USB Memory Support Coming to Xbox 360 April 6

Microsoft has officially announced that the Xbox 360 will be getting updated to support USB flash memory in a few short weeks. Major Nelson made the announcement on his blog and has been personally testing the feature for the past few weeks. He assures us all that it's "really great." He goes on to detail the new feature, though not completely.

Any USB flash drive over 1GB and up to 16GB can be connected to the console and used to store "profiles, save games, demos, and more." We aren't told what types of data can't be transferred, though, if there are limitations above and beyond what can be transferred to Microsoft's proprietary memory units now. Any flash drives that need to be used, though, will have to be configured. Someone can configure either the entire flash drive, which will make it unusable with any other platform, or choose to configure a certain amount of space on the drive, leaving the rest free for regular use on a Mac, PC, etc. Further, two devices can be connected to the console, so a maximum of 32GB of flash memory can be used at any given time.

Major Nelson also announced that, while any USB flash drive can be used, Microsoft is partnering with SanDisk to make a Xbox 360 branded drive that will be pre-configured and ready to use out of the box. That drive will be available in May.

Hit the link for Major Nelson's post and his link to a gallery with more screenshots.


USB Memory Support for Xbox 360 Coming April 6