Microsoft's next-gen consoles are launching this November 10 with the Xbox Series X coming in at $499 / £449 / €499 / AU$749, and the Xbox Series S at $299 / £250 / €249 / AU$499, but whichever option you go for, you'll be looking at spending a couple hundred more on an essential accessory.
That accessory is a 1TB SSD from Seagate, that's been custom engineered to work with the Xbox's Velocity Architecture. The official pricing has just been revealed, and you might want to sit down for this one.
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The last rumor we heard about the price of the SSD suggested it would launch with a price tag of $220. The leak came courtesy of a tweet earlier this month, and it looks like it was spot on.
Best Buy has just opened pre-orders for Seagate's SSD that's priced at $219.99 with a November 10 launch date, so you can snap it up alongside your console on day one.
If you were considering buying the cheaper Xbox Series S and expanding its 512GB hard drive, you might want to consider forking out for the pricier Xbox Series X with its 1TB hard drive, and future-proofing your gaming set-up should you upgrade to a 4K TV somewhere down the line, during this upcoming console generation.
Pricing in other regions has yet to be confirmed, but users on ResetEra spotted a Smyths Toys listing for the Seagate SSD that puts the price at £159. While Eurogamer was cited as the original source, a number of users in the thread are also claiming to have seen the listing
If we do a straight conversion – which isn't how these things usually work, but offers a rough idea – the US price translates to around £165, so this seems like it could be accurate.
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Sony has yet to confirm PS5 compatible SSDs, but Samsung's 980 Pro SSD is looking like a strong candidate.
With the size of next-gen games, you'll almost certainly want to increase your storage at some point, and while you can use any USB drive to store games, you'll need the high-end SSDs that utilise the proprietary tech to run them for the new Xbox, while Sony's console will take an off-the-shelf M.2 NVMe SSD.
Now that we have a confirmed price, you'll be able to factor that into your next-gen costs to decide which of Microsoft's machines are best for you.
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