Cheaper Storage for Xbox Series X|S Briefly Appears on Best Buy; Now Gone

A Western Digital (WD) 1TB memory expansion priced at $179.99 surfaced momentarily on Best Buy's website. April Fool's timing is just cruel.

The product was priced at $179.99. | Credit: Best Buy

For a brief moment, A WD 1TB memory expansion priced at $179.99 was shown on Best Buy's website; this immediately sparked a plethora of emotions among the gaming community. Its timing is quite cruel, since it was around April Fool's Day, and the product has been removed from the website.

The 'apparent' alternative is $40 cheaper than the official Seagate 1TB Memory Expansion for the Xbox X|S. It has been 2 and a half years since the release of the memory expansion, and the prices have been annoyingly high, ever since. A meagre discount here and there, and the lack of stock, have been deterring gamers from purchasing one of these. On the other hand, 1TB options for the PS5 are below the $100 mark.

To put things into perspective, a 2TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card is priced at $399.99. PlayStation's alternative is a regular SSD NVMe Gen 2; you can find plenty of options on the market, ranging from $200 and going down to $150. Plenty of brands like Samsung, WD, Seagate, and other less known, yet reliable are solid options for gamers. That is a $100 to $150 difference between the products.

Seagate's monopoly has created high demand, that is why the prices rarely go down. Getting a memory expansion for your console is a requirement. Both the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 come with a pathetic '1TB' internal disc; with reserved system storage and other mojos, the Xbox has a remaining 802 GB, whilst the PlayStation 667.2 GB.

Triple A games file sizes can be as small as 60-70GB, and can go as big as 100-120GB. You can only install a handful of games at a time before running out of space. With alternatives like Xbox Game Pass, and PlayStation Plus, it is common for gamers to download a few games and play them simultaneously. You can quickly run out of space, needing and expansion right from the get-go. Also, people store small clips and screenshots; you can quickly get your captures into the gigabyte range.

Competition can lower prices.

If Xbox announces that other brands will officially manufacture its memory expansion, then the prices will naturally go down. The mysterious option, as mentioned above, is $40 cheaper.

If 3rd party options become a reality, people will have the choice of going for the official Seagate, or WD (apparently), or go for other familiar brands like Corsair, ADATA, Kingston, or Sabrent.

Each brand will have its price; perhaps the products will vary minimally, like a few megabytes of read/write speed difference, or form factor. In general, all products should perform more or less equally. There is a standard already set by the console, so any brand will do the job just fine; it is similar to what PlayStation has at the moment. Different options, different brands, different prices.

[Source: The Verge]