Microsoft has today confirmed earlier reports that the Xbox 360 is getting a USB storage solution. Major Nelson announced that on April 6, a new update will be available for the 360, allowing users to store their games and content on flash drives, rather than the stupid memory cards that nobody ever used because they were stupid.
As reported, you can only save up to 16BG of information, making this new update practically useless for anybody who has a lot of content. USB hard drives may also work with the 360, but again, the console will limit access to 16GB. There is a slight workaround, with Major Nelson revealing that you can connect two USB memory devices at once for a combined 32GB of storage. If you want to plug a load of stuff into your 360 like it is a terminally ill hospital patient, that’s the option for you.
Any flash drive will be permitted, but Microsoft is partnering with SanDisk to create a line of specifically branded Xbox 360 drives that will be pre-configured for use with the console (other drives require manual configuration). Thus we now know why Microsoft is doing this — it wants to sell you more overly expensive versions of things you can buy for cheaper elsewhere.
So there you go. USB storage for your 360, only kind of useless.
USB Memory Support for the Xbox 360 coming April 6th [Major Nelson]
