When the Xbox 360 released, it was launched in two forms, one with a 20GB hard drive, and another without the added storage. The next Xbox may not even require a huge hard drive if Microsoft continues the push to the cloud. Playing Xbox Live Arcade games in the cloud may be the best route to take.
The next Xbox is likely going to make a big push to adopt cloud gaming across all of its platforms. What this could mean is the end of saving games, even game purchases, your physical hard drive.
Instead, what Microsoft could opt to do is to allow your Xbox Live account to sync up with your own cloud, similar to what they have already started to do with game saves on the Xbox 360.
This is going to allow Microsoft to do a few key things. The first thing that it is going to allow Microsoft to do, is to push the fact that when you purchase a digital download such as an Xbox Live Arcade game on Xbox Live, you will have access to it no matter which Xbox console you log into.
The next fact is that this could also help push sales of not only Windows 8 PCs, but the Microsoft Surface tablet, which Microsoft is weighing a lot on in terms of their future plans.
With Xbox Live games in the cloud, what gamers would have the power to do is to enjoy games on the Surface, or any other Windows 8 platform without having to download games all over again on each machine.
This will create an environment allowing gamers to ditch requiring a physical hard drive with the game download to allow the gamer to play them.
The Xbox 360 created an environment where gamers needed a hard drive in order to download games. The next Xbox will still need a hard drive in some form to handle game installs and things of that nature, but putting Xbox Live Arcade games up in the cloud may be a better option for Microsoft to help use the power of Xbox Live to grow its platforms.
