While Microsoft unveiled a bunch of cool new Xbox Series X features yesterday, there’s something that also came to light recently that probably won’t make a lot of gamers happy. It looks like the Xbox Series X expandable storage won’t work with anything off the rack, as Microsoft requires it uses their prorietary cards.

Given how the Xbox Series X will come out of the box with just 1TB of SSD (Solid State Drive), and how huge games are these days (not to mention patches), for most gamers, 1TB for games simply isn’t enough. In the latest report by Digital Foundry, it mentions how there’s a proprietary slot at the back of the console so players can expand the storage. This slot uses custom-built NVMe SSD cartridges that when used, will work like the internal hard drive (meaning it’ll be fast). This memory cartridge also includes the necessary heatsink needed to protect the NVMe SSD drive from overheating, which is a good thing, though this also means that you can’t just plug any off the shelf hard drive.

• Related Xbox Series X Reading: Xbox Series X Official Specs Revealed
  

Here’s what it looks like:

People can still use external 3.2 hard drives on the Xbox Series X, though they can only be used to run Xbox One and Xbox 360 backward compatible games. You will be able to store Xbox Series X games on the 3.2 hard drives but you won’t be able to run them without transferring the game(s) to the internal NVMe hard drive or the extra proprietary card, which kinda defeats the purpose of storing them (Xbox Series X games) on your regular hard drive, no?

For those curious how much these Xbox Series X expandable storage cards will cost, there’s no word yet, but given the history of proprietary memory, I don’t expect these to be cheap.

You can watch the full Digital Foundry report below.

Is this a deal-breaker for you? Or does it depend on how much the storage cartridges cost? We’re definitely curious how much this will cost and why Microsoft decided to go this route.

Source: USGamer