March 23rd 2010 5:32 pm PT

Xbox 360 250 GB Hard Drive now available

 

 

It’s official: Starting today, you can now get more storage for your Xbox 360. A stand alone 250 GB HDD is now available for purchase at your favorite retailers.  Here is the official press release and the page on Xbox.com

 

 

Xbox 360 By Larry Hryb, Xbox LIVE's Major Nelson

  • peejam

    @ Bucko Dessie

    and bought in bulk, its even cheaper :P

  • ROBBMAC

    @Captiosus77

    “I kind of feel bad (but only a little bit) for anyone who went out and bought a limited edition bundle after hearing the rhetoric from MSFT during the release of the MW2 bundle discussing how the 250GB drive was ONLY going to be available in those bundles.”

    Don’t feel bad for me… I sold my old elite for $280 on ebay, sold the pack in MW2 game for $70. Purchased the MW2 250GB bundle for $399. Came out of pocket $49 with a new game, larger HDD and an extra wireless controller to show for it.

    Everyone knew the 250HDD would be available sooner or later, anyone with a brain could see the bundle as being the cheaper way to scoop one if you sold your current elite. Unfortunately now you may have a hard time fetching that premium for a used 120 Elite. I acted fast.

  • seldinhio

    I feel like I’m to deep in to the whole Xbox thing now. But if I could go back to 2008 I would definitely buy an PS3. I like the Xbox but I feel like the Xbox-guys will do anything just to rip you of, not in the old fashion way but in that sneaky way. They have become EA before Activision, and like Activision now. And all you out there vote No with you wallet.

  • IceStorm III

    Well, I’m happy. I can upgrade my one Jasper 120GB (RE5 console) to have it match the other two (FFXIII, MW2), and it’ll cost less than the 120GB upgrade did for my Launch and Halo 3 consoles.

  • TJ 4 JC

    Hey Major is the transfer kit a one time use again? I have two 360′s and want to take my 120 gig and put that on the 250 gig, then take my 20 gig and put it on my 120 gig once its been cleared. Please tell me yes.

  • EXL Unit

    @ TJ 2 Jc

    I have done this before. I upgraded to a 120 and copied my 20 onto my 60gb as well. So I used it twice and it seemed to work ok.

  • DavidGX

    Way overpriced… you guys do know this, right?

  • Lloytron

    Amazing! On the same day that Nintendo announce a 3D gaming system that doesn’t even require glasses, MS announce an upgraded hard drive that should have been out at least 3 years ago, at an exorbitant price.

    Good work!

  • xX Spine Xx

    You didn’t think you were gonna roll this out and it was going to be all puppy dogs and rainbows did ya Major? I get that you don’t price them, but your the face of the community. If there is someone else you would like us to complain to I would appreciate some contact info for that person. Until then, you get what you get.

    You knew we weren’t gonna love this.

  • waldo15

    Thanks for the heads up Major. We knew this day was coming anyways since day one of seeing a 250GB HDD in a bundle. Anyhow, as usual since you are the link between the community and the Redmond folks please forward our comments to them regarding the pricing.

    I guess I’ll just wait until you guys enable the Mass USB Storage mode in the 360 via an update. I just came back from Costco and they had a 750GB pocket HDD for only $99. I could literally carry my 360 persona with me wherever I go with that (games, movies, gamesaves, etc.) and I would just need a $199 console to my arrival place. With a move like this I can see now why the Arcade SKU is important…

  • Da Diggster

    I think you can use a transfer kit more than one time. I did. I used it a year and 1/2 ago or so to transfer from a 20GB HDD to a 120GB HDD. I then tranfered my licenses to my new Elite console as well. Then about 2 months ago I purchased a MW2 250GB HDD. I used the kit again to transfer data from my 120Gb to my 250Gb. Since my console stayed the same I did not need to use the licesne transfer tool again. It worked great! It took a few hours hours though so be prepared.

  • tajparis

    I’ve spent a crap-load of money of XBox products. I’m really feeling let down by M$.

    Greater than 100% mark up on a storage device with a limited life cycle? Only 250GB for $120? This is not an ethical way to treat loyal customers who stuck with them through defective hardware and secrecy.

    If you don’t like that people are complaining, don’t read their posts. But you have some temerity to tell people who are being ripped off that they are whining and should shut up and color. It might not piss you off, and good for you, here’s a cookie. Now you can go shut up and color, while those of us who have some self-respect and passion address our concerns.

    Larry, if he cares about the XBox community, can walk down the hall and pass our voice along to the bean-counters, who are surely not gamers.

  • stststststq

    LOL@the whinging again. Before it was released it was “Major, when’s the 250 GB drive going to be available? It sucks that we can’t buy it separately!!!” and now it’s released, the whingers are back in force to complain about the price. I do love this blog. When avatars were announced, people were whinging about it saying they would never pay for avatar clothing, now they whinge that the clothing they want isn’t available or whinge that a free avatar item isn’t something they want. Hahaha. MS really do attract the most miserable of customers. I can’t wait until the update that allows you to use a USB device as a memory unit as announced, just so I can see the inevitable 1 star rating and long string of moaning bastards complaining yet again. LOL!

  • ROBBMAC

    The transfer cable will work multiple times. If you have an older disc with the transfer kit you may need to get a newer disc to transfer data to a 250GB. I ended up ordering a new kit only to get the newer transfer software disc. The one I had from the 120GB (early adopter)would not work on the 250GB.

  • UnarmedGorilla

    What is this drive going to cost Canadians? Right now the 120GB drive is still retailing here for $159!
    68.99GBP = ~105CDN (-15GBP if you sign up for an amazon.co.uk MC :)
    129.99US = ~132CDN
    … so my guess is it will cost $199.99CDN.
    I really do not understand the discrepancies in pricing!
    Oh well, no GoD for me! Will just have to keep managing the <1GB of free space on my 20GB drive.

  • I DLord I

    I’ve never tried lighting a cigar with a $100 bill. Could be worth it.

  • Stonecold247

    Don’t shoot the messenger folks. Like Major said, he doesn’t make the prices..

  • CALMADOR

    Like others have said… simple economics… If we don’t buy the 250GB memory at that price… it’ll go down. But if demand is high…. businesses will price it high…

    You whiners are just going to have to wait a bit…. and besides.. the Xbox 360 elite is selling at 300 bucks… with a 120 GB… and those bundles…. come with 250GB

    I sold my old xbox for 140 bucks… and bought a new Xbox MW2 bundle… for 400… I sold MW2 for 45 bucks and plan on selling one of the controllers for 30-35 bucks new

    400
    - 140
    45
    35
    ———
    180$

    So I bought a brand new Xbox 360 with 250GB hasper, 1 brand new controller, oh yeah and I kept the HDMI of my old Xbox 360… and brand new fresh warranty too all for 180$

    And I could still sell the MW2 console skin too but I kind like it … it makes my console look like a super elite :3

    Now if you do that with a regular elite… that’s actually now bundled with Halo ODST and Forza 3… well you do the math….

  • Salmonbottle

    I don’t think most people here are really directing their rage at you, Major, you just happen to be the easiest way to feel like we’re communicating directly to Microsoft.

    The 120 gig’s minuscule price drop is sad, but hopefully its used value on the internet will also go down because of this and I can finally get a reasonably priced replacement for my 20gig.

    If not, that USB update sounds pretty good…

  • AriesDog

    Hate to jump on the bandwagon but I have to agree with everyone, the hard drives are overpriced by 50%. Since the PS3 price drop the 360 needs to be more value aware.

  • CO Slack3r

    I just ordered mine today. It’ll be weird going from 238MB left to having 10 times that available.

  • DarkGin87

    So Major, when is the 500GB HDD coming out and how much will it cost :P

    that be the next rant around here

  • Casserole

    I just paid £55 for a 500GB SATA II hard drive for my laptop… that’s around $80.

  • I DLord I

    @ Carnage Rules

    People like you, who pay way too much for way too little, is why the discussion of it being overpriced is valid. Are you really saying that if I had $100 to willingly drop on 120g of memory that it would be a justifiable purchase? Puh-LEASE! If you keep making stupid purchases, companies will keep charging stupid prices. Case closed, everyone can go home now.

  • Eire go brach

    What I find weird about this. Is that MS repeatedly lied and said this was not going to happen. That a 250gb standalone was not going to come out. It’s only a hard drive. Why the big hush up over a simple hard drive? Obviously for business reasons they do this. But normally they “don’t comment” on rumours etc.

    If there like this about a simple hard drive. And lying rather than saying “no comment”

    They now can not be trusted. So a Bluray 360 is now very possible. Now more than ever with the ps3 catching up.

  • Quaranj

    I am happy about this! I didn’t want a new console to upgrade the drive. Price isn’t really an issue. These will be available cheap in all the usual places soon enough too, so if it’s that steep for your wallet and you want it, wait for the right moment. I maxxed a 120GB by downloading every trial game from the arcade, having a couple demos of disc titles, a bunch of DLC, and some game videos. I’ve been “selectively deleting” since then. Now if they put a couple of GoD on them for the holidays this year there will be even more interest I am sure. From what I’ve been reading I may need to pick up a 16GB memstick for my 360 soon enough too.

  • CARNAGE RULES

    @I DLord I

    Guess what? It’s their product and they can sell it for WHATEVER they want. You don’t have to buy it. If you think it won’t sell, you’re crazy. If you think they had to lower the price, you’re crazy. Let me ask you a question. Why does a ferrari 458 Italia cost over $100,000 more than a Porsche 911 GT3? Case Closed.

  • Apharmd Battler

    Ok, here’s my question. I had an original XBox360 with 20GB drive, I upgraded to an Elite console after RRoD and copied over all my files to the 120GB HDD via the transfer cable kit. Now if I recall it was said I could only move files once from the 60GB to 120GB HDD. Now with the 250GB available for retail in about a week I need to know just one thing. Will I be able to again transfer the data off my current 120GB HDD (that was originally migrated from my 60GB) onto the new 250GB HDD? Now that we can install games my current 120GB has about 15GB left and I’m seriously considering purchasing a 250GB HDD ONLY if I can transfer all my data again. Can someone from the XBox division PLEASE answer this question. Thanks

  • ForAllTheCows83

    I say let Microsoft shoot themselves in the foot. Less people buying larger HDDs means less people buying DLC and games on demand (which Microsoft get a bigger cut from). I’m still using 20gig and can’t see any reason to change so far. Deleting old demos isn’t such a big deal to me.

    Comparisons to such cars are ridiculous. To make it somewhat comparable you would need to take a simple car (Toyota Corolla), paint it white and green (with a microsoft logo on it) and sell it for twice the price.

  • Shinji257

    @Shiaoran: You can’t fit a 2TB drive in the PS3 as it only takes 2.5″ drives. There were mods made to allow a 3.5″ drive to fit or even connect externally on the original models but as it stands no such mods were made on the slim version so all users are capped at 640GB anyways. As for the 360 well… Only time will tell. The internals are just any standard 2.5″ drive (there are a few different brands being used) and a wiring adapter to convert the sata connection to their proprietary connector.

  • Bawitdaba1337

    Very happy about this too, I was hoping some day Microsoft would sell just an empty shell and let you buy your own hard drive for the tech savy customers.

    Price on this as mentioned before is kind of a rip off. To my knowledge this is the actual OEM drive that comes in the plastic enclosure (which i’m sure Microsoft gets a lot cheaper at bulk prices): http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Scorpio-Notebook-WD2500BEVS/dp/B000SIG5QW

    $129.99 – $56.99 = $73.00

    $73 for a plastic enclosure and a transfer cable and packaging? eh lot of profit ^^

  • HailToTheJedi

    Thanks for the info, Major Nelson. Like many others, I’m a tiny bit discomfited with the price, but nonetheless, I am for certain the casing is the reason for part of it; I’m getting one as soon as it arrives on the local retailers’ shelves.

  • Ark Hunter

    Why did MS even deny that these were going to be sold alone. Everyone knew it, especially after they started pulling the 120GB ones. At least the price is a little more palatable.

    So I hear the next dashboard update is getting 16GB USB flash drive support. (2 drive max)

  • DiatomicMaster

    @Carnage Rules
    Your example is hilariously irrelevant. You don’t see many people driving around in a Ferrari because it’s a luxury vehicle. Yeah, any company can set any price they want for any product, but there are products specifically designed for those in the upper class. This is why we have the word “luxury”, and also why we have Stephen Colbert’s very informative Colbert Platinum. The 250 HDD is not and should not be a luxury item. The Xbox Arcade recently went on sale for the same price at this hard drive. That’s ridiculous.
    Yeah, people know that if they don’t like the price of something, they don’t have to buy it. People understand basic economics as well, and the concept that if something doesn’t sell then the price will drop. Unfortunately, this product will sell. The network adapter for the 360 has been overpriced since the day it came out, but it sells anyway. It sells because there’s no other easy alternative. Likewise, if you want a 250 HDD you can either pay nearly $300 for the console or half that for the hard drive. Consumers are absolutely allowed to have a voice when blatant price-gouging is being exercised. It’s like if they released Halo: Reach for $200. Would that not be okay to scrutinize either?

  • I DLord I

    I said it would sell if anything. It is not a case about HAVING to lower the cost, it is about a fair pricing point compared with competitors in the market.

    http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/blu-ray-maker-re-boxes-500-player-charges-3500/

    ^ this

  • CARNAGE RULES

    @DiatomicMaster

    I could have compared a thousand things. The two vehicles being exotic or luxury wasn’t the point. I guarantee you that MS doesn’t have three monkeys throwing feces at numbers to come up with prices. I’m sure a lot of data is collected and examined to figure how much they SHOULD and CAN charge for a product. Halo: Reach $200.00? Are you forgeting about Halo 3 Legendary Edition?

  • CARNAGE RULES

    I cant believe I was censored for the word (f e c e s)

  • ElektroDragon

    Why didn’t you release it in BLACK!? ;-(

  • AutomaticOcelot

    It’s an incredible value, the press release told me so. Also, Apple makes magical products.

  • ElektroDragon

    And to add insult to injury on the color, I paid HALF THIS PRICE for a drive FOUR TIMES LARGER last week. That means Microsoft is asking 8X over retail market storage rates.

  • yolarrydabomb

    now thats more like it. $130 for 250GB sounds reasonable..you guys they want you to pay for their labor as in formatting it to xbox and metal case and screws. also test any bad sectors before shipping one out.

  • RAPMUSICSUCKS

    i am so MAD right now, I’ve been looking for a NEW 120gb hdd for about 2 weeks now. i couldnt find one anywhere, from amazon to the local k-mart not a single one. so yesterday i went to the M$ store online and settled with the 60gb starter kit and got the transfer kit with it. $132 WTF i must have the worse timing ever…

  • Anonymous

    That’s a lot for 250 GB but its a lot better than the $200 area I was expecting. Butt still, I won’t be purchasing at that price unless I really become desperate. Thanks for the news Major – I know its not like you wanted this price point.

  • Submarinex1

    @CARNAGE RULES

    do you not find it annoying a 1tb external drive is only about £60 yet a 250g xbox drive is say £75 when its the same hardrive inside.

  • Z3

    Major give us a BLACK version.

  • DiatomicMaster

    @Carnage Rules
    *My* point was that your comparison was bunk. Microsoft may not have monkeys crunching their numbers, but they do have some kind of animal with a genetic predisposition to greed.
    And no, I didn’t forget about the Legendary Edition. But here is where your Ferrari reference may work. You see, most people would prefer to purchase a new yet modest car to get around, whereas it’s only the people with the extra cash flow who go for luxury cars like Ferraris. My example of Reach selling for $200 was not specified as any special or limited edition, but rather the basic game. The point in that is people should not be sheep, and when something is overpriced it’s perfectly valid to complain. When someone from the marketing section creates their own blog, I’m sure everyone will migrate there. Until then, Major Nelson’s blog has to face the brunt of the backlash.

  • Kroesis

    Well here I was waiting for the 250GB HDD to be released (it really was inevitable considering the amount of GoD and DLC etc…) thinking that it would drive the price of the 120GB HDD down and they release it for about £70. I’ll probably get the 250GB now instead. Although with real life stuff it may be a few months before I do that.

  • Quezcotl

    Major, they already charge us around 220 dollars for the 120gb HDD at GAME – here in Sweden – WTF?!
    Now, you/ms might say;well thats not majors/our fault its because of taxes and stuff and greedy game stores in Sweden – wrong. It is MS fault, because, when you refuse to let people use their USB or install their laptop HDD as ps3 does, it leaves stores with opportunities to screw the consumer over.

    XBOX isnt the cheapest console, well it is, if you wanna play without a HDD, no online-service etc then it is.

  • Jojo Jojovich

    When can we expect this to be packaged with the Elite instead of the 120GB hard drive?

  • LittleBlueAlien

    lol @ Carnage_rules – it’s bootlickers like you that give Microsoft its self-delusional sense of grandeur.

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