In 2023, storage on Xbox Series X will still cost 2x more than PS5 | Xbox One

It’s been two years since the 9th generation consoles were released. Whether it’s Microsoft’s Xbox Series X|S or Sony’s PlayStation 5, the latest home consoles have never looked better, their games have never been better, but they don’t weigh too much. heavy in terms of storage. A problem that is particularly dear to the Xbox right now.

Storage on the Xbox Series X|S, a delicate question

All Xbox Series X|S owners have found themselves in this situation. You know, this situation where you have to choose which game to delete from your console to accommodate a nice big RPG close to your heart or to install the latest battle royale to date (we’re not targeting any FPS in particular). What to do when more and more games exceed 100 GB on your machine’s internal storage and an internet connection is now essential to install any game?

For several years, the weight of the games has continued to grow, which is regularly observed in some recent titles.

• Microsoft Flight Simulator: 144.9 GB
• Forza Horizon 5: 129.5 GB
• Red Dead Redemption 2: 123.4 GB
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare II: 116.4 GB
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition: 57.7 GB
• Chivalry 2: 22.6 GB
• FIFA 23: 46.1 GB

As you may have already realized, it’s easy to run out of storage on your Xbox without realizing it, especially since Xbox Game Pass exists and it’s easy to access many games and install them. Between the Xbox Series X’s usable 802GB or the Xbox Series S’s usable 364GB, you’ll agree that the list of games to keep fills up quickly.

Of course, not all players have the same consumption of video games, not all have Xbox Game Pass and it is always possible to easily sort to keep only the games that you actually play at the moment. T (provided you have a good connection). However, installing your games so that they can be played easily and quickly for all players remains a basic requirement. And unfortunately on this level Microsoft’s offering falls short.

The increase in storage on the Xbox Series X|S: it’s all white or all black

As you probably know, there aren’t many solutions right now to increase the storage of your Xbox Series X|S:

• Sorting and uninstalling games
• Use an external HDD with a USB 3.0 port
• Use a Seagate storage expansion card

Suffice it to say that after spending a fortune on one of Microsoft’s two consoles, it’s normal to hesitate to spend a hundred euros (or even two or three) on a storage device. The USB 3.0 external HDD solution remains one of the most common, but does not allow you to run games optimized on the Xbox Series X|S. The possibilities are therefore very limited now when all the games that come out are optimized for the new consoles.

In fact, it is possible to use an external disk (and even several) through the USB ports of your console. The latter must be formatted for this specific use and then you can store your games on it and transfer them to the internal SSD. Only Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games can be launched from an external hard drive.

If your Xbox Series X|S’s SSD is full and you want to install and launch a game optimized for this console, there’s only one solution left, the Seagate storage card.

The Seagate card, an expensive device and still no other alternative today

Seagate SSD Card for Xbox Series X and S

In 2020, shortly before the release of the Xbox Series X|S, Seagate introduced its officially licensed Xbox storage expansion card. Despite some slight fluctuations over the past two years, the prices of the three existing versions have remained in the same ranges and here is what they are currently:

• Seagate 512 GB storage expansion card: €179.99
• Seagate 1TB storage expansion card: €234.99
• Seagate 2TB storage expansion card: €489.88

Such prices are explained by the fact that these cards use the same foundations as the Xbox Velocity Architecture and therefore allow you to enjoy the same performance as when a game is installed to the console’s internal storage.

That said, the prices offered are nothing short of impressive. The price of a Seagate 1 TB storage expansion card is about the same (or even higher) than an Xbox Series S alone, the same goes for the price of a 2 TB storage expansion card close to an Xbox Series S. Xbox Series X. Becomes it’s more interesting to buy an additional Xbox Series S and take advantage of its 521 GB for a similar price, or even less than the 1 TB card.

The additional storage costs 2x less than the PS5

All this is more disappointing because Sony, on the other hand, offers more diverse and open solutions to increase the storage of a PlayStation 5. The SSD of the PS5 has 825 GB, but the 667 GB is actually available. If we look at the possibilities offered by a PS5 today, the solutions are more numerous, but also cheaper than the Xbox:

• Sorting and uninstalling games (a timeless classic)
• Use an external SSD or HDD with USB-A or USB-C (without being able to run next-gen games on it)
• Use a FAT or exFAT formatted USB drive to store PS4 save data and captures
• Install an additional SSD through the dedicated expansion port

And yes, if the first solutions may seem classic, the last one is certainly the most interesting of all. Since September 2021, Sony has effectively made it possible to take advantage of the expansion port present on the PS5. Some constraints must still be respected in order to integrate an additional SSD into your PS5.

It must be an M.2 NVMe SSD compatible with PCIe Gen4 or later, with a read speed of at least 5500 MB/s and of course it must respect the PS5 slot dimensions. This technique is approved and explained by Sony on the brand’s website, with some explanations showing how to disassemble your console and add an additional SSD to it.

In terms of cost, buying an M.2 NVMe SSD made by a third-party manufacturer is cheaper. As an example, the Samsung 980 PRO Series SSD now costs €120 for 1 TB and €230 for 2 TB.

Quick calculations, adding storage to the PS5 now costs half the cost on the PS5 compared to the Xbox Series X|S. When the new Xboxes were launched, Microsoft promised that “Offer more choices to players” than Seagate cards, but two years later, gamers are still waiting for the end of this monopoly. Many of you regularly report this point to us on social networks or on our Discord server, counting on us to let you know when new options arrive.

Microsoft Communication in 2020