Rumor: PS5 announcement coming mid 2019 and more info at PSX 2019

[Mr Puggsly]

Intrinsic said:

Mr Puggsly said:

1TB for $40. https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-Internal-3-5-Inch-ST1000DM010/dp/B01LNJBA2I/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1542779714&sr=1-3&keywords=1tb+hdd

Lets not bother with semantics. When I say premium I mean the superior model. Whether you get the base or premium consoles, its 1TB HDD.

Standard HDDs are seem fine with X1X's 9GB of RAM. I've seen a good number of videos showing the X1X also loads faster using the same HDDs. I've seen what SSD can do and its impressive, but not essential at this point.

We will have to wait and see what happens in 2020. But if load times are fine with a standard HDD or hybrid, they might go that route. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised they go with a 1TB SSD either if the price is right. Maybe MS will try an have it both ways by putting a cheap/large HDD in the console, but sell an external SSD. Essentially make faster loading a premium item.

The HDD you linked is a 3.5" drive. Consoles typically use 2.5" drives and also those that peak at a thickness of 9mm. This is a space thing.

Problem with those 2.5", 9mm thick drive is that it pretty much peaks at 2TB. Anything higher and you have to make the drive thicker. 

Most importantly, lets not forget that its the next 7 years we are talking about. While $40 can get you only a 1TB SSD in 2020, that same $40 could very well get you a 3TB SSD in 2024. There is just more room to grow and more flexibility with SSDs. 

Oh and the reason standard HDDs seem fine when it comes to the X has more to do with the I/O bus bandwidth (that was also improved) ad faster CPU than anything else.

My mistake but the 2.5 inch is only 5 bucks more, https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=1tb+hdd+2.5

I don't think the slightly thicker HDDs would be an issue for a home console.

Right, its not like the base were using HDDs to their full potential per se, even if they do load faster with SSDs. Some videos showed the X1X had similar load times with a stock internal HDD as an external SSD. Hence, the 9th gen console will have even better specs and should be able to maintain similar load times even with more demanding assets, memory use, etc. It would be great to see load times actually decline as SSDs become standard on consoles, but I argue its not crucial.

On a side note, maybe MS and Sony will use stats to determine if HDD or SSD is the best route. For example, if MS really wants people using the subscriptions like Xbox Live ("free games"), EA Access or Game Pass then a massive storage HDD is crucial. But if the average user is just playing a few titles that fits in a 1TB SSD, well moving to SSD makes sense.