It's been rumored the the XBOX 2 (also known as XBOX NEXT, XBOX II, and XENON) won't have a hard drive, making many gamers worried that some of the coolest advantages of the XBOX over other gaming systems will be lost.
Today the XBOX has a hard drive that is used to store saved games, store game data which greatly speeds up game loading, for storing downloads from XBOX Live, and for storing MP3s and WMAs which can be used as background music in many games.
Today M-Systems CEO Dov Moran has confirmed in an interview with Israeli business journal Globes Online that the "XBOX 2" will not have a hard drive, and instead will have a solid state flash card made by his company.
M-Systems, which many of us have never heard of, is the the Israeli company responsible for inventing flash memory. Flash memory is what digital cameras use to store photos. Unlike the memory you use in your PC, flash memory does not require a power source to remember the data, and unlike a hard drive, there are no moving parts and it makes no noise.
This is great news - it means the next XBOX will be smaller, quieter, and lighter. This could also open an opportunity for MS to build a portable XBOX, although shrinking down the top-of-the-line video card and cpu's will still be a hefty challenge.
Today's XBOX hard drive is about 10 GBytes. Today most digital camera owners use memory cards less than 1/2 Gbyte, however M-Systems makes Fast Flash Disks up to 47 Gbytes, so there's no telling how much memory MS plans on stuffing in the XBOX 2.
:evil: