Idea:

Microsoft allow for the use of USB HDDs for saving games. The benefit would be even quicker loading, as well as larger drives. Some of the cons for Microsoft doing this is lost revenue from selling their own. Also, perhaps security, not too sure about this second con. Perhaps you know more about this being a con.

The benefits are obvious for consumers. Also, there is a benefit for Microsoft in more revenue from marketplace sales....mainly video...even allowing for downloadable movies for keeps...like the PS3. My idea behind this is more space, more likelyhood of consumers downloading more which leads to more content being moved via marketplace.

I really want to increase RPMs from either 4,200 or 5,400 (which ever is current drive) to lets say 10,000 and larger capacity to boot. I would like all my games saved to HDD. Plus there is the possibility of SDDs....although once they come down in price and go up in capacity this is more interesting.

Thoughts?

PS: this is just theory. Plus them actually making this a reality is slim. Just was hoping :rolleyes:

I say "theory" for I added an SDD to my PS3 and it benefitted some game installs and slowed others. But SDDs have some room for improvement...

will never happen.

why? money. MS sells their own proprietary memory cards and hard-drives.

Yes, I agree that it is a cash cow; however, marketplace would be a bigger cash cow. Does Microsoft want HDD sales or Marketplace to be a bigger cash cow?

I would hope it is the later...since they have harped on digital distribution to be the cat's mizow.

However, if Xbox 720 is BC, well maybe a faster drive in that system will do what I have hoped for by this post with 360 games. There was a post on N4g about the Xbox 720 not being BC but being Future Compatible and improving current gen games or something like that. I guess faster HDDs would improve games...as we have seen on some of the installed ones to date (faster loads, frame rate issues, ending stutters, etc). Unfortunately, Halo3 did not fair as well, but what about loaded on a RAPTOR...maybe that 10 seconds wouldn't be 10 seconds any longer...maybe it would be negative one second...ohhhhh ahhhh ohhhhh. :p

I was just thinking about this the other day looking at my WD external drive and thinking about the NXE update. I would definatly order at least a 250GB drive (ext or int).

To actually do this right it would take some work. I know cause I tried to add a RAID 0 HDD setup via enclosure to my PS3. It was a pain finding a enclosure that did the trick with Raid on board and to be instantly ready when the PS3 booted, etc. Thus, I tried the SDD route via installing it directly. It worked but not as quick as I thought it should be. So maybe the best bet if Microsoft ever allows for replacable HDDs, to go with the largest/fastest SDD card money can buy. You won't have all the room you need for all games, but the ones you do install it "should" be like greased lighting. Say goodbye to loading, or at least a significant reduction. I am just amazed they were able to add HDD installs via software after the fact. Granted the games are Images but still. Also, it seems to work on 99% of the games. Now just give me the ability to use a better HDD and we are blazing!