particular size (specific dimensions), we don't know when they will even be available and I would bet my left arm that they cost a good deal more than the XsX drives.

I still don't like that we don't know for sure if it is an actual expansion or if it is a replacement scenario. They would have to have the expansion bay cooled as well as the main internal. These drives can get hot. That is why the XsX cards have a special heatsink.

Im 95% certain this is why Sony have not shown the final PS5 design.
 
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