Microsoft has announced the release of the new expansion cards for the Xbox Series X/S consoles that have been developed by Seagate. They will be shipping starting next month, just in time for the holidays, and provide extended storage for all of the coming games that will need a place to live. All of this, at a price at least.
The new cards will include 512GB and 2TB options, expanding upon the 1TB model that has been the only one available until now. However, like the 1TB option, don’t expect them to run the same price that you’ve paid for extended (external) storage in the past for earlier consoles. Since the new systems heavily rely on blasting fast NVMe SSD speeds, this means you’ll be dishing out some cash. Starting with $139 for the 512GB model and $399 for the 2TB (the current 1TB model being $219 still).
You are still able to make use of an external USB 3.1 HDD or SSD for older games though. These new NVMe SSD expansion cards are only required for the latest Series X/S games. If you are looking to store games from the previous generation consoles (Xbox One, Xbox 360, or the original Xbox console), then you can depend on normal external 3.1 drives for this. However, if you are looking for the same performance as the internal drive of the Xbox Series X/S consoles, you have to buy into one of the expansion cards. The price you pay for performance!
The 512GB model will be released next month (mid-November) and can be currently pre-ordered here from Walmart (at the moment, pre-orders of this model seem to be exclusive to Walmart), while the 2TB model will be landing sometime in early December with pre-orders beginning in November.
Microsoft continues to rely on Seagate as an exclusive manufacturer for these expansion cards, causing the pricing to be a bit fixed at the moment. However, in the future, the company does plan to expand to other companies, which should allow for greater competition and (hopefully) better prices.
