Aren't the new drives interchangable too though? I know they don't fit in the old models, but I'm pretty sure they're still interchangable for other slims.

And the reason Microsoft ditched the old harddrive was because it was too big, and was holding the slim model back.

What I've read, even HDD's on 360 Slim are interchangable, just not with older models. Because Slim is smaller, they needed to use smaller HDD.

Haha, because I totally want to put the only copy I have of my games on a friggin conventional harddrive. Possibly the least reliable piece of technology ever.

How about, Nintendo recognises that downloadable games should be more like world of Goo and less like MGS4, that game installs are merely a way of making up for a poor choice of disc storage format, that the advantages of reduced energy consumption, faster read speed and increased lifespan very much outweigh the advantage of larger capacity.

The Wii2 will have a flash drive, and will likely support SD cards, just the Wii does. I don't see any need to add support for a dying technology.

You could make USB Harddrives optional and keep all those options as well as minimize all impact on device form factor, and still satisfy the vocal minority that likes to download a great helluva lot (and give them the chance to do so, which at inflated DLC rates is money in the bank)

There are various reasons against internal HDDs, but nothing to really stop an external one

Yes. They need to learn from Sony's smarter move and put in a standard HDD with easy access and a simply process to format. This way we can upgrade HDD as we see fit. It will additionally allow them to sell one SKU for simplicity and lower costs.

Am I the only one that wants to use my own portable HD for this stuff?

This. A standard, not proprietary internal HDD, optional, would be fine too for me, but external and optional should really be fine for everybody, including internal HDDs opponents.

Your right, I was refering to over all interchangability. You can't take a Slim's drive and swop it with a larger unit. I mean I see why they did it but I don't know anyone with a Slim and I had a big unit with DLC and games but I couldn't interchange the drive with the Slim.

What I am proposing is a interchangable drive that works on all Cafe systems.

Some say why not use your own external hard drives or a USB drive. Well your own drive and USB drives could be connected to a computer and easier to hack especially if all external hard drives work. Nintendo will want to add some security features to their drives to make them harder to break. I'm not sure if its been done but I haven't heard of anyone hacking the 360 drive so they could download games onto or off of it. If you use a standard drive you've got no say in its security features or development. Plus selling Nintendo made drives would be another reveniew stream Nintendo could take advantage of.

Anyone think of a benefit for Nintendo to allow consumers to use their own drives or external USB drives? By that I mean Nintendo benefits?