Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S have a dramatically different method for storage expansion compared to Sony's PlayStation 5. To expand the storage on an Xbox Series X or S, you need to purchase an expensive SSD. It's simple but pricey. In contrast, you can purchase more affordable drives for the PS5, but they aren't guaranteed to work and are much harder to install than the Seagate Xbox Storage Expansion Card. These differing methods have caused a heated debate among gamers.
Our editor Richard Devine shared his thoughts claiming Microsoft made the right move when it comes to storage. Over the weekend, we ran a poll to get your thoughts on the storage wars.
Of those that voted, just under 60% of people prefer Microsoft's solution for the Xbox Series X and S. Almost 22% said that both storage options have their own benefits. Only 12.15% of voters prefer the storage solution of the PlayStation 5. Around 6.5% of our readers said that both options are bad.
Reader ladydias says that Sony deserves any confusion with its consoles:
Sony is asking regular people to open up their console, figure out the right storage (since they couldn't be bothered to provide a specific list of card names) and talking about heat sinks like most people even understand what that is. They deserve every bit of the customer support nightmare that is about to ensue.
A comment from system22 discusses the value of how simple Microsoft's solution is:
Series x hands down. It's so simple it takes like literally 3 seconds. And you can have multiple cards and they are hot swappable. The performance is indistinguishable from the internal drive. Ppl say the cost is expensive, but those ppl obviously haven't purchased 1tb nvme drives. At the card's now usual going rate of $188, they are priced competitively imo. I feel like ms got way more right than Sony this gen so far.
On the other side of the argument, Goncalo Duarte 1 says:
The PS5 solution is obviously better, there's already SSDs that even come with a heatsink that are cheaper then the expansion pack for the Xbox Series, despite being 3x faster and way more versatile.
It seems like the debate will continue, though our readers certainly lean one way. We'll keep the poll open for a while to see if it trends a different way throughout the week.
As a quick note, you can actually use a normal USB storage device to expand the storage of the Xbox Series X and S. These types of drives are limited. They can be used to play backward-compatible games and Xbox One games that have not been upgraded, but to play Xbox Series X and S games and upgraded Xbox One games, you have to use the Seagate Xbox Storage Expansion Card. We break this down fully in our guide on how to expand Xbox Series X & Series S storage with an external drive.
