Hey! you know that last Dashboard upgrade for the Xbox 360 that made it look even more like Windows 8? It seems Microsoft snuck in more to the update than just slower boot speeds, Internet Explorer and Smartglass.
It seems as though the company’s increased the storage limit for external USD devices from 16GB to 32GB. Grab a cheap, but fast USB flash drive, and you can increase your storage on the cheap – perfect for Halo 4, which requires an installation for multiplayer, Huzzah. It’s a good thing, and it’s about time; that 16Gb limit just wasn’t adequate for poor old Arcade unit owners unwilling to shell out for an expensive hard drive.
A Microsoft rep confirmed the increase with Joystiq. “The more our customers use their profile and download digital content, the larger the file size necessary to store that content and move it between consoles gets. Therefore we increased the size of the memory to enable our customers to take more of their Xbox profile with them on the go.”
The question, of course, is why there’s a bloody limit at all. It’s more than likely for the sake of profit; sales of those pricy official drives would likely plummet if you could just plug any old drive in.
The PlayStation 3 allows users to upgrade their HDD, but there’s still no official way of doing that on Microsoft’s console. Conversely, the PlayStation doesn’t allow users to use external USB drives for anything other than media and backing up.
Last Updated: November 12, 2012
