Microsoft solves the memory problem – at least a little

Microsoft has an understanding: The exclusive agreement with Seagate will apparently end soon. Consequence for Xbox Series X|S owners: cheaper memory expansion cards. An example from the USA now shows how cheap it can be.

Increasingly larger game worlds, 4K graphics and ray tracing are taking their toll: AAA titles such as Call of Duty eat up a lot of memory. Even the Xbox Series X with its 1 TB memory quickly reaches its limits, especially since the user only has around 800 GB available anyway. This can be remedied by expansion cards that expand the memory by up to 2 TB. But they cost a lot of money and are only available from Seagate – at least so far.

Xbox Series X|S: Cheaper memory cards from Western Digital are coming

At the US electronics retailer Best Buy were now Western Digital storage expansion cards discovered. They cost $180 for 1 TB of storage, well undercutting Seagate’s $220 offering. So buyers can Save $40 (Source: Windows Central).

The product page in the online shop has since been removed. However, the data on price, storage capacity and also pictures (see above) were saved by attentive users. Visually, the variant from Western Digital looks good not as fancy as the Seagate card out of. Since the expansion cards are inserted on the back of the Xbox anyway, this shouldn’t bother most people.

It is not known when Microsoft and Western Digital will officially present the new memory expansion cards. However, the listing in Best Buy’s online shop is an indication that it shouldn’t be too long. Console owners had to wait almost three years for non-Seagate memory cards. It remains to be hoped that with the end of exclusivity, more manufacturers will offer their own expansion cards – and so prices continue to fall.

Expand storage on Xbox Series X|S

The memory of the Xbox Series X|S cannot only be expanded with expansion cards. Regular hard drives or SSDs can also be used. The only catch: In addition to the lower speed, games developed for the Xbox Series X|S not boot from a hard drive or SSD. They must first be moved to the console’s internal SSD.

Everything else you need to know about expanding memory on the Xbox Series X|S can be found in our video guide:

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