Give us Space, or make your Advertising Accurate

There needs to be regulation on digital storage devices and how their capacities are advertised. When you buy a 1TB device, you might expect that you’ll be able to store 1TB of data on it. But, oh no, it actually has closer to 900GB, or even less, if they decided to put an OS or any other unremovable stuff on there that takes up a lot of space. This is mostly a problem with computers, phones, video game consoles, the kinds of things that have operating systems and other features or files, in addition to their internal storage. I bought a PS5 last month (latecomer brag), and that thing is advertised as having 825GB storage, except no, because much of that space is already taken up by more than 150GB by files. And what’s the deal with it only having 825GB? The hell kind of number is that? At least when Xbox cheats you on the storage they start from a TB. Neither capacity is enough to store more than a handful of games, anyway, and you know they could easily fit a larger SSD in there for a hardly much higher cost. But, they’ll say, don’t worry, you can pay to add storage space! Oh, really, can we? Oh, how generous of you to allow us to spend hundreds more dollars on top of this already expensive purchase so that our consoles can have the storage that they should have had to begin with. Then there’s the matter of installing it. Playstation requires that you pop the machine open and fiddle with its innards to install an SSD. Xbox makes the process easier by selling an officially licensed SSD card that can be inserted right into the back of the machine, no surgery needed. The problem there is that you have no options other than the officially licensed SSD. No third party manufacturers to compete and potentially drive the price down or prompt sales. Because, oh, by the way, the price. You could be paying twice as much for the privilege of convenience. Unless you buy a knockoff which, for its price, may damn well be just a hunk of plastic and lead or a malicious piece of hardware that will corrupt your console. Or it’s just a cheap case into which you can insert a small m.2 nvme 2230 SSD to make your own unlicensed theoretically compatible Xbox storage card. That is what it is, by the way; I figured that out while writing the last sentence, but there shall be no editing, all cards are on the table. Incidentally, if you do what I just described, you’ll probably be paying as much or more than if you just bought one of the conveniently already assembled, functioning, and warrantied official Seagate Xbox SSDs. So unless you’re a very particular flavor of nerd who likes to cobble together their own computer hardware out of unguaranteed parts produced by unknown Chinese companies, that’s probably not for you. And if you are that special flavor of nerd to begin with, why start with accessories? Why buy an Xbox or a Playstation at all when you could build your own console? You could build one with enough baseline storage so that you don’t ever have to go hunting for extra bits and bobs. You could build a 10TB monstrosity with blazing LEDs and a liquid cooling system that doubles as a smoke machine, so that your console will always run cold despite looking like it’s on fire. But, of course, if you went to all that trouble, why would you do it to just make a video game console instead of a PC rig with a wider range of capabilities? And, hell, with all your apparent skills you could set up a whole virtual reality headset and haptic bodysuit system. You could also set up a suite of medical devices to feed and relieve you, which would allow you to enjoy that virtual reality indefinitely. You could have a system which would put Microsoft and Sony and every PC manufacturer to shame, if not straight into their rhetorical graves. You could build the most powerful and immersive piece of escapist technology the world has ever seen, and essentially leave this world to live in one that’s far more fun and pleasurable, forever. You could do that right now, instead of wasting time here. Go on! Do it! Go!