Bad news for Arcade and Core owners: New Xbox Experience requires 256MB of storage

Xbox 360 Arcade and Core owners are getting the short end of the stick with the New Xbox Experience. Apparently the update requires a 256 MB memory unit to install. A hard drive is also required for some features to work. More details in the full article.

Xbox 360 Arcade and Core owners are getting the short end of the stick with the New Xbox Experience. Apparently the update requires a 256 MB memory unit to install. A hard drive is also required for some features to work.

Major Nelson tries to figure out what’s what, saying that the press release from Microsoft didn’t actually say that the whole 256 MB would be needed for the update itself. The update probably only needs a fraction of that space, and the rest would go to NXE and avatar customization – which you could stand to live without, really.

The bottom line is that Core owners and those with just 64 MB cards are plum out of luck. But as Major Nelson said before, “you don’t actually have to use it.” Everything’s going to be the same if you don’t – only everyone else with a larger hard drive would have avatar customization. Uh, that probably didn’t make you feel better.

I’m wondering why Microsoft would offer the Arcade for a cheaper price than the Wii, then make them go through the choice of whether to sacrifice their meager 256 MB of storage space for game saves or avatar customization. It’s baffling.