PC enthusiasts may have the most well-respected hands-on skills when it comes to getting under the hood of gaming machines, but there are plenty of console gamers out there willing to get their hands dirty as well. A new generation of consoles means those modders and tinkerers have a few new toys to tear apart this winter. Thanks to information gathered by some creative stress testing, gamers that consider the Xbox One the underdog in the current console war now have an additional weak spot to point out.
Side-by-side comparisons of the Sony and Microsoft next-gen consoles had already revealed that the PS4 had the advantage of a removable hard drive, which will come in handy when owners are ready to upgrade to something with a little more space. The Microsoft defense has been that the 500 GB internal drive should provide more than enough space for gamers to install all their favorite games. The guys at IGN decided to figure out just how far those 500 gigs could take Xbox One owners. The results were slightly underwhelming...
If you're an Xbox One owner, you may have noticed that the console does not display the available capacity of the hard drive. Microsoft's intention is to let the automatic storage management system take care of things in the background, so that gamers won't need to worry about managing the space. To figure out how much space was actually available, IGN started installing games on the console until there was no room left. The magic number discovered at the end of the download session was 362 gigs of usable space.
The team ran out of space at the 20 game mark, after downloading an estimate of 362-365 GB. That means that Microsoft currently has 136 GB reserved for apps and the OS. If you were to download every app available on the Xbox One today, you would only eat up 1.6 GB of space. It's likely that the additional space is built-in to account for future apps and OS patches, but all that reserved space is taking away from the 500 GB that gamers are relying on to store digitally purchased or installed games.
Nobody is denying that space to download 20 games is more than enough to get owners started during the console's first few years. That said, if this generation of consoles is really supposed to last a decade, then gamers will definitely need to add some extra space in the coming years. Hopefully, the upgrades won't do too much damage to Microsoft fans' wallets. That or be forced into embracing the eventual cloud streaming and storage services.
In other Xbox One news, rule-breaking console owners who are willing to void their warranties can apparently control the console with a variety of alternate peripherals. The modders at CronusMax put together this demo...
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The modders are able to control Killer Instinct brawlers with just about every controller you might be inclined to use. The Xbox 360 fight sticks, a keyboard and mouse, and even rival platform controllers all become viable options for gamers who are willing to give up the safety offered by their warranties.
The ability to use Xbox 360 peripherals with the new console was listed on the official Xbox Feedback page as one of the most requested missing features. It seems unlikely that Microsoft will ever officially support the use of previous-gen products with the Xbox One, but seeing the Xbox 360 controller and fight sticks in action on the new console is definitely a ray of hope for the more mischievous gamers.
Are you happy with the Xbox One's performance so far or do you think the new console isn't living up to your expectations for next-gen hardware and software?
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The Xbox One is currently available.
Follow Denny on Twitter @The_DFC.