Microsoft is increasing its storage options for those who own an Xbox Series X|S. The company announced that they will be adding two additional Storage Cards to purchase, both 512 GB and 2 TB respectively. They join the already released 1 TB card that was released around the game time as the systems themselves and is a huge opportunity for system owners to expand their memory exponentially. Once again, they’ll be made by Seagate, with the 512 GB and 2 TB priced at $139.99 and $399.99 respectively.
As with the 1 TB, both cards are inserted into a special slot on the back of the Xbox Series X|S. Once in, you’re able to utilize them as if they were the original internal SSD. That means you’ll be able to move large AAA titles back and forth with relative ease and good speed to boot. This is especially useful since the internal SSD for the Xbox Serie X only comes with 1 TB storage, some of which is used up right away for the operating system. That goes double for the Xbox Series S, as that only comes with 512 GB, a substantially smaller load by today’s standards.
As we previously states, these cards will be proprietarily manufactured by Seagate. This in turn has caused a bit of backlash as it forces owners to use only the 1st party storage cards as opposed to using a cheaper alternative. Sony uses this approach to some extent, allowing PlayStation 5 owners to manually install an additional internal SSD, albeit with some restrictions. Microsoft has previously said that they would be open to letting other parties create storage cards or internal SSDs, but for the time being it looks like they’ll be sticking with Seagate. Either way, it’s a substantial upgrade for those who don’t want to continuously download their titles to play them.
The Seagate Storage Cards will launch later this year, with the 512 GB releasing in November and the 2 TB coming sometime in December.