Xbox Series X memory cards are a good solution and possibly the future of physical games?

[Lord Vile]

Been thinking about the PS5 and XSX and how expandable storage is being handled on both platforms. Come to the conclusion that if the cards for the XSX are hot swappable it is by far the superior solution if you're downloading games. You download games onto different cards and when you want to play that game you just put the card in and that game is ready to play, want a different game just throw a different card in.

 

Honestly I could see disc based games just move onto 256GB cards if the price every becomes cheap enough and games get more expensive. I mean they're at $70 already what's an extra $20-30 for the physical copy you can trade in? 

 

Any thoughts?

[Shreyas1]

I would prefer it if there was just an exterior sata port and you could use already existing drives, but maybe theres an issue I'm missing and a reason why they didnt do that

 

But Xbox's solution is definitely preferable IMO compared to PS

[PlayStation 2]

I've always had that "memory cards as a viable storage solution for games" as an idea in the back of my head, and with game sizes grenading in recent years, I could actually see it being a practical, if not a bit pricey, solution. 

Far and away, though, the way Microsoft is going about the expansion cards is a better solution than what Sony's doing with the PS5.

[Lord Vile]

6 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

I would prefer it if there was just an exterior sata port and you could use already existing drives, but maybe theres an issue I'm missing and a reason why they didnt do that

 

But Xbox's solution is definitely preferable IMO compared to PS

Speed, the new consoles are using PCIE 4.0 internal SSDs so the additional storage has to be fast enough to do what they want it to. 

[Shreyas1]

5 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Speed, the new consoles are using PCIE 4.0 internal SSDs so the additional storage has to be fast enough to do what they want it to. 

If its that fast, I kinda hope MS allows other manufacturers to add the port to motherboards and cases. Might be useful on pc to have really fast removable storage

[Lord Vile]

18 minutes ago, James Evens said:

There is no future for physical games. The pricing of the PS4 all digital version shows it.

Some people like physical games, I mean I still buy Blu rays. Plus games on cards would save the backlash that will happen when people realise a 1TB PCIE 4 SSD costs $200 and you'd be lucky to fit 5 games onto it. so that puts the cost of a game at $110 vs on card add a $20 premium would work out $20 cheaper per game. Plus some peoples internet just isn't good enough to download a 200GB game, you'd have to leave the console on for days in some cases.

[dizmo]

The problem is the medium isn't fast enough. You can't run the games from the SD card. You also can't use just any SSD with the Xbox, it has to be NVMe, which increases the cost substantially. Unless very very fast SD cards hit the market, the idea is DOA. 

 

24 minutes ago, James Evens said:

There is no future for physical games. The pricing of the PS4 all digital version shows it.

IIRC the disc version is actually selling substantially better. 

1 hour ago, Shreyas1 said:

If its that fast, I kinda hope MS allows other manufacturers to add the port to motherboards and cases. Might be useful on pc to have really fast removable storage

They have them. They're called m.2 slots.

[Lord Vile]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

They have them. They're called m.2 slots.

Think they mean slots that are hotswappable and easy access. You also need a PCIE 4.0 spec slot which is limited to 2 chipsets currently???

[Lord Vile]

1 minute ago, James Evens said:

Nothing will happen. You would need with current game sizes you would need more then 7-10 games installed simultaneously and then still have the 800 gb internal memory.

Modern warfare is currently 225GB and next gen games have the potential to be even larger and will apparently have 8K textures. Plus you DON'T have 800GB. You have 825 RAW on the PS5 so you still have formatting and the OS to fit on there. Formatting alone will cost you 50GB plus probably around another 50 for the OS so you're down to just over 700GB on the PS5, throw modern warfare on there you're down to 500. 

1 minute ago, James Evens said:

 

Welcome to the sneakernet with USB HDD. 

Assuming people buying a console know about it and assuming that USB drives will even work because they didn't at the start of the current gen.

1 minute ago, James Evens said:

 

Why would you not persuade in a future where you keep full control through out the lifecycle? Abo is even better as you don't sell anything.

???

1 minute ago, James Evens said:

 

How large of a loss would be when there is just simply no disc version and you need to buy digital?

???

[dizmo]

25 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Think they mean slots that are hotswappable and easy access. You also need a PCIE 4.0 spec slot which is limited to 2 chipsets currently???

Ahhh. That makes even less sense to me. Just buy a larger SSD. Buy 4 games and the money you've spent over the cost of the regular editions, you could buy another 1TB of storage.

21 minutes ago, James Evens said:

How large of a loss would be when there is just simply no disc version and you need to buy digital?

Why would they do that when they're making so much more margin on the disc version?

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Lord Vile said:

Been thinking about the PS5 and XSX and how expandable storage is being handled on both platforms. Come to the conclusion that if the cards for the XSX are hot swappable it is by far the superior solution if you're downloading games. You download games onto different cards and when you want to play that game you just put the card in and that game is ready to play, want a different game just throw a different card in.

 

Honestly I could see disc based games just move onto 256GB cards if the price every becomes cheap enough and games get more expensive. I mean they're at $70 already what's an extra $20-30 for the physical copy you can trade in? 

 

Any thoughts?

that idea isn't new but I agree a good solution, IF the "cards" are reliable and cheap enough...

 

 

[Arika]

1 hour ago, James Evens said:

There is no future for physical games. The pricing of the PS4 all digital version shows it.

Until the world has fast internet everywhere, physical games will still need to exist. 

I hate that games are getting up to the 100gb range and I'm stuck on 7mbps down. 

Plus there are a lot of people happy to pay more for physical. Especially collectors editions. 

 

Also, yes, let's bring back cartridges, they are much more satisfying than disks and with solid state being as fast as it is, it would be a great alternative and less prone to damage (ie disks getting scratched) 

[Shreyas1]

38 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Ahhh. That makes even less sense to me. Just buy a larger SSD. Buy 4 games and the money you've spent over the cost of the regular editions, you could buy another 1TB of storage.

I mean in general I kinda just want a system that's hotswappable and faster than USB, not necessarily the xbox connector, mainly so that in case I need to use a different computer for example, I don't need to reinstall the game or open up the PC.

[Lord Vile]

33 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

I mean in general I kinda just want a system that's hotswappable and faster than USB, not necessarily the xbox connector, mainly so that in case I need to use a different computer for example, I don't need to reinstall the game or open up the PC.

Maybe Thunderbolt would be able to do it? Considering USB4 is basically TB3 

[Lord Vile]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

Ahhh. That makes even less sense to me. Just buy a larger SSD. Buy 4 games and the money you've spent over the cost of the regular editions, you could buy another 1TB of storage.

Issue is the 1TB of storage costs $200, isn't hot swappable and you'll likely end up with multiple M.2 drives. 

[dizmo]

3 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

Issue is the 1TB of storage costs $200, isn't hot swappable and you'll likely end up with multiple M.2 drives. 

Fast SD cards wouldn't cost much less.

[Lord Vile]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

Fast SD cards wouldn't cost much less.

 

Well it'd be the XSX memory cards, the games would likely cost more but it's a physical game that you can trade in, buy used and and would work on both versions on the Xbox.

[Roswell]

Discs cost a few cents to press. SSDs will never come close in cost to a piece of plastic.

 

Maybe you could see something like Switch has with its games. Though those are just glorified SD cards and they absolutely pass the extra cost onto the consumer in almost all cases.

[NineEyeRon]

One solution is already in play, MSFS and it’s streaming terrain data etc could work for consoles, you buy the game, download the minimum package and stream the rest of the content as needed.

 

Why store 225GB of a game when you are not even on the levels that use 150GB+ of that? Then it deletes the data once you are past that bit. Or it could work that it stores local what you use most and doesn’t store the bits you do.
 

The only downside is you need a decent internet connection for this to work and the loading screens might become a bit tiresome if it can’t predict what you need next.