The next-generation consoles were highly anticipated years before their 2020 release due to the potential upgrade video games would simultaneously receive. Most discourse about these consoles was rather positive, with faster load times and a higher graphical fidelity being talked about often. Apart from pricing, though, there was one area for concern that most fans shared, and that is the storage capability of next-gen consoles. Thankfully, owners of the Xbox Series S/X might not have to wait longer to get their hands on a new expansion drive.

While modern AAA video games are growing larger, so too is the storage that some of them require. The Xbox Series S has a mere 512GB, while the Xbox Series X has 1TB storage. This can prove problematic when titles such as Microsoft Flight Simulator and Modern Warfare easily exceed 100GB. Currently, for the Xbox Series X and S, there is a 1TB storage drive from Seagate that nicely fits into the storage space on both consoles. This 1TB drive offers almost double the space for the Xbox Series X while also taking advantage of the next-gen hardware’s loading times.

While the 1TB storage drive sounds wonderful for owners of an Xbox Series X|S, it comes with an incredibly hefty price tag of $220 USD ($280 CAD). Of course, there are other storage units that are cheaper, such as an external HDD or SDD, but they won’t benefit from the Xbox’s quick loading times. Thankfully, in a recent leak, it appears Seagate will soon be selling a smaller alternative to the 1TB storage drives. New 512GB expansion drives appear to have leaked from retailers, and according to an anonymous source that spoke to WindowCentral, the storage drives could be sold during the Holiday period.

The leak also confirmed a USB Game Drive for Xbox SSD which users can place their games on in case they want to play them later. This would theoretically offer a faster solution than fully redownloading the games. Players can simply move the games from the USB SSD to the internal SSD.

It isn’t known yet how much this new 512GB expansion drive will cost, but it’s more than likely it’ll be at least half the price of the 1TB drive. This will finally give owners of the Xbox Series X|S another alternative than paying $220 USD for another expansion drive. These solutions are promising for next-gen owners who are still working around new Xbox consoles’ limited storage space.

Admittedly, even at half the price of the 1TB expansion drive, the 512GB expansion drive is a bit pricey. It’ll more than likely satisfy owners of the Xbox Series X, as they already have 1TB of internal space, but for owners of the Xbox Series S who have 512GB of internal space, it might not be enough. The new Xbox consoles are approaching the one-year mark, so hopefully even cheaper storage alternatives will pop up soon.

Source: WindowCentral