Microsoft's New Xbox Experience has been pored over and dated, but now that Major Nelson has revealed it requires "at least" 128MB storage available to work, where does that leave suckers Core and Arcade SKU Xbox 360 owners? Enter the Xbox 360 Memory Upgrade Program, doling out free 512MB MU's or $20 20GB HDDs to Core owners, and a $30 20GB HDD + 3 months of Xbox Live package to Arcade owners looking to upgrade. November 19, Xbox Live becomes a storage-only affair (that goes for Netflix streams too, requiring 8MB of free space), so grab your serial number and console ID from the current Xbox 360 Dashboard and hit the registration website. Impressive customer service gesture to extend functionality for all, or more evidence of a short sighted and flawed dual-SKU launch plan that's cost gamers and developers alike? All we know for sure is we've probably figured out where the profits from those $149 120GB HDDs are going.
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Well, this might well be the end of the Core as we know it, albeit on a voluntary basis. I'm going to guess the 20g drives are on a "as supplies last" basis. I'd like to see the 512m cards be standard (Arcades come with the 256m card, right?), or for them to finally admit that's too small and go to 1g, 2g or even 4g - try and keep up flash cards and the like.