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Hands up who's bought a new HDD for their 360. Anyone? Anyone? No, didn't think so. $180 for a 120GB hard drive isn't pricey, it's taking the piss. So just why, exactly, do they cost so much money? MTV's Patrick Klepek contacted tech analysts iSuppli (who you may know from their console breakdowns) to find out.

As you can probably surmise, they found much of the cost is taken up by the needless packaging and design required by Microsoft in order to ensure the drive works only in your 360 console. Some the biggest contributors to its inflated price (ie prices beyond the HDD itself) include:

- The HDD ships not only with pre-installed software (demos and/or XBLA games), but part of the console's OS itself. This = increased costs.

- The HDD must be coloured and shaped to fit inside the specially-designed housing that ensures only your 360 can use the unit. That's more extra expenditure. This is done by a "Value Added Reseller", who also take care of the HDD's retail packaging.

- Microsoft have at this point paid an estimated $100 (iSuppli can only go estimates, though as specialists in this stuff their numbers won't be far off), and then jack the price up by around $80 (a 120GB HDD retails for $180) to make a profit.

Now you know why they're overpriced, feel free to keep on avoiding them.

source

I thought this was an interesting read, and I find it ridiculous that MS thinks it necessary to make upwards of $80 profit on the 120gb HDD. Also if anyone is wondering why this isn't in the Xbox area...I figured that this is just Xbox tech, and I posted it here for info and not to slam the Xbox 360.

wait...you can't just go by a hard drive and plug it into your 360? wtf???

Well Microsoft is a corporation. And like any other corporation they're all about profits so it isn't too hard to see why they want to make profits on the HDD. Another reason might be so that people can't get homemade viruses up on Xbox Live to screw around with the servers or hack their games so that they get extra stuff (unlimited ammo, invulnerability etc.)

HDD's are expensive, but honestly no one goes out and buys them anyway. If I want to get a 120 HDD I will just get an Elite.

And Microsoft is already making enough money, from XBLA and everything, if they want to make money off of HDD they can do that too.

Posting it in tech and gadgets = Pointless.

HDD's are not expensive, and many people go out and buy them on their own.  The Seagate Momentus 160gb Notebook Hard Drive is $79.99 and comes with a 5 year warranty on both parts and labor

I posted it here, because I was afraid some less informed people would consider this article a  bash against the Xbox 360, and take issue with it, and in fact all I'm doing is talking about the tech and posting why the consumer is being charged so much for that tech. So basically the entire article is a question about Microsoft, and not their game system.

I meant 360 HDD's...

But all you do is post news that bash's Xbox 360 what makes this time different? ;p

jeez cloud, calm down, you're opinion about this kind of thing will matter when you start saying good things about Sony


Very interesting article.

I was wondering where all the money for these things were going since for the price of a 120GB Xbox HDD over here, I could buy 2 TB of SATA drive.

yeah I had always figured thats the reason why its so expensive, because of the fact that its all 'customized' up for the 360.

I am calm but I never really post anything bad about Sony. So meehhh.

Oh now ladies, let's settle down. The way you perceive the article is all based on if you look at it maturely or not. If you want to find something bad, then you probably will. If you want to question why MS is doing this, then you can find that also.

If you wish to complain further about this or make accusations against someone you can do it in private, which is just what we'd ask anyone else to do.

i never understood pricing on HDD and other tech for that matter, some companies price at a loss, some price to make a profit

I'm guessing with the next incarnation of a Microsoft game system we'll see a HDD that can easily be removed and replaced by the gamer. I think everyone was shocked that Sony let's people do it on the PS3 without voiding a warranty, so let's hope the other hardware makers go along that same path in the future.

I can see a Blu-Ray 360 with a HDD that let's the gamer replace it cheaply.

I'm not sure how your hyperlink tells us anything that we didn't already know from the above source Cloud.

Also did you happen to read the responses from the people below the article?

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Sorry if this post looks odd, but I was responding to a hyperlink Cloud had put up, but then he deleted it.

I'd still buy a 120 GB HDD considering its usefulness about now. Ive bought a ton of Family Shows... Im running out of space.

well thinking about it more, it makes sense that the harddrive is so expensive based on the history of console gaming's memory equipment. I mean when I first got my PS2, the 8MB memory card was like 30 bucks. I mean thats 10x more of a ripoff than the 360s harddrive right now, but then again if consoles quit with all the 'customization' of their accesorries, then they'll pretty much just be turning into PC's if you get what I mean. but then again it still doesnt really justify these things to be so expensive

True. Maybe it's just the cost of technology? Console specific stuff is always going to cost more than stuff that works on multiple platforms. Like how they have those SD cards with the word 'Wii' on them and they're like twice the price and have the same function.

What about this?

And this?

And this? Need I go on?

It's just a shame that to get something like this to work with a Core/Arcade system it's a lot more complicated since things need to be done internally. But for anyone with a Premium this would save you lots of cash.

Nope they have a propriety boot sector for 'security' reasons.
you can buy only certain HDD's for them and then you'll have to ghost the boot sector of an official drive anyway, to even get it to work. a lot of effort to save $80 if you ask me.

nope, not the cost of technology, but GREEDY companies attempting to make a killing out of the less well informed. build it and they will buyinto it.

so why are 360 hdd's so expencive
answer:
because M$ are sooo Greedy.

This doesn't work, he'll (gft77) eventually set you to ignore for questioning his posting habits.

hmmm, Kindrik m8, the Elite already has the 120Gb HDD, and at only £50 more, you'd be better off getting one of them