Hey Microsoft, 250 GB for the Xbox 360 Won't Cut it

My only way forward at this point: Scour. Delete. Compromise.

Bizarrely, Microsoft just released a 250 GB Xbox 360 hard drive in Japan, the one place the company can't seem to move systems (just over a million units sold to-date, versus nearly 10 million Wiis and 5 million PS3s). Expect to see that 250 part manifest stateside shortly, not that it solves my problems. I'll need more space than that soon enough. Why, for that matters, such a trivial size increase given dwindling storage costs Why not something bolder like 320 or 500 What if I want to leave my full games library installed and at the ready Disc-swapping may be an issue only the most petulant would grouse about, but installing games can takes upwards of 10 minutes on the Xbox 360.

Unlike Sony's PlayStation 3, which supports off-the-shelf hard drive upgrades, Microsoft's Xbox 360 takes a mechanically analogous 2.5-inch optical drive, slides it into an oblong side-bracket, then renders authentication checks to ensure you're using their signed and sealed product. You can work around this by way of byzantine home-hackery, but you're limited to the 120 GB ceiling. You can in fact drop a larger drive in the unit, but the OS comes purpose-built to cynically recognize up to 120 GB only.

Microsoft's spin boils down to claims about quality control. "Security testing" and "software preload" show up like talking points in interviews. That's to justify charging $150 for 120 GB or $1.25 per GB, compared with just $60 for an off-the-shelf 320 GB drive or about $0.19 per GB. We're paying a dollar premium per GB, in other words, for 'quality control'. Some people call that fair market value (anything worth whatever anyone's willing to pay--and people are clearly paying). I call it brilliant propaganda. If Microsoft's 'quality control' is so important, why doesn't Sony charge for something similar Because the PS3's a cheaper product Sony doesn't care about its consumers Why don't we see user-upgraded PS3 hard drives failing Users cramming support lines (or spilling over to message boards)

I griped about this last July. I'm griping about it again now because I'm full up and loathe to clean house when I could just as well have something five-bedroom deluxe. Instead, Microsoft limits me to the closet under the staircase, where their rival hands me the deed to the acreage and says "Build whatever you like."