Microsoft to replace Hard Drive in XBOX 2 with...
March 4, 2004 11:01 PM
..baby seals!
No, just kidding....
It's been rumored the the XBOX 2 (also known as XBOX NEXT, XBOX II, and XENON) won't have a hard drive, making many gamers worried that some of the coolest advantages of the XBOX over other gaming systems will be lost.
Today the XBOX has a hard drive that is used to store saved games, store game data which greatly speeds up game loading, for storing downloads from XBOX Live, and for storing MP3s and WMAs which can be used as background music in many games.
Today M-Systems CEO Dov Moran has confirmed in an interview with Israeli business journal Globes Online that the "XBOX 2" will not have a hard drive, and instead will have a solid state flash card made by his company.
M-Systems, which many of us have never heard of, is the the Israeli company responsible for inventing flash memory. Flash memory is what digital cameras use to store photos. Unlike the memory you use in your PC, flash memory does not require a power source to remember the data, and unlike a hard drive, there are no moving parts and it makes no noise.
This is great news - it means the next XBOX will be smaller, quieter, and lighter. This could also open an opportunity for Microsoft to build a portable XBOX, although shrinking down the top-of-the-line video card and cpu's will still be a hefty challenge.
Today's XBOX hard drive is about 10 GBytes. Today most digital camera owners use memory cards less than 1/2 Gbyte, however M-Systems makes Fast Flash Disks up to 47 Gbytes, so there's no telling how much memory Microsoft plans on stuffing in the XBOX 2.
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http://www.ianleff.com
Posted March 4, 2004 11:51 PM
These new consoles are coming out just in time for HDTV to take off. I'm looking forward to playing this on a 61" DLP tv within the next 12-18 months.
Interesting to see the tiny hard drive in mini-ipod compete in a flash memory area. Then you have flash replacing a hard drive in xbox2.
I've heard that xbox2 may use some online storage.
il
http://www.DylanGreene.com
Posted March 5, 2004 3:35 AM
Ian - I've heard rummors too of online storage, but nothing credible.
Here's some ideas I had that would improve the XBOX Live experience by better taking advantage of online storage: http://www.dylangreene.com/blog.asp?blogID=347
http://www.DylanGreene.com
Posted March 5, 2004 3:54 AM
Wow, Scoble is really onto things - he linked to this entry just minutes after I posted it.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/03/04.html#a6808
http://www.DylanGreene.com
Posted March 5, 2004 4:01 AM
It's about 4am and the only person online on my MSN Messenger buddy list is Scoble. Small world...
Posted March 5, 2004 10:16 AM
Quote from gamespot.com:
[QUOTE]When contacted by GameSpot, Xbox group product manager David Hufford said Moran was "talking way over his head." He continued, "Mr. Moran is aimlessly speculating, and we never comment on speculation. We've made no such announcements about future Xbox products and services. And we don't intend to for quite a while. Until we do, we suggest people take guesswork for what it is."However, if Moran's statements are true, the Xbox Next will likely not be backwards compatible, since it would be almost impossible for it to emulate how some games dump data onto the Xbox's hard drive. [/QUOTE]http://www.DylanGreene.com
Posted March 5, 2004 10:35 AM
> since it would be almost impossible for it to emulate how some games dump data onto the Xbox's hard drive.
I'm sure this won't be hard for Microsoft. They already have Virtual PC and Virtual Server which emulates a full PC or server enviroment in the space of one running program - maybe they're working on Virtual XBOX for XBOX 2.0.
http://www.sytanika.com
Posted March 21, 2004 9:55 PM
The next xbox run fully on flash? BUSHWA! I am sure that Microsoft would so easily pass up the oportunity to have backwords compatablitiy, thy will most likely use flash, but have the option of hard drives, allowing you to use xbox 1 games.
Posted March 23, 2004 12:10 PM
the xbox todaly rox u godda buy it its getting cheaper andheaper
Posted July 27, 2004 5:22 AM
Xbox 2 is not going to be backwards compatible
http://www.DylanGreene.com
Posted July 27, 2004 9:51 AM
> Xbox 2 is not going to be backwards compatible
That's just a rumour. Microsoft hasn't announced it's decision yet.
Posted September 5, 2004 6:36 AM
how much extra is a flash disk going to cost over a hard drive? solid state has always been the the more expensive option. If microsoft want to sell to the masses and be the more dominant machine then they may have no option but to go down the HD route.
Posted September 17, 2004 7:17 PM
"since it would be almost impossible for it to emulate how some games dump data onto the Xbox's hard drive."
Of all the challenges in making xbox-next backward compatible, this is probably the easiest. In fact, calling it a challenge is an extreme overstatement. Hard drive, flash, net storage, USB, magneto-optical, blah, blah... it's all the same since you have to write to the Xbox API when you make a game. What the API does with it doesn't matter. Xbox-next could crap out morse code on ticker tape and the games wouldn't know or care.
Yuk, I need to stop following blog links on Google.
Posted March 13, 2005 1:17 PM
Can't believe that Bill Gates, his Xbox and another USA company would invest in an antagosnitic country such as Israel. When will Americans wake up to the fact that Jews are the primary source for anti-Americanism in the Middle East? Israel and the Jews hide behind the cloak of Democracy and demand that the US back them up as they stir animosity with their own neighbors. I have two things to say about that... 1. The US needs to mind their own matters and leave them be. 2. Stop investing in countries that provide no returns (our moeny spent on their technology does not out weigh the cost and lives we spend to protect them)
Posted February 11, 2006 5:53 PM
You can know a fool by his words...
"Jews are the primary source for anti-Americanism in the Middle East... etc"
provides for us an 'anonymous' fool.
http://h=
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