Microsoft: “120GB drive price is justified”
Most gamers, including us at Xboxic, were shocked to hear that the new upcoming 120GB hard drive for Xbox 360 was going to cost a whopping $179.99 MSRP. Microsoft group product manager Aaron Greenberg spoke on the subject this week, defending the rather high price point.
Next Generation picked up on a podcast where Aaron said:
We know it is expensive and we have definitely heard that feedback but it is a little apples and oranges to compare it to internal PC hard drives because those are off the shelf drives that you have to install yourself. You have to format those and figure out how you are going to move your content over. There is a lot of work there for your average consumer it is not a plug in and play experience for them.
Sorry, Aaron, you are not picking up the right feedback. We know that regular fullsize 3.5″ PC hard drives are not comparable to the 360 drives, even though you can just upgrade the PS3 yourself at home with off-the-shelf drives. We know that the Xbox 360 uses high-performance 2.5″ laptop drives. Aaron continues:
If you compare what we are offering with a real plug-and-play drive the closest thing would be to take a 120 gig self-powered external PC drive and in that case we are seeing those retail at anywhere from $160 to $200 for comparable laptop sized external hard drives.
1UP did some digging, and found a Western Digital USB-powered external 2.5″ 120GB 5400RPM drive at Newegg for only $94.99. And they do ship to One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington.
Here at Xboxic we did our own digging as well. Knowing that the Xbox 360 Premium uses Samsung Spinpoint HM020GI drives, and that the devkits (pictured above) also use Samsung Spinpoints, chances are stellar that the 120GB will also be a Samsung Spinpoint. Contacting an OEM on wholesale pricing for these high performance 120GB laptop drives, we were told that buying 100 or more of these costs you about 50 to 55 per piece. If your name is Microsoft, and you’re in the market for a million drives, prices will be notably lower. Adding in a highly optimistic $25 for some plastic and packaging, that brings manufacturing at $80 at best. Come on Aaron, we know Microsoft is in it for the money this generation, and we understand why profit ratios are near to 100% on accessories frequently, but isn’t this a little bit much?
We do hear consumers but we pay a premium for these drives. That’s just the nature of it. If you started with the core $299 SKU, everything we have done is based on adding storage. If you had the $100 hard drive that gets you to $399. If you added the $179 hard drive to the $299 SKU that gets you to $479 which is the Elite SKU so there is consistency in the way we think about this.
Sure, there is consistency, but how about you consider that the 120GB HD and the Elite SKU both being just a tiny bit overpriced for what they offer?
Thanks nofear360 for some pointers.
We’re getting ripped off!
definately i paid 89.99 for a seagate 160GB external pc HDD over a year ago, so they need to get some new stats for price comparisons
if they keep moving in this diretcion i think i will just buy a ps3. no hard drive space to worry about and a blue ray player. for $500
I’ll buy a ps3 in a few years anyway, so they don’t have to keep moving in this direction for me!
You know that with the $500 PS3 you only get a 20gig hard drive.
I could put a 250Gb HDD out of my PC into it for nothing though…
They know they are over charging, but frankly they dont care.
It’s ms’ mantra to over charge… from ms point crap on marketplace to accessories etc.
It not like the competition isnt overcharging either, so what motivation do they have to be fair on prices?
Then they wonder why people hack their crap to be able to use their own drives and stuff.
Now you cannot compare how much Microsoft charges for down loadable content to a hard drive at a 100% premium.
Oh, actually you can… because ms is making publishers pay a “premium” for the ability to release content, and not letting anyone release games on arcade for free either.
yeah you can, publishers want to release content for free but m$ says that they cant(usually). So m$ sets the charges on most of the dl content and overprices. their excuse “new content must have an equal price to other content already on the marketplace” and b/c EA is a bunch of money-grubbing whores, they charge you money for unlockables. therefore we get charged $6 for something worth $o.99
I’d like to add, that they are probably still scratching their heads at all the report about polls on the net showing a very lame reception to the elite and hard drive (and its obviously because of the pricing).
“If you added the $179 hard drive to the $299 SKU that gets you to $479 which is the Elite SKU so there is consistency in the way we think about this.”
Indeed, but with the Elite you don’t only get a HDD upgrade but also a HDMI port (and cable?) which is worth a couple of bucks.
Anyways we all know the Elite is overprice, so is the HDD.
Screw M$, i’m not getting any of these two products, ..not at this price point…
Not getting them either but not getting worked up about it.
Not buying these for the same reason I am currently not buying a PS3, too expensive and I don’t actually need it for any reason I can think of.
HDMI = overated, component works fine
Bigger HDD = What for still got room on the 20gb.
i agree, but when iptv releases in fall? your gonna need the bigger hdd for the shows and such. but im not getting iptv anyways
Nah not getting it either. Getting Sky HD tomorrow so no need really.
lol
This isn’t even an issue for most of us as the video marketplace is the only thing that could REALLY fill up the current HDD and I don’t get it in Canada and most of this sites viewers are euros and they don’t get access to it either.
/end rambling sentence
amen
As a matter of fact 60% of this site’s visitors are North American
We know a good site when we see it
Whats the betting they charge £179.99 and not the exchange rate of £90 like it should be here in the UK.
Bill gates bank balance must be dwindling.
So, let me summarize all this consistency they are talking about. I buy a launch system at $300. I pay an extra $50 for component cables then an xtra $100 for 20gigs worth of space. $450 so far. About 6 months later I’m looking at 3 red lights - $130 makes it $580. Sure, MS was nice enough to refund my $$$ after about 6 rather irate calls to Abu-Jihad over in India, but I still needed to put up $130 for 6 months.
CONSISTENT??? I’m scared to bring my xbox online after hearing about that update that bricks systems. They should be selling these new harddrives at $100 max - anything more is an insult to their userbase - and yes you can afford it you moneyhungry capitalists
I am less appalled with the price as I am with Microsoft’s inability to lie effectively. Where did this jackass come from? Aaron Greenberg is an idiot. Surely Sony has a 2 week camp or something where they train spin doctors the art of bullshatee, maybe they could invite Aaron…
I bet I could install a internal hard drive and partition the drive faster than I could use the hax0r transfer cable they supply to transfer my files.
Apparently MS doesn’t lie to us not because they are honest, but because they are too damn stupid to pull it off. This drive should be 100$ max, I don’t care what color it is.
Well, this was the nail in the coffin for me. I was planning on getting a PS3 anyway but this just upped my time table.
Aaron must think gamers are all morons and fanboys but he along with MS has sadly mistaken. Want to know the real cost of the 120GB hard drive? Look at the difference between a Premium and an Elite. Then ask Mr. Aaron dough-boy how much of a premium they paid that it’s only $79 buck difference for the same 120GB drive plus HDMI.
Its one thing to be a money grubbing company but to scheme and lie is another. Losers.
Man, seriously the whole xbox team including mr. pr himself, larry hyrb, thinks that console gamers are idiots and incapable of anything technical.
that was their whole arguement leading to the elite…”no one can tell the difference, most people dont even know what hd is” etc etc…
Write-enable the USB ports and let us use our own external harddrives. All the data is already encrypted thus ’stealing’ content is not possible; it’s the same as the current harddrive in that it too can be connected to a PC with Datel’s 3rd party peripheral.
Security is not an issue; Microsoft is really overcharging on this accessory. To send someone out to try to justify the price just proves the point.
Elite = overpriced ring of death.
I’ll wait until the HDD gets hacked and you can use any off-the-shelf 120gb HDD.
Agreed, the whole thing is stupid, why can’t I just save content to an external hard-drive? Works with PC DRM’s. I have a little 60gig 2.5 I have music / pictures etc on, should just be able to use that for everything.
the new 360 drive comes pre-partitioned, has file management software installed and comes with a data transfer kit.
its also had hundreds of millions spend on it’s file protection structure to prevent piracy.
people had to write, licence and continue to be compensated for it’s software, and the transfer kit isn’t free.
and that’s why you can’t use a basic, cheap pc drive. this will lead to file manipulation, soft mods, game hacks, arcade title piracy, gamerscore cheats, video piracy and would jeopardize the entire 360 piracy protection plan.
And the original drive didn’t already have all of those protection features? Omg everybody quick hax your 20gb hard drive they don’t have the 100 billion dollar protection software installed!
Dude, nice of you to jump in, but if the protections were all on the drive it would be completely fucked up. Thank god for MS all the filesystem protection is in the dashboard, not on the drive.
Also, with the proper modification you can already replace the drive with your own. You just can’t put a larger one in there than the largest that was released by Microsoft. Why?
I got my PS3 on launch day and i urge any1 who has stupid ammounts of money to follow! yes the line up may be a tad weak till the end of next month but messing about on linux will keep me happy till then. i just got a 160gb seagate for £62 which is…WOW! if Tinysoft or w/e dont what to share in my happyness they can shove it. ill put ma shiney new hdd in ma ps3 and ive instantly created the PS3 Elite have i?
ps. im i REALLY the only one who thinks Halo sucks? looks like they made it in paint!
(tad random soz)
And why was all that required when itunes sells the same content and I can use any external hard drive on my PC to store it? I can buy a music player with DRM for $39?
thing costs almost as much as a Wii
Here’s what I don’t get: I bought the premium a few months back. I understand that product updates happen, and when I bought the 360, I was expecting something similar to this to happen. But I really don’t care about the color, nor do I care about HDMI.
But the HD. Now, does it make sense to anyone else why they would be so restrictive, and make the HD so expensive? The only stuff I’m going to use it for is for storing stuff that I buy from them. If I were MS, I’d be offering a free HD upgrade.
As for external HDs, that would be truly amazing. I would love to get an external HD and attach it to my 360. I just don’t understand what war MS thinks they’re winning by forcing me to pay another $180 in order to buy more content. I don’t intend to buy the HD, because I’m sure that it won’t take long for another hack to come out that will allow me to use any 120GB HD.
And why 120? My music collection on my PC takes up an entire 300 GB. 120 is way too small for this price.
I’m hoping to get a friend who’s getting the Elite and talk him into swapping Hds.
Insightful piece
Laptop HD’s don’t come this big tho, 120GB is more or less the max commonly available at 2.5″.
I bought a 500GB western digital external usb ‘my book’ harddrive and paid $160.
for the record
anyway. I won’t be spending another dime on my 360. I WILL be purchasing a PS3. They don’t seem to be worrying about hacking or “file protection structures”. F#$% MS. Up to their typical BS.
immmm backkk bitch asss punk ass mo fockas all u faggots need to get a fuckin life and stop fuckin the little hole on the back of ur x box controller homo. and chris get a hair cut and get some sun u albino ass bitch and lotus get ova ur self ur bittin ur lip mo focka ill giz onn ur lip vinilla face. Iam borat not supa fly and i like sex to actullal woman not ur blow up bitch. get a strap on and go fuck ur self bitch. im out 1
Hmmmmmmm………Cock.
it is very expensive but not “super-duper expensive”, it’s not an average hdd & not a slow 5400 rpm one like in the ps3 but it’s still not worth that much
So anyone who bought a premium thinking it was the best, just got screwed.