Just saying....Its about time the ps3 has had this for awhile at least as long as I have had mine it has. If you buy a microsoft brand usb you are a moron it cannot be that hard to set up the usb and you save 20 usd.

just out of curiosity but why am i getting disagrees for asking a question?

how do you disagree with a question?
that sorta makes no sense

It's telling me that my USB drive "doesn't meet Xbox 360 performance recommendations". I'm wondering if that's legit or it's their way of trying to get me to buy one of their extremely overpriced USB drives. Their site says the "recommendations" are a drive formatted with a FAT32 file system and at least 1gb of space, which my Kingston 8gb does meet.

@Gamer71 - Tell that to the PS3 saves on my USB stick.

I'd like to know that as well. Do you still need CDs to put music on your X360?

Don't worry about the disagrees, this is N4G and nothing makes sense. They might be disagreeing with you because you mentioned the X360.

I don't know having all that extra memory, (why didn't they just make a bigger memeory card), I think something else might be up....
I willing to bet that the new ability of the x360 to use up to 16gb on a flash drive is gonna affect alot of upcoming games including REACH. I mean think about it, if developers were to pack in a flash drive it could solve 3 major problems that they’ve been having.

Problem #1 not every x360 has a hard drvive so they can’t assume they can do a zip then un-compress installation to save disc space and speed up load times.

Probem #2 Limited Disc space of about 9gb max on a dual layer dvd vs. a blu-rays 25gb for a single layer and 50gb for a dual… The 16gb flash memory + the 9gb from a dvd effectivley gives developers the same amout of disc space as a single layer blu-ray disc.

Problem #3 Disc swapping and the Multi-disc liscencing fee Microsoft charges for games that use more than 1 disc. And a limitation on sandbox style game’s and persistant world goes away too,

By packing in a 16gb flash drive they solve all kinds of disc space, swapping, and installaion problems. And I can’t imagine that it’s gonna actually cost them that much in comparison to what it cost to produce a game on a blu-ray disc those disc’s are expensive….way more expensive than a flash/dvd combo.

But bottom line I think it will be awsome… to be able to do this if they do...

I bet they're getting rid of the memory card slots in the Slim model.

This still doesn't fix the real problem with memory...360 HDD cost 2x what they should.

You're right but at least now Arcade onwers have an alternative

It has been said many times that MS do not charge a multidisk licensing fee. The developers who were talking about the bigger cost of multidisk games were just talking about increased material and manufacturing costs associated with having 2 discs instead of 1.

Maybe you need to read up a bit before.

Saying NEVER been mentioned is completely wrong as you implying that Microsoft have not once said anything about this so called feature.

Xbox Live Operations Blog says hello.

http://blogs.msdn.com/xblop...

Thats not NEVER you no :P

I'm getting a strong feeling that we will be hearing about that redesigned 360 at E3! Everything is pointing to it. That arcade bundle with the extra games is out and has moved some 360's. This update will effectively kill off the BS memory cards that most people don't use. That pic of the redesigned motherboard is right in line with how MS' past leaks were announced.

I believe it's coming!

To those asking about if you need CD's or not... I would imagine it would work like having your mp3 player hooked up to it.

Just to clarify something...360 has had USB support since day 1. How you choose to define that term "support" is going to vary. Right from the start you were always able to plug in an external USB hdd or flash drive and view pictures and videos. It was limited to WMV files at first but it was later that more codecs were added to view other video types.

Music was later added in the form of ipod/zune support to listen (but not import) mp3/aac tracks. As far as music goes, you could always stick a music CD in the tray and rip the tracks for custom in game music (something not every ps3 game offers) for any game.

An advantage the ps3 offered was the ability to import/export certain file types to/from the ps3 via external drive. That seems to be a feature the 360 is now getting (to some extent). I believe this move is in relation to them suing Datel over their memory unit that offered expandable memory to do the same thing.

MS dropping the MU slots in a revised 360 is very possible. One thing is certain, this is a very welcomed feature that has been long overdue. Wii offer game launching from SD cards, PS3 offers import/export of game saves and media via flash drive. 360 now doing both of those features is a nice plus.

edit: oh yeah...those who want to complain about the MS branded USB drives. Sandisk is the partner and they also do the exact same thing for the Wii SD cards and PSP/PS3 MSProDuo cards. Sandisk gets more $$ for their products not because they are better but because they imply the simplicity of just plugging it in and it working.

I am sure there will be a list of flash drive mfgs that are guaranteed to work with the 360 mush like there are lists of SD and MSPD cards that are guaranteed to work with the other systems. Just because it is a USB drive doesnt mean it is built with the same chips as the next one. Some cheaper ones are made that way for a reason.

van-essa - Arcade owners always had an option. They could buy a hard drive and snap it into their 360. It wouldn't be much more expensive than this alternative.

I'm telling you. The reason they're not going to support blu-ray is because they're pushing Digital Distribution for consoles. They already have a whopping 80+ retail games in their "Games on Demand" store, and now they're supporting USB flash drives for storage. This will eliminate the complications and limitations of DVD-9, but will also allow developers to put as much content as they want into their games.

Every possible sign is showing this, and I also have no doubt that the Valhalla motherboard that was talked about back in 2007 will fly onto shelves as well, in the form of a slim model.

What would be really nifty, is if they sell 150 GB flash drives that completely replace the current HDDs. This would not only eliminate the issues of what the hard drives produce on the 360, but it would be more affordable and more efficient.

Nice update.

lol @ trolling.

People seriously need to get over their console issues

@Arnon: The future of digital distribution (in gaming) is on my PC where I can play more than a "whopping" 80+ games (try more like 1000+ and that's just on Steam) from decades past and present. And that's WITHOUT having to buy tiny-but-overpriced hdds that screw me over in the long run as I build up a sizeable digital collection of full games, demos, videos, and addons. And no it doesn't cost an arm, a leg, and your firstborn.

It is not meant to be elitist or proclaim some kind of PC dominance. It's to say that MS has a long way to go before they can truly claim they push the digital format in regards to gaming. And it's not impossible to match Steam on consoles, the manufacturers just don't want to do it.

Yes yes. Steam. I know. I have 50 or so titles on my account. That doesn't change the fact that what Microsoft is doing is a step in the right direction.

All in all, I've been saying it from the beginning. The Xbox 360 will push digital distribution, and consoles will slowly become more and more like PCs. It's really inevitable.

The models that Sony promised to have PS2 BC still have it to this day. Them removing it from future models was a sensible move when considering they dropped the price at the same time where you could get 2 PS2s with the difference. (60Gb = 600$ 80Gb = 400$ PS2 = 100$)I still wanted PS2 BC on my PS3 but given that i paid less for it i have no right to complain.

.......................

Sony never promised you anything regarding backward compatibility, they just gave you an option to get the launch models to get it, so stop Bit**ing over something you passed up on

Even the WII had this from day 1

Some PS3 games do have PS2 BC as a game feature.

Actually, Sony DID promise backwards compatibility
What's more, Sony was advertising this as a feature which the 360 would not have!

Even worse, Ken Kutaragi stated that the ps3 would retain the ps2 b/c forever!
http://au.gamespot.com/news...

Guess it's time to eat your own words, guys.
Hey, you might even apologise to me, because as it turns out, I was right.
All of N4g can see that I was right.
So why not acknowledge this and show some true character?

Come on, guys.
Man up.
Show some backbone.

I wonder why you say all this, is it to call out fanboys, liars? You say that in your bio but you know you do it because you dislike the PS3 funny how I don't see you mentioning the faults of the 360 (of which you are likely to point me to one or two articles in which you did) but I am talking about you bias steering your judgement, yeah I said it and I'm right ain't I?

"Well, I guess the ps3 hacking floodgates have opened.

You can blame geohotz all you want.
You can watch Sony remove additional features.
It won't matter.

Not saying I agree with the ethics involved.
Just saying.

;)" - Whats wrong with these words? That they are true? no (which they are) It's the intent with which you use them. Your intent is to point out enough faults with the PS3 and get people to move on from it right?

In the future how about you do a comparison of the two consoles faults both corporate & hardware/software related. Do that and I might have a little more respect for you, do that and I won't look at you as another bitter fanboy with a vocabulary(a change, not a welcome one though).

On the note of ethics & morals it seems your very glee about the exploitation of your hobby, you don't think it's a little sadistical? Shouldn't you be mourning the lost innocence of a console?

Funny. My PS3 still plays PS2 games just fine. News to me.

that's not very probable - it will take ages to understand how GameOS work - reading assembler code is not much fun and if by some miracle they manage to digitally sign their own version of GameOS or circumvent it you'd still need the FPGA board Geohot and others are using, good soldering skills and a fat PS3.