Xbox 1TB Expansion Card Drops To Below $100 In Excellent New Deal

i still wont buy it. This had to be microsoft's worst feature of the X|S and it makes me sad lol

This was a reasonable idea at the time — it was available at launch, portable/hotswappable, and matched NVMe prices. An access port to add NVMe to Series consoles would have been a good failsafe, even with the added cost.

I bought one in December 2020 for $187 total. The utility over time made it worth it. A few months ago, I bought the 2TB version for about the same price. I retained the original 1TB card for the time being.

@theduckofdeath Why do they do that? They just want to make more money. They used to charge $500 to $700 for an Xbox Series X, and then they still wanted you to pay for an Expansion Card AND Wireless Controller. I might as well get a PS5 for that cost (no disrespect to PlayStation). I always love Xbox but sometimes they really try to milk the money. I totally agree., but I understand that every company has to make sacrifices for the better.

@Steel76 At least they lowered the price though...

Still $20-$30 too much for the size of storage and speed.

@UserTK-421 They charged the SAME as Sony did for their PS5 hardware but Sony had a smaller internal SSD to begin with. Yes you can buy a SSD to expand the Storage but if you 'priced' it at the time, 1TB was more expensive and you probably needed one with a Heatsink on PS5 - if you didn't and it damaged the PS5, you had no warranty protection - but you could get 'cheaper' SSD's on AliExpress that would 'work'.

Both Systems also came with a Wireless Controller too so for the SAME Price as a Series X with 1TB SSD as Standard with a Wireless Controller, you could buy a PS5 with 825GB (less storage) and a Wireless Controller.

Also with the Expansion cards, you don't need to power down to remove or swap cards. That means you can easily swap a card in seconds and be playing the games stored on it - much like swapping a Cartridge on an N64 if the games were bought digitally so you don't need to swap 'discs' either. You could have one card with all the Forza games, another with Halo or FPS games and just swap them like you would a Cartridge.

With Sony, you have to unplug and dismantle aspects and its not as easy or as quick as Xbox. You wouldn't want to be swapping those. Therefore with Xbox, you have unlimited Storage too - so if you wanted 20TB's for ALL your games, you can and at worst, its no different to swapping a Cartridge to play different games.

You can pay more for faster Storage on PS5 for example, but it doesn't make a difference as the system can't use that extra speed. And if you buy 'branded' SSD's with built in Heatsink as 'recommended', chances are it will cost little different to the Expansion card 'per' TB but perhaps lacks some of the versatility and utility of the cards...

Whilst they may each have Advantages/Disadvantages, that also means that neither is a 'clear' winner. I much prefer the Xbox solution - I can buy additional cards as and when I want/need, can expand my storage far more than with Sony and its no hassle to swap them.

@BAMozzy Great evaluation! My family and my family are big Xbox Users. My Uncle had a Early Generation Xbox from 2001, then my parents got an Xbox360, my little cousin now owns 2 Xbox Ones, and I recently bought my own Xbox Series S right before I started college. So It basically runs in my family, LOL! I respect PlayStation and they're consoles are really nice, but Xbox will always be a win for me.

Too little too late for me. I wanted one of these a bit ago, but I now have a PS5 and PC to divvy up my game library. I don’t mind uninstalling a couple games if I need to every now and then. It’s a good deal for those who still need one, though.

@themightyant Not really - I do have a couple of Expansion cards I've bought in Black Friday Sales - not as 'cheap' as £100 per TB - but I do have more than 1 and didn't buy both in the same year. When the 1TB and 'internal' were getting full, I happened to see the 2TB at a 'bargain' price so effectively 'doubled' my capacity instantly.

You can basically make your own 'Compilation' (like Rare Replay) - Maybe have one with RPGs or FPS games, maybe have one with just Ubisoft or EA games - and if you bought digitally, all you need to do is swap the Expansion card, which takes no more time than swapping a disc/Cartridge or those Memory cards (before Games would save on a Hard Drive). And within a minute, you can be playing games that otherwise would require a lot of time moving, redownloading and/or reinstalling before you can play - especially with all the 'Free' games from Game Pass (not just games you bought/own) - You could even have a Card just for Game Pass Games you don't own so they don't take up the space of the games you do own...

Then you can use your 'Xbox' more like the Cartridge Consoles of yesteryear. Simply swap the expansion card and change your library of games. Its also easy to move or take your Library with you - should you have friends/family with Xbox consoles - just plug it into their Xbox and sign in with your account and those games are instantly playable on another console.

I have a 1TB and 2TB card and can easily expand my SSD storage by buying another 1TB card (if I needed) for example. That gives me 'unlimited' potential where as with Sony, its not so easy to swap and feels more 'limited'. Yes you could buy a 1TB and 2TB card, but its a hassle to swap them.

With the size/price of games maybe MS should consider this option for physical media lol

@themightyant At the time, anything bigger than 2TB would have been impossible due to the cost - and that includes PS5 storage. That's the difference I was trying to make - with Xbox, I can expand my storage as and when I want/need - don't need to save up or try and estimate in advance how much Storage I'll want/need. I can spread that out over years too - not buy 6TB's worth all at once but buy that over its 'lifetime' as my Game Collection grows. 4TB's were over £100 per TB so prohibitive to buy all at once but buying 1 or 2 TB's that can easily be swapped over - in a very Similar way to Gamers swapping Cartridges (inc those Memory Cartridges for game saves). Its as easy as swapping a disc - so you could 'swap' an Expansion Card with 10-12 games on it for another Card with different games instead of swapping 'discs/Cartridges' every game - its no 'different' in reality - at least in this Digital era where Games must run from Internal SSD storage. I think Xbox also caters more to the Masses with its Simplicity and its 'design' which includes 'Cooling' built into it - but Sony, you have to dismantle and may need to add a Heatsink too

Again not saying one is specifically or even significantly 'better' as they both effectively do the same thing - but I think the Xbox solution is a great design that if anything, the lack of Competition to Seagate was the only real 'negative' and artificially kept the cost at a Premium.

When Sony's PS5 first allowed NVME drives, they weren't available at launch, the first were slightly more per TB than the Xbox equivalent - keeping to a 'branded' (Seagate for example) card - not an AliExpress imitation so it certainly wasn't a Financially viable option to buy a big (4TB+ card) and its much easier to pick up an extra 1 or 2TB Xbox card every year or two in a Black Friday sale - grow your storage with your growing Game Collection.

No-one really needs 'extra' storage as the vast majority only play a Handful of games they can keep on their internal. If you really want, you can also buy a 8TB HDD for 'storage' that will run last gen games and keepo the 'internal' just for the current Gen games you are currently playing, So there are gamers who won't buy SSD's anyway but I still think the Xbox design is more flexible...