Hard Drive vs. Memory Card
Written By: Travis Stroud

I have seen a lot of debates on the topic of "Next Gen" systems and one of them that gets me the most, is the argument over which is a better choice. A built-in hard drive, or memory cards that you must pay extra for. You would figure it's no contest, but just to highlight on this, I’ll explain what I think of this matter.

We know that the X-Box is going to come with a built-in 8GB hard drive. And this will be used to save games, music and other extras (if you were unsure of its purpose). There is much debate over this because some feel it is a way of Microsoft forcing the buyer to pay more. I am sorry, but this is a lame accusation. We know that saving gameplay is almost required if we want to get through an entire game, right? Well in other words, you are almost required to get a memory card for the PS2 and GameCube. And seeing as the price for a tiny 8MB memory card for the PS2 is about $30.00, just imagine how much you would end up paying for 8 Gigs worth of memory cards. It would be well over the price of the entire X-Box system, so saying that they added the price onto the X-Box system, is for the most part, false. Sure they increased the price a little for that, but then again, who gives anything good away for free these days.

Then there are those that say, "I don't want to clutter the hard drive", or, "What if I want to take a saved game to a friends house?" which are not uncommon situations. Who said Microsoft didn't think of that? X-Box memory cards will also be available for around $30.00. No need to complain about its price since it's the same as other systems prices (however I feel memory cards are way overpriced for all systems). So you are covered in that situation as well.

Bottom line is this. Microsoft knows what the gamers want and need. A way of saving your game data is basically required these days, and you would have ended up buying a memory device period. Well, with this extra feature of the X-Box, you are not required to buy any additional devices just so you can enjoy a game. I see no reason to even question this added feature. I never questioned the use of a hard drive and disks which computers use to transport and save data, so why would I question this?

Posted: 11-12-01