A new deal, announced between Microsoft and M-Systems, seems to corroborate initial stories that claim the next XBox will have no hard drive. M-Systems is a company known for its tiny, key-ring size, USB flash drives and according to the deal it will manufacture a completely new product for XBox 2.
Microsoft has already made clear its wish to produce some sort of memory card for its next console and a variety of sources have claimed that if MS does so it will be in order to drop the hard drive. M-Systems themselves claim that what they are making for XBox 2 is a new product with far greater capacity than the 8 Mb current XBox memory cards.
M-Systems current product list includes a USB 2.0 device with capacities of up to 1 GB, by the time XBox 2 is available it is almost certain that higher capacity devices will be available so memory cards could be a viable alternative to the hard drive.
Losing the hard drive has become an almost win-win decision for Microsoft since by excluding it they will save a decent amount of money while offering an alternative which will, most probably, have to be purchased seperately. At the same time a hard drive-less XBox 2 would be less enticing to hackers and especially those dreaded Linux users while at the same time promoting networking the console with a home PC running some form of Windows and/or through MS's XBox Live service.
The cynics reading this would cry-out in disgust claiming that the creator of XBox 2 will be reducing its capabilities and potential while promoting the sale of accessories and content but this is the direction the industry is heading towards.
How exactly Microsoft plan to protect the console from users exploiting the networking capabilities which they will definitely have to include in the new console is a matter of debate which will most definitely keep us busy at some point in the future.
