A 1TB (Xbox Series X) or 512GB SSD (Xbox Series S) isn’t much, especially considering the size of next-gen games. Sooner or later, you’ll need to increase or expand the size of your storage, and with Microsoft’s next-gen consoles, it certainly won’t be cheap.

According to a product listing at Best Buy, the official 1TB Storage Expansion Card for the Xbox Series X and Series S costs a whopping US$219.99 (or roughly RM917+).

In comparison, Xbox Series X will be US$499 (or roughly RM2070+) and the Xbox Series S will be US$299 (or roughly RM1245). That’s extremely expensive, a single Storage Expansion Card is almost the price of an Xbox Series S.

Seagate makes the official Storage Expansion Card for the Xbox Series X and S, which is based on proprietary technology.

Microsoft has previously promised that all the accessories from the Xbox One will work on the Xbox Series X. While this applies for external hard drives too, the problem is that all Xbox Series X games must be installed to the console’s internal SSD or the Seagate Storage Expansion Card, both of which use the new PCIe 4.0 standard.

As a result, Xbox Series X games can be backed up to a normal USB external drive, but can’t be played from one. However, backwards-compatible Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Xbox games can still be played on the Xbox Series X even if they’re installed on a USB external drive.

Unlike Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S, Sony’s PlayStation 5 won’t require a proprietary storage expansion solution, as PS5 owners will be able to upgrade the console’s existing 825GB internal SSD with any brand of PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. These will get cheaper over time (just like any other piece of tech), but a proprietary tech will usually stay expensive.

As cheap as the Xbox Series S may be compared to other next-gen consoles, it might not be a viable option for anyone who likes to hoard their games and keep a bunch of them downloaded at the same time.