There has been an ongoing battle between console users regarding the better device. Is it Xbox or PlayStation? While both have qualities that are better than the other, one of the problems with an Xbox is that its storage expansion can get rather pricey, although that's no longer the case.
Cutting the Price Down
Microsoft is implementing a permanent price drop for its Xbox Series X and S Expansion Cards, which now cost $90 for the 512 GB card, $150 for the 1 TB card, and $280 for the 2 TB card. The price cut makes the expansion cards approximately 30% cheaper than before.
Despite that, some would argue that the price is still a bit heavy even with the reduction, although it's still better than the previous $220 and $280 prices for the 1 TB and 2 TB expansion cards, respectively, as mentioned in Engadget.
The price change was implemented back on Friday, and it has already been reflected in the official stores. Hopefully, Microsoft will not stop at its recent price reductions and will further lower the prices for the expansion cards after some time.
This will also bring Xbox closer to the cost of PlayStation's expansion cards, but the latter is still cheaper in price. Comparing both prices, PlayStation's WD Black 2 TB NVMe PCIe Gen 4 SSD costs around $199 on Amazon, which makes Xbox's $80 higher in price.
PlayStation also has the advantage when it comes to storage options, especially since unlike Microsoft, Sony doesn't have a proprietary storage solution. PlayStation users can opt for cheaper SSDs instead of not having a choice but to buy expensive expansion cards.
As of right now, other retailers like Amazon are still retaining the original price for the Xbox Series X and S expansion cards. The 2 TB Seagate NVMe SSD still costs $280, while the 512 GB variant still costs $133.
Pros and Cons of the Xbox Series X/S Expansion Card
There's a reason why people still purchase the SSD despite some of it costing more than half of the actual console, and that's because some users believe that the price is worth the quality, convenience, and function that it offers.
For one, the Seagate expansion card is easy to install. All you have to do is unbox it and plug it into the console. Since it's a proprietary component, it fits perfectly and you won't have to go through a lot of steps to get the additional storage.
With the same reasoning, it also has quick loading and transfer speeds. Depending on the type of games you intend to download and install, you can actually get up to 30 games more. Although, you should expect less when you're into open-world AAA games.
The downside, aside from the headache-inducing price, is that you're not actually going to get the amount of storage indicated on the item. For instance, getting a 1 TB expansion will only grant you 920 GB of extra storage after the drivers and discrepancies, as mentioned in Tech Radar.
