Don't use unauthorized Xbox 360 Storage Devices

Although Microsoft sells official hard drives for the Xbox 360, users can use many standard HDs if they know how to do it. That is no longer the case, as Microsoft will disallow unauthorized storage devices with the new fall update.

[jack who]

there was one/?

[Greywulf]

Jump $n

[PlayStation X]

unlucky xtards, microsoft forcing you to buy there overpriced bullsh1t now.
whats next they'll charge you to play online?
ohhh... unlucky
sucks to be you

[RememberThe357]

That seems kind of douche bagish.

[Chubear]

Wow, I didn't know the 360's HDD had a 3rd party device... well, it doesn't now I guess.

[Tony P]

"Kind of" is kind of an understatement.

This is douche baggery at its finest.

[HolyOrangeCows]

I guess it's a measly 60GB for $100, 120GB for $150, or no memory at all.

The Xbox 360 just got that much less appealing.

[ZombieAutopsy]

they do it so they can make money off people instead of someone else.

[Pika-pie]

Get yourself a PS3- You can swap out HDD at exchange it for a standard notebook HDD whenever you like for half the price of the 360 drive.

Another win for Sony

[mistajeff]

I believe there's a way to stick a notebook HD inside the 360 HD casing. Obviously that makes way more sense than any of the storage options MS provides, but they don't take kindly to people not paying excessive prices for excessively overpriced storage.

[Xbox Avatars Shoe]

@ 1.0 "That seems kind of douche bagish."

It's M$, did you expect some sort of generosity or consumer value?

[edgeofblade]

This is a BAAAAAAD idea Microsoft. Think of the kids whose parents went cheap and bought an Arcade unit and a cheaper Datel memory card. Do you really want to screw them over like this? Jesus Christ, backpedal on this one before it's too late.

I admit, I'm part of the problem, because I bought the way over priced 120 gig hard drive.

[MNicholas]

Microsoft has every right to control the hardware used on it's platform. Hacking and pirating is not a good thing.

However, Microsoft basically created this problem by charging an absurd amount for it's required peripherals. Many 360 owners (and their parents) are basically blindsided by this huge hidden cost.

It's not a coincidence that Forza 3 requires a hard-drive to work properly. For example, the second disc is practically unusable unless you have a hard-drive. In addition to the many many millions who bought a Core or Arcade, Microsoft also knows that people who've had a 360 for a while are due to upgrade soon as well.

Microsoft makes an absolute killing on these hard-drives.

If just 30% of 360 owners buy a hard-drive, Microsoft will make a minimum of $650 Million dollars in pure profit on hard-drives alone.

Nickel-and-dime pricing works really well with Americans. It's no wonder the 360 sells better there than everywhere else combined!

Nintendo and Sony missed out on massive profits by not selling a US only barebones SKU that's cheaper up-front but requires additional purchases to work properly.

[Reibooi]

People would not use the unauthorized hard drives if MS didn't rip people off so bad for the real ones. MS needs to make them more affordable or people are just not gonna care and keep coming up with ways around this.

[v1c1ous]

LICENSED means that they are endorsed by microsoft which CAN INCLUDE 3rd PARTY DEVICES

Banning unlicensed drives DOES NOT mean 3rd party devices are banned.

UNLICENSED means that they have not been approved by microsoft to use with xbox 360.

you know whats also UNLICENSED? those psp batteries used to hack the PSP. god this place...

[cjflora]

How else are they going to make up for all of the money they have to spend fixing faulty Xbox's?

[HammockGames]

Anyone who has problems as a result of this should be allowed to take their dead storage device and use it to stone any MS executive that had a hand in this.

Greedy jack@sses.

[ShadowCK]

They've done it because it shall help the upcoming fall update and be used for anti-piracy.

Get a job, buy a 120 GB hard drive and stop complaining. You're seriously overeating, this is not a problem.

[Poopface the 2nd]

You people act as if you must buy everything that exists in the world, at least when you complain about anything xbox. "you have to buy the HD, the wireless adapter, chords, chargers, 10 batteries, xbox live..." whatever microsoft makes, you want to complain about it and act like its needed for everyone.

Ok so out of you complainers, how many of you have an Xbox 360?? whats your gamertag if you do have a 360? And no, silver accounts are free and you have the Internet, so dont lie about having a 360 not connected to the internet.

And of you few(if any) how many of you have one of these unauthorized storage devices???

Ohh 0, thats what I thought. Now how many of you are gonna cry about anything xbox until the day you have an epiphany and realize your pathetic.

[Parapraxis]

Anti-piracy tactic most likely.

[dktxx2]

i don't think the hard drive would have anything to do with piracy?

[Parapraxis]

Well it was just a guess.

But tutorials such as this tend to make me believe I am right:
http://forums.afterdawn.com...

"STEP 2: Connecting your XBOX 360 HDD through SATA to USB Adapter.

This is by far, the easiest and faster way of connecting your XBOX 360 SATA HDD to your PC."

With this fall update comes some fancy new DRM no doubt.
They are trying to curb piracy.

Okay kids, disagree away. (at least a few commenters on Major Nelson's blog have a clue)

[dirthurts]

If you can pop in any hard drive you want, you can modify the files on your computer it and use it cheat on the xbox, or play ripped games.

It's been done a lot...
That's why they are killing it.

[MerkinMax]

All the hacking that a 360 needs is a flashed disk drive. The HDD stuff is simply for modifying game saves and stuff like that. You can not copy 360 games to your HDD and play from it like the original Xbox

[Bloodraid]

Holy hell! The FSM! *Hail!*

[MNicholas]

Microsoft knows how to make money off Americans.

[xoxideu]

m$ b!tc.h-slapping you wh0rebots down

[Ryutamashiisan]

The word epic fail come to mind... that said im sure someone will find a way around MS's software ban on 3rd party harddrives and this wont last but so long

[n4gn4gn4gn4g]

that has a 40 year old man running around with a fvcking pseudonym? You don't see the guys from SONY or NIN using pseudonyms when talking to their fans. Grow the fvck up.

And your closed system has done what for you MS? Lined your pockets and still didn't prevent piracy on your PC based system. Software superiority my ass.

[xoxideu]

you bots shall forfeit all your cash and

bow down before m$

[radzy]

microsoft is getting hurt more than we are .

abgx = ftw

[Nihilism]

yeah make sure to not by anything that isn't overpriced...that would just be rude!. It's good that sony allows any HDD's to be used in ps3...i don't have one but still the idea that you can put a 500gig HDD in seems pretty sweet to me

[Redempteur]

Two weeks ago i upgraded my launch 60gb PS3 with a 250gb hard drive ... and when i saw that "news" i couldn't help a smile ...

-Because i know the price of the official hard drives for 360.
-because i know how much i paid my 250gb sata hard drive for my PS3.

i know the différence and i can't help but smile ...

I know the price of the 360 wifi adapter too ..i can't wait to see the old method with the netgear and co wifi routers disabled because it will include more lag with players ( or for some stupid reason like that ) because they want more money into their pocket ...

LICENSED Hard drives ? everyone ( bigben for exemple ) wanting to make a 360 HD will have to pay M$ ..?? Great ..that's just great !! That's the right move to ensure that the price of the product will stay right up where they want it to be .

That's sad really ....
But Why do i keep smiling ???

[Saaking]

Well, maybe if MS didn't overcharge for their HDDs.

[Pandamobile]

"You have to buy our harddrives which cost 2x more than they should because we said so."

[crck]

Even 2x wouldn't be that bad. They charge 3x to 4x. I mean $150 for 120 gb? You can buy a 250gb to 320 gb for $50 on sale. I got a 320 gb Western Digital Blue Laptop hard drive a few weeks ago for $48 at Dell.

[Sano64]

Someone really need to put them in there place! With the ridiculous prices they are charging for there network adapters and HDD's someone should be able to sue there butts!

[Kushan]

Actually, read the MN post before you jump to some conclusions. He constantly refers to Memory Units, but never once actually mentions "Hard Drives" in any way shape or form. This is most likely an attempt to Block Datel's MUs than anything else, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[treacherous_gamer]

Microsoft sells the console at a reduced price and makes up the loss by selling accessories at a high profit margin. No wonder a 120GB 360 HDD costs the same as a 1TB PC HDD. Third party memory are a great threat to MS's business strategy.

[djtek184]

A 3rd party company who makes external HD for 360s are not gonna like this at all.

[cardgenius]

lol....wait, who still uses memory cards to save their games? Is this, last-gen or what?

[Figboy]

the HDD less 360 was all they needed to experience the full 360 package?

i only have a 20gig HDD in my 360, because i refuse to pay as much as they're asking for a larger one.

my PS3 still has the 60 gig it came with, but i'm thinking of upgrading to a 320gig, since i saw one for like, $50 on newegg.com.

[stryx]

So everyone please explain to me the philosophy that everyone loves Microsoft? Their marketing schemes suck and they seem to create a lot of drama over who can use their system.

It was asked on Major Nelson's site in the comments if the update will be mandatory...the answer will most likely be "Yes, at some point". Think about what Microsoft did with the games that released after March (i.e. MLB 2K9 onward), the update will become mandatory at some point, so why fight the system?

All in all, Microsoft can do all they want to kill 360 modding and pirates, but they have a very insecure system and it'll be weeks, if not days before someone modifies their system again.

[RockmanII7]

Who loves MS?

[Cliff Forster]

Another reminder why I game on PC.

[iamgoatman]

*buzz* That's the wrong answer I'm afraid Cliff. The correct answer to the question "What is the only way to play games according to N4G?" is "The PS3, and nothing else!"

But oh well, let's see what runner up prizes you've won...

[Cliff Forster]

I just mean that on the PC I am in control of what hardware and peripherals I choose. I like my freedom.

[The Milkman]

ITS LIL WAYNES FAULT! lol

[Campy da Camper]

they will require a finger pad swipe on any controller that connects to the system. This will prevent your friend from playing a console he did not spend any money on.

I cannot believe it took me so long to switch to a PS3. I have spent, literally, thousands of dollars on MS products and 75-80% of them were crap crap crap....including this monstrosity of an OS I am using on my laptop. Gotta go, Bug Driver Failed is causing a system dump! Oh, look! My Network Adapter just dissapeared. What do you mean the driver is not installed? It was 2 mintues ago! Hey, Sidebar finaly loaded! Welcome to the party! I digress.

[xoxideu]

let me guess vista?

I get those wireless adapter has stopped working errors too much..

[kasasensei]

The HDD has really nothing to do with piracy. i have friends with not official hard drives, they do not use their hard drives to steal games, they just use them with official firmware, to install officials games with the official feature that MS is officially providing since nxe.

First, they raise the price of the console by 20€ in europe.
Second, they block unauthorized hard drives storages devices.
Third what? they block second hand game like they are doing with "games for windows live" pc games?
What a bad strategy...

[Redempteur]

"they block second hand games"

Really ? witch games are we talking about ?

[tudors]

for example if they are talking about things such as IPOD or USB mass storage devices they will put themselves in line for a lawsuit because the fact that you could hook these things up was a deliberate selling point, if they stop the very same people that watched the promotion of these devices for use on Xbox-360 now being told to stop using these devices it could end up in the courts, yes there are people out there viewing pirated films from there USB mass storage hooked up to there Xbox-360 but that is a content issues not a hardware one, I personally will be phoning MS if this turns out to be the case and warning them that I would seek legal advise.

[solidworm]

microsoft tills kerchinging.

[Revvin]

What a lousy thing to do. I have a 360 and PS3 and what I love about the PS3 is its more open approach to peripherals. Funny how when HD DVD failed Microsoft licked its wounds and stated how digital distribution was the future yet its Sony leading the way, first to launch full game downloads. I've bought a 500GB HDD for my PS3 and used an old SD card I had laying around to back up my saves games yet I'm stuck with the 120GB 360 drive in my Elite. Microsoft sucker people in with the console at a low price then screw them over on accessories. I hope they follow Sony's lead next generation with a more open console and keep the anti piracy stuff inside the machine and let us use our own memory solutions. They could still make money by making an official 2.5" HDD caddy. It could contain all the electronics to stop tampering and piracy and just let the user buy their own 2.5" HDD like Sony does for the PS3.

[bjornbear]

That...sucks =P well glad the problem doesn't effect me..

[REALZILLA]

Oops, they did it again.

[Highwayman]

Hmm..not surprised. Both MS and Sony have do retarded crap such as this. Doesn't bother me though, I've got my 120gb already.

[dalibor]

I am sure some people have extra hdd's that are not in use that could be used for the 360(or even the PS3). There has got to be a diff. solution. Bad call MS.

[KMxRetro]

I've had an Elite for about a year now and the drive is nowhere near full, even with my favourite games installed on it, and a bunch of demos and tons of XBLA games downloaded on to it.

I genuinely don't see the reason to switch out the HDD, other than to do something dodgy with the contents of it. So, this update causes me absolutely no issue and the 360 remains as appealing as it did anyway.

[Tony P]

Why is it that someone who doesn't want MS's own overpriced stuff up to something "dodgy"?

You don't see a reason to switch out an HDD? How about installing ALL your games instead of just your "favorites"? How about downloading more XBLA games, demos, and promotions worry free? You should be able to do all this without having to shuffle content around to make room.

But no, MS sells you an overpriced canoe and you don't see the benefits of a yacht. *facepalm*

[Bobby Kotex]

My 500gb PS3 hard drive i got for $85 is 10% full. It's nice to know I'll never have to upgrade it when I eventually put ALL my music on it and all my movies. I guess you'll never get that concept.

[PirateThom]

I have a 20GB HDD on my 360.

I obviously want to upgrade, because it's pitiful. Problem is...

I spent £60 on a 320GB HDD for my PS3, the same site, are looking £90 for 120GB HDD for 360.

There's something wrong when they're making you pay for a plastic case (considering the HDD is just a standard laptop hard drive).

[Droid Control]

and let their bots buy third party hard drives at low low prices...

[Xlll]

When your losing all that money from RRoDed consoles you'll do anything to get it back.

[m1ndz]

Xbox 3Fixme at its finest ;)

[HypnoticMonkey]

Ugh, way to go Microsoft..give your customers yet another reason to dislike you.

[ZombieStalker]

MS Sucks, period! They allow "modified" controllers that allow rapid fire, forcing developers to come up with software solutions to prevent an unfair advantage during MP games. But MS does not allow upgraded hard drives - not to mention the premium cost of MS branded hardware? WTF? I was planning on picking up Borderlands for the 360, not now...another game for my PS3 library! Overall 360 games generally have more players online and more optimized graphics. But this type of action from MS makes me vote with my $$$.

[rmedtx888]

That's wrong. Some people already invested money on this... Lame...

[Ashriel]

STOP FORCING YOUR DAMN EXPENSIVE PRODUCTS, MS!

I hope no one buys your f*cking HDDs

[Dampsack]

"Disallow the use of..." Right, just like they release updates to "disallow" burnt games to be played on hacked systems? It seems hackers have updates ready to go even before MS releases their own updates. If these people are clever enough to hack the xbox (ixtreme etc)or apply an "Unauthorized HD" then they can just as easily get around some limp and weak attempt by MS to cut them off. Most of these guys thrive on hacking, they will most likely have it solved the very next day anyway.

[ReBurn]

But what if you aren't a hacker and just buy a cheap alternative to a Microsoft product?

[CAPT IRISH]

if i cant use a third party, microsoft needs to decrease the price on their hdds

[Paradise Lost]

The xbox just got more retarded.
Thank god i have a ps3 and i can do whatever the hell i want with my hardrive.

[R3DD]

$150 for a 120g harddrive for the 360?
$50 more for 130g harddrive for the PS3?(thats coming from the 250g slim sku.) WTF MS. now i don't even want to buy a 360 now. Thank goodness i have my PS3 fat.

[juanvan]

This will only stop the Datel/Mad Cats items from not working - But I thought that they were Lic. By m$ due to the design - and interface.

And if you were smart and wanted a 120gb drive for the real cost of a 120g drive there is an app for that - just need to get the right HD.
I don't think the update is going to affect them due to them already reporting the correct information.

This is just them stopping that SD Sloted storage device...
Its Douche of m$ for pulling this - But its going to be clever to see what datel does to get around it..

[samoon]

Microsoft doing what they do best :D

[Sumadyan]

Considering how much DL content, games on demand and stuff they are pushing, they should have hd's at much lower prices. Anyhow you can put your own HD in the 360 hd case and have it work without you getting a ban hammer from ms, just have to use certain model # hds from wd scorpio blue line and they work for a 1/3rd cost.

[G4drake]

F you m$, F YOU!!

[gamingisnotacrime]

PS brand only for me

:)

[Kwertie]

All this will mean is that you cannot crack open a 360 HDD and replace the bare drive with a higher capacity one. I suspect 3rd party stuff like Datel which is generally licensed, will still work. You will probably find that the bare drives used in the 3rd party drives are the same as the official ones, so they will just make an update that checks the amount of memory and hdd BIOS and stuff.

[ForROME]

WTF Ms, what is your deal, must you keep everything about money, are your gamers not allowed to have any breaks? Your prices on phr are ridiculous HD, wifi

Next thing you know anyone with out a MS t shirt on will be SHOT.

Lame MS your shady as they come I swear

[ReBurn]

Really stupid move. As if selling $35 hard drives for $150 wasn't bad enough. The hard drive is only $50 less than the system.

[Blacksand1]

I told you that Microsoft don't care about there people they make yall pay for everything, that's sad.