By the way - I just now noticed WHEN this was announced here.  Friday night.  Politicians almost ALWAYS deliver bad news on Friday nights/Saturday mornings to avoid the full gauntlet of negative press for the first 2 days.

Then by the time Monday rolls around most of the people that care about the bad news already know about it, but it hasn't been crammed down everyone's throat yet.

So then the regular media will have to treat it as a passing issue, not something that takes major headlines Monday and Tuesday.

It really does work that way, and there's no surprise here when Major announced this.  Nice and slick.

@i tomek i

What are you talking about? Does that mean, mine is not legit. Yeeesh, that's what you get, when you buy an Elite from some guy. Always thought i had a legit HDD, but now i have to buy a new one..

@ Giganticube

Xplorer360 will let you back-up & move those 'immovable' saves.

The 250GB HDD on my friends new Slim PS3 is the only thing that makes me jealous. My 60GB is ok but I keep having to choose between which fave game I delete in order to spare my ears from the buzzsaw that is the dvd drive.

If this update kills modded HDD's (standard laptop drives faked to be 360 drives) then thats the lowest blow from MS thus far. Securing your own bottom and going after a harmless minority line when you should be securing the quality of this lemon of a product is low.. looooooww.

bottom line, minority.. hehe.

@ CaptainKicker

You DO NOT have to buy a new one.

It's most likely a legit HDD.

The ones that do not have partition 2 are the obviously fake ones.

But the fact that you can get & put P2 onto a HDD doesn't mean that your one is fake.

The fake ones do not have P2 as the counterfeiters are in too much of a rush to make as many HDD's as possible; so they don't bother with the extras (ie. backwards compatibility).

Don't worry though, MS are not banning HDD's, just the 'unauthorized' memory unit's ie. Datel's Max Memory Unit.

If MS was to release a cheap upgradable memory unit (like the Max Memory), then it wouldn't be so bad.

But this move is just hurting their customers.

At a time where 16GB microSD flash media is widely available, why would someone pay the same price for 512mb?

This is what you call a dick move.  

I have bought 3rd party accessories in the past for my older consoles and it seemed like those companies NEVER had a problem with it.  Some people here are praising MS like I used to for cracking down on things people want to save money on.  It starts now with just a simple 2GB memory unit and then what.

The only thing I don't own that is not from MS I just remembered is the VGA cable. MS product costs about $40-$50; I got mine for $14.99 because as a parent with a not so good job that is all I could afford and it has been working wonderfully.  When my system busted the first day I bought it due to the video; it wasn't because of the 3rd party product because I didn't have it just yet.  I bought the VGA cable thinking there was something wrong with the MS AV cables and the VGA cables would do a better job.  It was the system itself that was faulty.

Not all 3rd party products are harmful and even their own product are faulty.  Why ban those Memory Cards, I mean really?  I know there are people who will just buy MS overpriced products because they just can, some of us have no choice or do we...I guess not.  I love gaming because its something I have loved doing since I was five (I am 30 now), but MS is making me realize that it just costs too much money to keep on playing. I remember back in the day when games weren't so expensive.

way to piss off your customers.  I get that MS wants to fight piracy & stop people from modding their consoles, but this seems like nothing more than a way to stick it to everyone.  With the ridiculous prices of officially licensed memory units and such, its no wonder that people look for a cheaper alternatives to back up things when the puny 20GB HDD is full and you get tired of deleting & re-downloading  things. Even if the 250GB HDD is released, I imagine it will probably cost as much as the Arcade SKU is or more; & in a effort to appear like MS cares, they will lower the cost of the 120GB one by $10.

Oh ok, thank you guys ;)

Up until reading this I have been buying all multi-platform games to play on my 360...as of now I will be getting them for my PS3 instead.

Wow, Major Nelson, you all the posts; over 360 of them...

Now that's dedicated.

Hopefully something will be done about it.

I haven't seen anything MS has done before get people so angry before; maybe the RRoD thing, but that's completely different.

Thanks Major Nelson,

At least 1 person in the XBOX community is listening to the customers :)

@K1LLER HORNET - Yep, tried to delete my profile so I could Recover it back to the console. Instead of hitting up twice, I accidentally hit up once which was Delete Profile and All Items which went through and deleted all my game saves without even a confirmation prompt. I was many hours into Lost Odyssey... been playing it since January. And now it's gone. I was heart broken. 30 some hours of progress gone in that one game alone. I hope someone at Microsoft read my suggestion on fixing that issue.

<br><br>

Also, I'm willing to give Microsoft a pass on the unauthorized storage device if they would be upfront on the reasoning. Did the Datel take advantage of an exploit in the dashboard that when they were coding the new update went away? Fine! Or are they just being spiteful since Microsoft isn't getting a cut. Just tell us.

<br><br>

And I still stand by my statement that this needs to be better advertised to everyone who has a 360... not just readers of Majornelson.com and internet blogs.  If you still can buy the Datel device from BestBuy, imagine all the people who bought it thinking they were getting a good deal. If the Xbox division knew the update was going to kill my access to my game saves and didn't find a way to tell me, I'd be incredibly upset. Not every gamer reads Joystiq or Majornelson

@Major

I must say... that is impressive.

I attempted to read them... and got through about a page before i skimmed through the rest of the pages.

But I do want to express my appreciation that you do take the time to read the comments {and all your emails}... whilst passing on the good in them... I can just imagine what a daunting and neverending task that is. :)

also, I concur with the need for a larger "authorized" MU. My husband and I are also in a household with 2 systems, which we alternate on regularly for online games. it would be very convenient if we were able to put all our many, many game saves on one card. and save space on the hdd in the process.

@muzzymate

Oh, man... Sorry to hear about your loss.

I deleted my BioShock save on accident a while back... I was almost done. I was so mad... I still haven't gone back and finish it.

Also.. good point on the letting people know. Seems like they should be able to just send out a message to everyone's account... like they do when they notify everyone about a system update.

Glad to know my comment was at least recognized. Thanks, Nelson. Sorry if I came off as shooting the messenger. I wish you the best with regard to this situation.

@ Muzzymate

-

Yep - exactly what i did.

It's a mistake that i will remember every time I go to delete my profile.

@Major

Thanks for at least taking this to the team.  For people like me who are already inconvenienced with having to use a memory card in the first place because of owning multiple 360's.  Now that I spent $40 bucks on a memory card because I bought 2 of Microsoft's consoles, they're trying to screw me.  Please say something will be done about this because I am prepared to drop Live if it isn't.  I am a owner of all 3 current gen consoles and will not mind going to silver here and just get my multiplatform games on PS3.

Yah really not everyone who walks into a Best Buy and buys a Datel MU is going to read this or other gaming websites. Does suck that MS has to do this, but at least it doesn't affect me.

@MajorNelson

While you MAY share the community's disdain for your company's practices on a regular basis it seems that the major issues with accessories NEVER get resolved. There is no arguing that the Wifi adapters, memory units, and hard drives are overpriced.  So who cares if you share the thoughts of the community with some suit in the games division when nothing changes?

I'm glad you have taken the time to say hey, I'm seeing your posts and "X" is being done/mentioned, but after years of the hearing the same complaints about pricing and other various issues it just feels like lip service at this point.

Microsoft has turned Xbox 360 into a joke. $150 for a 120gb hard drive?  $30 for a 512mb memory card?  $100 for a wireless network adapter?  As long as we, the idiot consumers, keep buying their stuff, they'll keep raping us on the prices.

I would like to add my comments on this subject. I don't blame Microsoft for banning unauthorized Xbox 360 Storage Devices, after all they could be used to hack the system itself or game-saves (who knows what these hackers do) BUT I am very annoyed at the pricing of the Official HDD's. My 120GB HDD cost me £120, thats £1 for every GIG! Microsoft should lower the price for ALL Microsoft Storage Devices and once the 250GB HDD is released on it's own it should be priced fairly. Thanks Major & the Xbox Teams, your work is appreciated

Microsoft can claim hardware that they want hardware that is secure and that has a better reliability rate, but then look at all those failed Xbox consoles. Maybe they should have let other people make the console too.

I agree with Sly Jon; bring out competitively priced hardware and then you won't get people up in arms about it. It's shameful how much Microsoft charges for their storage devices.

Microsoft:--------512 MB - $30

www.bestbuy.com/.../olspage.jsp

Sony: ---------512 MB SD card (from SanDisk) - $7 (Google Shopping)

Yeah, they don't even sell their own stuff...use whatever you want!

Nintendo: ----2GB SD card - $15 (Best Buy)

www.bestbuy.com/.../olspage.jsp

Ludicrous!!!

gamepolitics.com/.../xbl-update-cripple-unauthorized-storage-devices

Corporations always ruin everything. They did it to music, radio, movies and now gaming.

Again, I appreciate Major's post but it means nothing if nothing changes.

It's like Bill Gates coming out and saying the next version of Windows is FREE! Then three years later, it cost $200. The update will happen. People will get screwed. That's the end of it. The sad thing is that I had an "authorized" 512MB card until I lost it in an airport (security check area). I really hope they stop such an update but again, I doubt it.

Scoreboard: Monopoly: 1 ; People: 0.

MS is a joke with their pricing of hard drives and memory cards.   I'm done with them after this generation.   What a shame they need to lock out 3rd party accessory makers so MS can continue to have a 500% markup on memory.