You can now pick up a terabyte worth of storage space for under a hundred bucks. So why is it that Microsoft want to charge you $200 for a quarter of that storage space?
The 250GB HDD for the Xbox 360 has been around in bundles for a few months now, but it has finally gone on sale as a standalone peripheral in Australia. And while it would be extremely useful for hoarding demos, videos, full game installs and avatar outfits, something about the price just seems off.
Sure, getting a HDD into that slidey Xbox form factor would add some cost to the drive, but surely not that much. I can’t imagine these will start flying off shelves too quickly…
[InsiderX]
Stephen Earp
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 1:37 PMHow easy is it to hack a new HDD into that Xbox attachment, with the right formatting and setup etc? because if there is even a hint of an alternative that takes under 5 hours to do, I’m sure this wont sell at all.
Thepengwin
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 1:37 PMTell ‘em they’re dreamin’ :)
Grant Burton
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 1:42 PMMicrosoft make a great games console, but the cost of their peripherals make Apple seem like chicken feed shops. Microsoft are the masters of complete price gouging!
This device should be no more than $59.00 bucks Australian!
matt
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 1:53 PMlol, can’t you get a whole xbox for $300?
Cameron
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 1:55 PMPrice gouging much???? I’m glad we have the ACCC looking out for us consumers here and really stepping it up……….. Not.
Nato
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 2:00 PMJust wait till we find out exactly what 250GB model of HDD they use and it will be hacked so you can just buy one for its actual price.
I’m guessing this is Microsoft’s way at trying to get some money from selling the console at a loss.
It was your choice, stop punishing your customers.
Sam Testa
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 2:08 PMThe xBox uses 2.5inch drives, does it not?
Sure, 3.5inch drives cost under $100 for 1TB, but I think it’s a bit unfair to compare the cost of a 3.5inch hard drive to a 2.5inch hard drive.
A fairer comparison would be that 500GB 2.5inch drives cost around $150, while Microsoft are charging $50 more, for half the storage capacity.
Graham Jupp
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 12:06 AMIts quite easy to find 250gb laptop drives for around the AUD$60 mark now, then you have to add on the price of the case of course. But… for about $20 more you can get a 500gb 2.5 inch. I’d imagine MS are only paying $30-$40 each for the drives themselves.
So yeah, the markup on the MS case is a little too much to swallow.
Pinball
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 1:13 PMI picked up a 750gb 2.5 inch Western Digital external USB hard drive for $129 about two weeks ago from Officeworks.
$200 for 250gb is a massive rip off.
Red T-Rex
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 2:16 PMTo be fair, it is a notebook HDD not a full size HDD so they tend to be a bit more expensive. So rather than being a 400% cost increase per megabyte, it’s actually more like 250 – 300% increase. Plus, as you mentioned, that doesn’t allow for cost of the caddy which might cost as much as $10 wholesale. That put’s it more in perspective.
If I were Microsoft and I wanted to actually make some sales, I would lower the price to around $95 and ofter loads of interesting (mostly free) content to download to help convince people it is worth getting as all the older drives would be filling up. The current content available is pretty lame. For one thing, they need to load it up with movie trailers to help encourage usage of Zune marketplace.
Riley
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 5:59 PMI believe there is no spinning drive making it a SSD dose anyone have confirmation
Danny
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 8:01 PMlol whats the point of buying from microsoft when you can buy straight from their suppliers in china if only there was such things. if u can, the chinese industries with is ‘microsoft slaves’ will become as rich xD
Corey
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 10:27 PMYay at Micro$oft failing.
It was hacked like at least a month ago to upgrade to a 250GB drive
link here: http://www.se7ensins.com/forums/topic/187507-how-to-upgrade-your-hdd-to-250gb-noob-friendly/
Escee
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 11:46 PMThat would be ‘tera’byte.
David B
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 1:44 PMIs there any way that we can submit Microsoft to the ACCC for anti-competitiveness and price gouging? I mean, they don’t give an alternative to paying their massive prices, they restrict it so no one else can compete with accesories for it, and if you do add a third-party hdd, risk being banned from their online service. Surely this must breach competition laws somewhere, and the massive price rise on the product must be price gouging or something. Is t here anyone with knowledge of this stuff that could provide insight?