The future is in the (memory) cards. Months ago, we saw a leak of the back of the Xbox Series X console. Most of the ports were normal, run of the mill ports but there was a slender port that many was a diagnostic port. Today in a blitz of new information, we find out that this is actually a port to a specialized memory expansion card.
Now many may be wondering why Microsoft has decided to go with a proprietary storage solution that will most likely be more expensive than your regular ubs 3.0 or usb-c drives? This proprietary Seagate drive will allow the next generation of games run just as fast as the internal drive. The memory in these new consoles are being custom tailored for the new games and top tier performance. Enter ‘Xbox Velocity Architecture‘.
Xbox Velocity Architecture is the tight integration between software and hardware. The benefit of owning a console has always been ease of use and efficiency. The Engineers over at Microsoft have packed in so much technology into this console and its memory. Once the card is plugged into the system, developers now have access to more memory that could benefit the performance of the games. The console sees this as another internal drive, so the speed and capabilities are the same. For a more of how that works, check out the Eurogamer blowout HERE.
To take full advantage of the new quick resume features and other fast loading technologies games must be installed on the internal or Seagate drive. Right now, it looks like next-gen games will not run off of older 3.0 drives but they can be stored there and moved when they are ready to be played. All backward compatible games will run fine off of normal external hard drives and SSDs. Many gamers will still be playing previous generation games thanks to Microsoft and their backward compatibility and smart delivery efforts. This should save a large amount of internal storage for newer games. This decision may anger some but this may be the future as games become more resource and memory intensive. Make no mistake, you may see similar things coming from the Sony camp.
Load times and fast memory will be what really differentiates this generation from the next. 4k/60 is pretty much the standard when it comes to the new consoles. The time it takes for a player to get to a game is going to be what sets the competition apart from each other. It may not make total sense to everyone yet but this is a true innovation in gaming. and Xbox done something really cool with this. I can’t wait to see more.
