Kotaku
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 split the remaining $80 profit with retailers and distributors (a 120GB HDD retails for $180).
Now you know why they're overpriced, feel free to keep on avoiding them.
Hardware Analyst Breaks Down Cost Of Xbox 360's 120GB Hard Drive [MTV]
Comments
ms pays $100 for them?
oooooooooooooooooooooooooook
Here's an idea microsoft: Make the casing hollow and LET US PUT OUR OWN FUCKING HDDs IN THEM!
Good idea, no? Oh and if we want to install an OS into the HDD, give us a disc with the hollow shell.
More red eyes?
I would've thought msoft had given up trying to make money on the xbox by now.
Then they should be making $20 dollars profit. Drop the price on that shit for gods sakes!
I'd rather sell my Premium and go Elite at this point. :P
@Indy_aka_Rex: Hackers would love that.... so would I :P
So backwards - but the console is pretty old now - the next xbox will have a normal sata ii HDD fer sure.
Came with my system, but at $180 I'll avoid it like the black plague. Make it $100 and it'll be considerable, but at $80 and below, now you got a deal.
That's such bullshit. It's a totally unnecessary peripheral. They could've done like Sony did with the PS3 and just make any 2.5" drive work. They could still have shipped units without a hard drive (even though all SKUs should have). I understand they were trying to have an offering at a lower price point, but it means the games and consumers suffer. I can't imagine needing a hard drive enough to pay $180 for it.
I got my 20gig used at gamestop for 60 bucks, still expensive, but much cheaper than the price tag for a new one.
I just did a search and it seems they don't have any of the 120gigs refurbed, lame.
This is not new news to me. Of course I had to real proof to back it up until now, but I always assumed the reason was because of the casing. This is my opinion where they went wrong with the hdds (not including the option of not having one). If they let you use any hdd then people wouldn't mind as much, but the real kicker, most people aren't computer savvy so they would actually buy one that ms puts out on the shelves which would cost more because of the xbox title on the packaging. MS would have made the same amount of money because those who know enough about computers know that 180 for a 120 gig hdd is way too much to even be worth adding extra memory on your xbox
BS. Such value added services probably cost less that a few dollars over the cost of the hard drive itself. It and the likes of controllers and other add ons which cost next to nothing to make are nothing but profit subsidize to hold up the loss made on the hardware.
On this front I score Sony over MS for allowing me to future proof their console and upgrade the HDD however and whenever I choose.
$80? Ouch.
go sony for being smart and just using normal hard drive.
@Fadakar: i agree with you on that one!
Hmmm...unless they have a very bad supplier who does not cut them a bulk discount, I don't buy that it costs them that much per drive.
The fact that you can get drives around that physical size and storage capacity for cheap online or in physical retail stores debunks it. $100-120 is the money mark for MS if they want to sell larger drives to consumers.
So has anybody used a Sata to hack the PS3, which would vindicate what MS is doing? Or is this all just fear mongering on their part?
I can get a 200GB hard drive for my PS3, for less than a $100!!
At least I've never heard of a HDD breaking down for unknown reasons.
@Jutah_F8: lol imagine how much a 200hdd xbox edition would cost! :P
@SpadeAce: Even @ 100-120$ its over priced. HDDs are so cheap now. Just looking on newegg and on the first page of hard drives alone i saw a 320GB Sata drive for 70$.
I purchased a 320G for my ps3 for $150
Definitely doesn't justify the crap-head price.
They need to produce a cheaper version for these to sell and for the whole 'xbox originals' thing to sell...
And while they're at it, they should put some effort into the lazy xbox originals releases.
Definitely doesn't justif
@Fareo: There's also issues of people hacking in CoD4 with the use of external hard drives.
Not saying either way is wrong, but there are consequences both ways.
Well, this sucks, but honestly, it's way too late to change anything related to the hard-drive on the 360. Maybe they will go back to a normal HD on the 720. One can only hope.
What good is tons of space on the ps3 when you dont have games to play on it?
@ecto311: Hoho! I see what you did there! Very clever!
@Callidux:
The internal HDD is swappable. I have a core 20GB but replaced it with a 160GB one a little over a year ago.
Don't forget the middleman fees.
Retailers make very little on consoles, but a bundle on accessories.
So I'd expect the HDD to have a hefty markup attached to it like all other accessories.
If the casing's the issue, it'd make sense why there's such a huge price difference between the 20GB HDD ($100) and the 120GB HDD ($180), despite the difference in size.
The cheapest 40GB 2.5" drive (no 20GBs there...) on Newegg is $46, and the cheapest 120GB 2.5" drive is $63.
Mine just came with my Elite after I traded in my old repaired launch 360.
If you think about the price of the HDD, it's a great value. Shame that the HDD is actually way overpriced.
so... the ps3 can run linux and any hard drive... the 360 uses only their own OS and HDDs... except, people regularly pirate 360 games and, as far as i've ever heard, ps3 does not. thats just a bad excuse.
Biggest load of bullshit ever. Are people really swallowing this?
@Indy_aka_Rex: totally. Not only that, I'm sure they could sell it for at least $50. For the 'HDD enclosure with 360 OS install' or something. This will ONLY market to people who know what to do. They would still have their mass market (read:parents) $180 HDD.
This at least SEMI-pleases the entire demographic. I mean, the 360 coming with totally swappable HDD would be best, but I don't see that happening.
Would it be possible (next gen) to have like a built in HDD or something for OS, and on new swapped in HDD from user, auto-install proper OS and everythin?
Or alternatively, MS could have been not stupid. And gone with non-proprietary HDD's.
@ecto311:
What?? The PS3 has no games to play?
OMG I had no idea, thanks for educating us about it! I'm going to put my money on your advice!
Like I said before; I can care less how much money a company wastes to make a product...if it's overpriced, they better be prepared to take a loss.
In other words, it's proprietary so they can charge whatever they want. The part which costs Microsoft the most is making it customized so only the Xbox 360 can use it. So, really, they've jacked up the price to make the product more inconvenient for the consumer. This is one the things I absolutely hate about almost anything which is proprietary. It always hurts the consumer.
I think most people in this thread are discounting the insane amounts of money MS has lost on their gaming division even with their moving around projected costs.
@ecto311: I hope you get Witzy's hammer for living in 2006 still. Fucktard.
Will there be no end to the exploitation of the video game devotees?
I agree, it is totally overpriced. I bought a Core unit (shaddap ^_^) back in April of 06 (still running yup), then after they (Gamecrazy) got them in stock a couple of weeks later I did a trade/buy deal on a 20GB ($50 or so in trade, the rest cash) version. Was pretty startled when I put it in and found that about 7GB was taken up already, plus demos and movies (which, for the most part, was watched then deleted). If MS wants to sell more of these things, they clearly have to find a way to bring the price down. After 2 and a half years surely the materials don't cost as much.
So it's to bleed the consumer dry of money? I could of told you that.
So...they can't bargain to cut the price? I call BS.
well, if you can sell your old HDD for $80 (which is very possible), and can get one for $150, I'd say go for it.
This is one time buying used, is definately not a moral dilema. see.g.a.f.
Oh look my ps3 has 750 of space and it only cost me 120 dollars on sale... look at my overpriced 360 HDD... *CRY*
Once again people assume that retailer's are more than happy to sell product for free.
If this product truely costs MS 100 dollar to make, and retail probably pays 115-125 at wholesale costs, with the rest of the mark-up going to the retailer and not MS. Thus leaving MS with around 15 to 25 dollars in profit.
Why people still go on about the retail industry basically selling everything for free and all profit just going to MS, is beyond me.
why has MS screwed its users once again? I have a 10GB HDD that I slapped right into my PS3 and loaded Linux on it too...this is one thing MS could learn from Sony...now onto the MILLION things that Sony can learn from MS this round...
Really? MS pays $100 for a 20 gig (about?)? BS since I can get a 20 gig laptop drive for next to nothing now.
@Seiven: 10 GB? That's lower than the one it shipped with.
@=O: Maybe because it's a lot cheaper and easier to burn standard DVDs than Blu-Ray discs...
has little to do with the HDD.
@DARTH_TIGRIS: So has anybody used a Sata to hack the PS3, which would vindicate what MS is doing?
People have used external HDDs and Linux on the PS3 to make "backups" of their games. The limiting factor atm is the cost of Blu-ray burners and media.
@ecto311: What good is tons of space on the ps3 when you dont have games to play on it?
Welcome to 2006!
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
@syl1985: o backwards - but the console is pretty old now - the next xbox will have a normal sata ii HDD fer sure.
How do you figure that? If they keep going with their current trends, the 720 won't have discs at all and you'll need to download all your games just before playing them.
The only reason removing the HDD from the XBox isn't Microsoft's biggest mistake with the 360, is rushing to market with a crappy (and poorly tested) design trumps it.
@Knight-Zero: Yo u don't have a 360 dumbass.
@AverageJoes:
So Microsoft losing buckets of money makes it right for them to charge customers buckets of money? Sorry, but your comment is pointless. If Microsoft is losing tons of money on their gaming division then they need to a) get out, b) make better decisions, or c) keep through their tons of money from other divisions at it.
Since they refuse to do A or B and are currently doing C, they don't have a right (and actually never would in any circumstance) to charge so much for the harddrive.
I recall someone from Microsoft stating that part of the extra cost is that the drives are media grade and contain extra electronics to allow hot swapping...
@sugardeath:
keep throwing*
What I love is how people complain about being locked into proprietary hardware and cry about how they can buy an HDD for the PC for so cheap. Here's a thought, maybe you should game on the PC too. You can customize any piece of hardware you want. Or you could keep paying Microsoft top dollar for their BlackBox and bitch about it.
@aka Bitter:
I used to hot-swap IDE harddrives all the time back in the day (not recommended, but possible; I only got it to work in Linux, Windows shat on itself). SATA harddrives are hot-swappable by design (it's part of the SATA specifications). Microsoft is full of crap.
@sugardeath: they don't have a right (and actually never would in any circumstance) to charge so much for the harddrive.
They have every right to charge what they like for it. Same as Sony had every right to charge what they liked for the PS3 and Nintendo have every right to charge what they like for the Wii (and even *gasp* make a profit on it). However, you also have every right to not buy their products if you don't think they're good value for money.
That's the way capitalism works.
@cybereality: I game on my 320 GIG PS3 that I only paid taxes for. Bought the HDD myself, paid only taxes for the system. Radio Contests rock. (I'd have bought a system anyway)
@aka Bitter:
My comment died?
Anyway:
I used to hot-swap IDE harddrives (windows pooped on itself, linux handled it fine; still, it's not recommended but is doable). SATA harddrive hot-swappability is defined in the specifications. I highly doubt that MS is using IDE harddrives, based on when the 360 was released. They can shove it.
@Doshu: Let me rephrase that: They don't have a right to charge what they do because of losses (as another poster sort of insinuated). This was the point that I was trying to make.
I agree that, as a company, Microsoft has the right to charge whatever they want.