An unannounced Western Digital expandable storage card for Xbox consoles has leaked – and it’s much more affordable than existing options.
1TB of storage sounds like a lot when you first buy a new PS5 or Xbox Series X |S. The problem is, however, by the time you’ve loaded it up with three or four major AAA titles – coupled with the storage space already taken up by the UI – you’re not left with a whole lot to work with. It’s easy to quickly find yourself deleting and installing games, almost too regularly. Xbox seemingly boasted the ideal solution at the start of the generation, but third-party storage cards have stayed expensive.
Seagate has had the monopoly on 512GB, 1TB and 2TB storage expansion cards compatible with Xbox Series S|X until now. But a seemingly legitimate leaked listing from Best Buy indicates that rival data storage company Western Digital will soon offer a more affordable option for Xbox players. The now-removed listing showcased what’s called the Western Digital C50 1TB expansion card.
Western Digital’s Xbox Series X|S compatible card was priced in the listing at $179.99 before it was taken down, which would make it roughly £144.22 / AU$ 268.60 when going by the latest exchange rates. Of course, this is just a very rudimentary estimate, so the Western Digital C50 1TB expansion card will likely feature a much rounder price point in territories like the UK and Australia when it inevitably does go on sale.
$179.99 would still make the Western Digital C50 1TB expansion card a far cheaper option than what Seagate is, representing a $40 saving compared to its $219.99 MSRP. Despite regularly going on sale, the price of Seagate’s storage card for Xbox is still far higher than what 1TB would cost you on a PC. A date for when Western Digital’s Xbox storage card will release was not included in the listing.
Port of call
Hindsight is 20/20, and Microsoft now knows this more than ever after opting for propriety storage expansion cards and handing Seagate the monopoly on production for so long. It just goes to show that, despite being a bit more of a pain to install, PlayStation’s decision to opt for an M.2 SSD expandable storage slot in the PS5 has paid dividends. Data storage companies have the incentive to keep the price of their M.2 SSDs down since they need to remain competitive.
The hope is that when the Western Digital C50 1TB expansion card does release at its cheaper price point, Seagate will be forced to drive the cost of its 1TB expansion card down. This means Xbox players could soon enjoy the same savings enjoyed by PS5 players. Because while getting inside Sony’s console to upgrade the M.2 SSD feels like dabbling with dark magic, the need for a second data storage company to create an Xbox storage card indicates that PlayStation took the correct approach to memory all along.
PlayStation learned about the drawbacks of proprietary storage long ago, having shot itself in the foot back in 2012 when it opted not to use a standard Micro SD card for its PlayStation Vita console. Sure, this approach might let platform-holders receive a larger cut of the profits on memory in the short term, but it ends up screwing over players just trying to store more games on their (already expensive) console. Thankfully, the tide is turning with Western Digital about to soon enter a cheaper alternative to the currently limited Xbox Series S|X card options.
