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Gaming System Memory

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Gaming, Media & More
February 1, 2010 • Vol.7 Issue 2 Page(s) 73 in print issue
Gaming System Memory Today’s Consoles Store Far More Than Game Saves

In the past, it was simple. Buy a video-game console, grab some games, and you had a dedicated gaming box for the living room. Today’s consoles do so much more than play video games, however, so storage memory is a real concern. You need space to store downloadable games, movies, and TV shows; space to store your music and photos; and space to store custom gamer profiles for everyone in the house. When comparing consoles and shopping for additional storage, it’s important to understand the differences between internal and external storage.

Internal Storage

Most of the latest video-game consoles have some form of internal storage, ranging from relatively low-capacity solid-state memory chips to the same types of high-capacity hard drives found in home computers. These are useful for storing music, pictures, downloaded movies, and other multimedia locally on the machine, along with downloaded add-on content for games you own. If you want to store a lot of files on your actual console, be sure to look for one with a larger capacity.

Some game consoles let you watch DVDs or Blu-ray Discs via the console’s optical drive without consuming any storage space. However, if you plan to use advanced Blu-ray Disc features, such as BD-Live, content is downloaded to your console and consumes varying amounts of space depending on what is downloaded. You can also download entire movies—even in high definition—and delete them when you are finished watching them, freeing up space for future rentals.

External Storage

If you want to be able to transfer your data from one place to another, video-game consoles also accept external memory cards. These have a lower storage capacity than your console’s internal memory but offer much more in terms of mobility. For example, you can use a memory card to store gamer profiles that can be used on a different console so you can take all of your settings and save games with you when you’re on the road and not lose any progress.

Cover Your Bases

You can never have too much storage, so be sure to use a mix of internal and external storage for your consoles. That way, you can get the most out of multimedia features in your living room and can also use the external storage when you visit other people’s living rooms. It’s the best of both gaming worlds.

by Tracy Baker

Minding The Bytes

The amount of data a console or external memory card can store is printed on the packaging and listed in MB (megabytes) or GB (gigabytes), with larger numbers always being better. It takes 1,000MB to equal 1GB, and some consoles store hundreds of gigabytes of data out of the box—but how does that translate into real-world terms?

Games and movies. DVD-quality movies consume a few gigabytes per movie, and high-definition movies require several gigabytes of storage. Games and add-ons for disc-based games require anywhere from a few dozen MB to more than 1GB.

Gamer profiles. These generally take up only a few megabytes of space unless you have a lot of games that everyone plays, in which case multiple saved games can take up more room than usual.

MP3s. A typical high-quality, three-minute track requires 3 to 5MB of storage,

Digital photos. Storage requirements vary wildly depending on the specifications of your camera and the photo settings you use, but you can right-click any picture you have saved on your computer, click Properties, and look at the file size to get an approximation of how many of them you can store per gigabyte.

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