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Why are 360 hard drives so expensive?

Slavik81 said:
As previously noted by another poster, that really only makes sense if I were an investor. You could say the same thing about Monster Cables if you wanted.

Here, I have a nice ethernet cable to sell you.
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Smart business move.

Do you think I am arguing for them? :lol Don't make me laugh.

The cool thing about cables is that you can get generic. So your point about those cables isn't a point.

Microsoft is doing what they are supposed to do with their monopoly on their own hardware. Not saying anything else, I stated why I hate what they are doing but I guess I enjoy everything 360 enough to want overpriced HDD's if I needed more space.


Not like I've paid for a 120GB HDD or would now.. :lol because the 60GB HDD I have is enough for me.




About those cables..


"Denon's 1.5 meter (59 in.) proprietary ultra premium Denon Link cable was designed for the audio enthusiast. Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts"

Those lines just cracked me up :lol :lol :lol
 
Slayer-33 said:
Smart business move.

Do you think I am arguing for them? :lol Don't make me laugh.

The cool thing about cables is that you can get generic. So your point about those cables isn't a point.

Microsoft is doing what they are supposed to do with their monopoly on their own hardware.
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Which to be fair as always been the way in the console market, which I first learnt with the Ps1 and having to by a £30 memory unit!

Whilst gamers rejoice about it whether or not Sony do the same thing again with PS4 after taking a bath on the PS3 is another matter entirley, somehow I doubt it after seeing how MS turned a thing that cost them tonnes of money last gen into something thats making them money this gen
 
mr_bishiuk said:
Which to be fair as always been the way in the console market, which I first learnt with the Ps1 and having to by a £30 memory unit!

Whilst gamers rejoice about it whether or not Sony do the same thing again with PS4 after taking a bath on the PS3 is another matter entirley, somehow I doubt it after seeing how MS turned a thing that cost them tonnes of money last gen into something thats making them money this gen
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I remember the multi tap too and the stand lol.. what was it? $19.99 for a plastic stand?

And ya those PS1 memcards had like what 512kb's worth of space? It was absurd.. even when PS2 hit, 8mb memcard for $30 usd...
 
Metal Gear?! said:
why does the wireless adapter cost so much?

why do they charge for online play?

Micro$$$oft!!!
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Console manufacturers have always sold the console relatively cheap but charge extortionist prices for the accessories. That's why they use prorietary connectors if they can in order to control the market for cables and accessories.

MS is very good at this:

- proprietary wireless controllers
- proprietary webcam
- proprietary memory save carts
- proprietary hard drives
- proprietary wifi adapter
- proprietary analog AV connector

They lost so much money on the original Xbox, they made a determined effort to finally make money with the 360. That's why the core 360 doesn't have a hard drive anymore. Without the drive the base package is cheaper and therefore easier to sell to consumers. MS makes money by everything else: accessories, Xbox Live, every single game that is sold.

The strange thing is why Sony doesn't work like this anymore and makes it easy to use 3rd party accessories. It's pretty weird that MS makes it impossible for third parties to create new web cams, yet the 360 Live Vision camera works flawlessly on the PS3.
 
ymmv said:
Console manufacturers have always sold the console relatively cheap but charge extortionist prices for the accessories. That's why they use prorietary connectors if they can in order to control the market for cables and accessories.

MS is very good at this:

- proprietary wireless controllers
- proprietary webcam
- proprietary memory save carts
- proprietary hard drives
- proprietary wifi adapter
- proprietary analog AV connector

They lost so much money on the original Xbox, they made a determined effort to finally make money with the 360. That's why the core 360 doesn't have a hard drive anymore. Without the drive the base package is cheaper and therefore easier to sell to consumers. MS makes money by everything else: accessories, Xbox Live, every single game that is sold.

The strange thing is why Sony doesn't work like this anymore and makes it easy to use 3rd party accessories. It's pretty weird that MS makes it impossible for third parties to create new web cams, yet the 360 Live Vision camera works flawlessly on the PS3.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good analysis, Sony should have done things more like this considering the cost they incurred producing/manufacturing PS3 early on.
 
ymmv said:
The strange thing is why Sony doesn't work like this anymore and makes it easy to use 3rd party accessories. It's pretty weird that MS makes it impossible for third parties to create new web cams, yet the 360 Live Vision camera works flawlessly on the PS3.
Click to expand...

Not flawlessly, you can't use the 360 Live Vision camera with Little Big Planet.
 
If the RROD fiasco didn't happen (which would have resulted in MS being able to cut prices quicker, have more consumer confidence, not sink a billion dollars into warranty, and just sell more consoles overall) then MS probably would have brought down the prices of hard drives and other accessories significantly. Its possible it could still happen this generation because the PS3 is gaining steam. I think next gen MS won't go all out proprietary because they will have a better handle on making the hardware more reliable and cheaper and don't have to rely on inflated accessory prices to make a profit and instead will go for selling more units.
 
fugimax said:
With the rebates and promotions recently, you can get an Xbox 360 Elite with 120GB HD for $200 (at some places with Lego Batman and Pure).

A 120GB HD for Xbox 360 costs $140.

Huh?

I get they make money back on accessories, but seriously? At this point, it's just hurting them:

- I've stopped buying games on XBLA and buy them on PSN instead.
- I'm thinking about buying an Elite instead, which they'll LOSE money on.
- As a consumer, it just ticks me off that I can get 1.5TB SATA for my PC for $80, and they want to charge $120 for 120GB.

EDIT: I am not bitching about price. I'm bitching about value. As a result, I am about to buy an Elite, which will cost them money.
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you need to sign up with the good guys. PS3!
 
infinityBCRT said:
I think next gen MS won't go all out proprietary because they will have a better handle on making the hardware more reliable and cheaper and don't have to rely on inflated accessory prices to make a profit and instead will go for selling more units.
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ms=microsoft, right?
 
tirant said:
- HDD Drive Enclosure : $11.18
- Western Digital Scorpio/velociraptor 120GB: ~$50
- 10minutes from your time

Or better, wait for 250GB support from HDDHackr, and buy a 250GB HDD.
Click to expand...
:lol You realize that it's a 2.5" drive and even a 150GB velociraptor for 3.5" is ~$180 right?

A scorpio is around $55 for an oem version but there's no way to get a velociraptor especially without paying an arm and a leg.
 
Vyer said:
Unless you started gaming this generation, I don't know why people are so shocked by the 'Video Game Accessories Are Overpriced' concept.

N64's multitude of add-ons, Sony charging me 20+ bucks for an 4 or 8 MB PS2 card or whatever, 60 buck controllers, MS wireless adapter, etc. etc.

You should come to expect this.
Click to expand...

Just because something is expected it doesn't mean you're not allowed to complain about it.
 
Somebody at microsoft remembered the time in their high school economics class when the teacher introduced the concept of "charging what the market will bare". Then the person sitting next to them at lunch in Redmond mentioned that they had a monopoly on 360 hard drives. They didn't need calc.exe to add 2+2 at that point...
 
Woo-Fu said:
Somebody at microsoft remembered the time in their high school economics class when the teacher introduced the concept of "charging what the market will bare". Then the person sitting next to them at lunch in Redmond mentioned that they had a monopoly on 360 hard drives. They didn't need calc.exe to add 2+2 at that point...
Click to expand...

Or they just looked at the very successful business model that Sony had going at the time with the PS2 with over priced first party accessories and they said "that obviously works, let's do that too".
 
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
:lol You realize that it's a 2.5" drive and even a 150GB velociraptor for 3.5" is ~$180 right?

A scorpio is around $55 for an oem version but there's no way to get a velociraptor especially without paying an arm and a leg.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I know :lol :lol my fault! I just wanted to note that you can even use a Velociraptor on your X360 if you want. All of them are supported by Hddhackr.
 
As far as I'm concerned Microsoft is only hurting themselves with this stupid pricing. I bought a 20 Gig PS3 and a 20 Gig 360 both at around launch. Now that a couple years have passed here is some insight into my spending habits.

I used to buy some downloadable games as well as dlc like shivering isles, for my xbox. and Soon I almost reached the 20 gig capacity, (keep in mind that 7 gigs is reserved for the xbox system and bc). So I started to look for ways to expand the capacity like that hardware hack to clone a third party hard drive into one that the xbox will recognize (this was before microsoft announced the 60 and 120 gig harddrive). When microsoft announced the price of the new hard drives I scoffed at that price and began to focus my attention on my PS3.

With the PS3 I realized that I was able to upgrade my harddrive to 320gig for a fraction of the cost compared to the xbox. Previously I was also running out of room on my 20gig but once I upgraded I began to buy more and more games since I had more space. Now its at the point where I only buy from the PSN store.

I also have some gripes with the xbox live service but I'll save that for another post.
 
The reason why its expensive is because you fuckers buy it (well not maybe YOU.. but somebody out there is buying them up).

Same reason why games ship half-ass finished and then they want you to pony up $12-15, a couple of weeks later for map packs. Because some people out there think is just a fucking peachy great way to do business and they'll gladly empty their wallet for them.

If nobody bought this shit, it would either go away or the price would be lowered.

I've ranted on this a lot the last couple of weeks. I've got a launch 360 and my 20GB hard drive (13GB real world) is completely full. I will not pay $100-$140 for a 120GB upgrade. I'll let my 360 system sit there and rot on principle before I let them rape me in such a fashion. So that means no games on demand, no more rock band tracks, or any other marketplace content for me.

I put a 320GB drive in my PS3 a couple of months ago for $55. YES $55. From now on, any multi-plat marketplace or PSN purchases are getting purchased on the PS3. So yes, Microsoft has fucked themselves out of a customer by choosing to attempt to price gouge me on what, at this point, is almost a necessary item in a larger hard drive.

I don't care what the technical hurdles are.. I don't give a fuck if its made out of gold. I don't care if they are 2 completely different types of hard drives.. when your competition can upgrade their hard drives for 3X the amount of storage for less than half of your price, something is fucked and they are living in a dream world if they think I'll pay that much for it.
 
It costs so much because you can put in on any other 360 without having to reformat the damn thing.

Seriously, I'd pay for being able to do the same with the PS3 one.
 
Slayer-33 said:
yo.


500gb for 360?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314




isnt 360 getting a 500gb hd soon or is it 250?


$89 bucks ftw.
Click to expand...
it's 250GB, but you can use that drive. it'll just be a waste of half the space.

i have a 160GB HDD in my 360... ~40GB wasted!


TTP said:
It costs so much because you can put in on any other 360 without having to reformat the damn thing.

Seriously, I'd pay for being able to do the same with the PS3 one.
Click to expand...
it's only $11 on DX for an enclosure that lets anyone do that with almost any 2.5" WD SATA drive
 
bkfount said:
they don't.
Click to expand...

Ahh. I had some concern that given from what I understand that they use a cloned drive ID (or something) MS might see those as modded systems and try and ban such systems from live.
 
TTP said:
It costs so much because you can put in on any other 360 without having to reformat the damn thing.

Seriously, I'd pay for being able to do the same with the PS3 one.
Click to expand...

Uh... yeah, that's exactly why it costs that much. Got it.
 
TTP said:
It costs so much because you can put in on any other 360 without having to reformat the damn thing.

Seriously, I'd pay for being able to do the same with the PS3 one.
Click to expand...
Have you gone through so many 360s that putting the HDD on another system is a normal thing???

I don't understand this one, TTP.
 
Also, I just got a 500GB drive for my PS3. $90.

If a 500GB drive ever came out for the 360 M$ would charge $1,000,000 for it or something.
TTP said:
It costs so much because you can put in on any other 360 without having to reformat the damn thing.

Seriously, I'd pay for being able to do the same with the PS3 one.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, this is true.

All my game saves are gone now since my 1st PS3 bit the dust and I've been re-downloading my content all fucking day.
xenorevlis said:
Have you gone through so many 360s that putting the HDD on another system is a normal thing???

I don't understand this one, TTP.
Click to expand...
It's a very normal thing. I'm on my 3rd.
 
outunderthestars said:
This X 1000.


Ia it really that hard to figure out? They have a monopoly on 360 hard drives, and therefore have no incentive to lower prices.

Also, i really wish putting "$" in place of an "S" when referring to Microsoft or Sony was a bannable offense.
Click to expand...
The sentence right before the bolded one shows why it is warranted.
 
xenorevlis said:
Have you gone through so many 360s that putting the HDD on another system is a normal thing???

I don't understand this one, TTP.
Click to expand...
Well if you want to bring some XBLA games to a friends house, bringing over your hard drive is no problem.
 
Sorry for the bump, but I can't start new threads. Is this old news? If so, lock or ignore. I just caught this on Major Nelson's twitter.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2009/10/16/unauthorized-xbox-360-storage-devices.aspx

Don’t use unauthorized Xbox 360 Storage Devices


When Preview Program members start receiving the Xbox 360 system update next week, one of the changes is that unauthorized Memory Units will no longer work with the Xbox 360. If you’ve moved your profile or saved games onto one to “back it up,” you’d better move it back onto an authorized Xbox 360 storage device prior to taking the update. If you continue to use an unauthorized Memory Unit after the update, you will not be able to access your stored profile or saved games.

If you need help identifying officially licensed Xbox 360 storage devices or accessories you can read more about the licensed accessories program on Xbox.com
Click to expand...

Does this include HDDs?
 
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