2 versions of Xbox 2?

[jarrod]

It seems like, from what I gather, that the majority of people who want to play games online have or have access to broadband.

Broadband penetration is only 45.2% in the US as of March 2004. It's lagging expectations by a significant margin, the majority of Americans certainly don't have access.

We like to call this "natural selection."

The rest of the world calls it a niche market.

*Which brings up an interesting point, why hasn't MS released a (preferably smaller) Xbox model with a smaller HD? I mean, 98% of owners have never and will never use enough space to see anything other than "50,000+ blocks available". For all the headaches the cost of including an HD have caused them, you would think that releasing a model that reduces it to a less than grossly excessive size would be a very obvious solution.

A smaller HDD would likely cost Microsoft even more per unit.... in fact part of the problem is that 8GB HDDs have gone up in cost over the years due to manufacturing being phased out favor of larger drives.

If Microsoft cedided to do an Xbox Mini, they'd likely have to go for an IBM microdrive or something similar.

[Wolffen]

If Microsoft cedided to do an Xbox Mini, they'd likely have to go for an IBM microdrive or something similar.

Which are horribly expensive. You beat me to the punch on a reply to Bacon, but here's what I was gonna say:

Once more, I think that the best solution is for the XBN to still have a small hard drive in the actual unit, I mean if it were even only the space of what the current Xbox denotes as "+" (as in "50,000+ blocks"), it would be more than adequate for most users' needs*. Then just have an expansion slot for the bigger HD; the XBN HD comes with it already installed, the XBN Basic doesn't but it's available for purchase if people need it. If a big game that comes out that needs the HD, have it come in two versions, one standalone and one bundled with the HD.

The thing is, smaller hard drives (2~4GB vs 10GB) aren't cheaper. Are you talking about including a 2~4GB drive instead of a 10~20GB drive? You might want to do some digging, cause from what I can find, you'll pay the same price for a 2GB drive (if you can find them) as you would for a 20GB drive. Once you start comparing 20GB to 40GB and up, then you see a price difference. There is no call for hard drives that small these days, so manufacturers would charge MS just as much for a small drive as they do for a 20~40 since it would be a custom product at that point. USB storage is still more expensive then a comparable IDE drive as well. MS could go to a store that sells on thin margins and pick up a MDT 20GB 5400RPM drive for $33. If they went directly to MDT, they might be able to get it for $15 or less. If they went USB Flash, they'd get 256MB (MAYBE 512MB) for the same price direct from the manufacturer.

If you're talking 20GB vs 40GB, then yeah, you'll see a price difference that will affect the consumer, but I don't know what they would use that much space for (yet). The amount of saves, custom soundtracks, DL content, MAME/Genny stuff I have on my XB HD is pretty significant, but I still have plenty of room left on my standard 8GB drive. If MS wants to turn it into a true media center, allowing you to use the XB2 as a DVR amongst other things, I can see the need for a HD bigger than 20GB.