Larger size and cheaper, but essentially the same, so why is Microsoft blocking these memory units?
Microsoft’s recent decision to “lock out” unofficial Xbox 360 memory units has attracted criticism from third party hardware manufacturers, paticulary Datel according to CVG.
Users were equally critical after it was announced on Major Nelson’s blog that third party memory units, which often sell at a lower cost and larger size than Microsoft’s official units hold. For example, a 2GB Datel unit will set you back around £20, a 512MB official unit will be around £22 and if I needed to pick up a memory unit for my harddriveless 360, I’d almost certainly go for Datel’s offering, possibly even their 4GB version, giving my profile enough space for save games, even if its not great for XBLA games.
Here are some of the official prefs that you can get for the 360
Reasons behind this? Well, it’s not too clear at the moment why MS has taken the decision to lock out the “unauthorised” units. Nelson gives the advice of making sure that if you use them as a backup you move all recent data onto your official card, if you have one, as it won’t recognise anything on your third party card. Whilst there had been rumours of booting some strangeness into the 360 from the larger and unprotected memory units, I’ve never heard of a company taking a measure like this to block it.
A Datel Rep spoke to CVG and told them what they thought of the situation, ignoring the fact it’s a little bit of a sales pitch, they are not happy with MS.
“We are following this issue and awaiting the outcome like everyone else. If the Major Nelson blog is to be taken at face value then we’re disappointed to see that Microsoft are taking these steps to prevent customers from exercising their freedom of choice. Everyone is looking for ways to make their cash go further at the moment and we believe that Max Memory offers a good value, high capacity, alternative to the official Memory Unit.”
Unfortunately, it appears to many of the people who posted on Nelson’s blog that this is MS attempting to stop the selling of units which MS doesn’t make a profit from, nevermind freedom of choice. Now no one will mind me saying that the price of official 360 Hard drives, wireless cards and other official peripherals is silly money, when there are unofficial items on the shelves next to them. I’m not here to slam MS, but present the facts really, and the fact is that you can get the stuff without a little MS sticker on far cheaper. Whilst I personally wouldn’t recommend “Madcatz” stuff, which seems to be made out of sticky back plastic, I’ve had pretty good luck with unofficial stuff over the years.
I take it back, thes Mad Catz MW2 controllers are amazing. I tell you that on the grounds of only seeing that picture
I had a unofficial rumble pack/controller pack for my N64, which had the equivilent of 4 selectable packs (they saved your data on them so it didn’t stay on the cart) and the rumble pack had, and in fact still has, a very responsive and violent kick to it. I had a wireless controller for my PS2, not quite sure who made it, not quite sure what dangerous rays it emitted, but it performed all the functions of a dualshock 2, but without any wires (you could say that should’ve been the Sixaxis and I’d agree). I’ve also got a memory card for my Gamecube which is about 100 times bigger than the standard cards Nintendo provided and despite the fact I have to move it about a bit in the console to get it to read, it’s served me well.
What do you readers think of alternatives to official peripherals? A good value product that should remain usable or piece of cheap plastic you are not going to miss.
If we haven't bored you, here is some more:
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- New Xbox 360 Slim revealed, coming soon
- Sky on 360 hasn’t quite gone to plan…
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