The memory cards for Xbox Series X cost £219.99

SSD's for next-generation are probably the single most important thing, as they remove loading screens and make it possible to design games in a different way. But using this technology comes at a price. And that is literally the price, as SSD's are crazy expensive. Sony has opted for hard drive exchange (as with PlayStation 3 and 4), but uses a more costly technology, while Microsoft went with 1TB memory cards, which is a proprietary format and thus usually overpriced.

And thanks to the product page over at the Microsoft Store, we now know they retail for a whopping £219.99 / €239.99. Basically almost what you have to pay to get a brand new Xbox Series S. Just as with the hard drive standard used for PlayStation 5, we assume these prices will drop fairly sharply, but we do not expect it to ever be cheap.

We suggest you simply buy a huge regular hard drive instead, as you can use those to store games to Xbox Series S and X. Then you just have to move the games over to the SSD when you feel like playing the games stored there, which is way faster than re-downloading for most people.

Over at Xbox Wire, Xbox Series X Director of Program Management Jason Ronald, explains why it at least initially costs this much:

"The Xbox Velocity Architecture is a key innovation of our next generation consoles, delivering unprecedented speed and performance enabling transformative gaming experiences never before possible on console. This level of consistent, sustained performance requires advanced components which comes at a higher cost than traditional hard drives or SSDs often found in PCs. By partnering with an industry leader in Seagate, we worked together to deliver an expandable storage solution which delivers identical performance at the lowest cost possible and available this holiday."