According to a podcast recorded live at Pax Prime 2013, by Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, the Xbox One won't initially support external storage when the console launches later this year. All consoles will ship with an internal 500GB hard drive and a USB 3.0 port that will eventually allow gamers to manage game downloads and installs. However, it's unknown when external storage support will be available, as explained by Larry Hryb.
"The Xbox One will ship with a 500GB hard drive, all of them have that. The future plan is for definitely to support external storage much like we do on the Xbox 360. My understanding is that feature will not be there at launch, because the team is working on some other things, but it definitely is on the list. I don't know when it will come in though," Hryb said.
Because of some Xbox One limitations, gamers won't be able to swap the 500GB hard drive for something larger; a predominant feature of the Xbox 360. In comparison, PlayStation 4 will also ship with a 500GB hard drive. However, users do have the option to upgrade their hard drive to something larger i.e. 1TB. On the contrary, the PlayStation won't support game installs on external drives, as confirmed by Sony's Worldwide Studio boss, Suhei Yoshida.
Although this shouldn't be an issue when the consoles first release, it could become a problem later down the line. Given that games must be installed on both next-gen consoles, it appears 500GB may not be enough for those die-hard gamers. Nobody panic! It's thought that both companies are researching the possibility of cloud storage as an alternative to external storage. Will such limitations affect you? Let us know in the comments below.
