I find this to be a very acceptable thing indeed.  I really hope that this means I can buy a simple USB external harddrive and extend the memory capabilities of my 360.  To be honest, I have been afraid to use my 360 for much in regards to installations, downloads, and whatnot because 20 GB just simply is not a lot of space.  Well, I also don’t want to blow a fortune on items that can be revoked with the press of a button, but that’s besides the point.

I’ve had several games that I’ve been tempted to install onto my hardrive to improve performance.  I’ve also wanted back-ups of my downloads.  This here looks like it will do the trick.

Now, to back away from my excited ramble for a moment, I shall quickly explain what it is that I am excited about.  You see, for years, the X-box 360 has had only two choices for memory.  First, you had your memory card, which was simply not really a viable option.  It is only a 512 MB card that was propriety hardware.  Simply expensive and impractical.  Next, you had the internal harddrives.  Now, any smart person bought a 360 with a harddrive.  Well, I bought mine in the first wave/era, so I was stuck with a 20 GB in a generation where space became important real quick.  Microsoft did provice upgrade solutions for those like me; however, the price of those harddrive upgrades were simply highway robbery.  To put it simply, I upgraded my PS3 from a 60GB internal drive to a 500 GB internal drive at half the price of the upgrade price for the 120GB 360 Harddrive that’s been on sale.

So, for microsoft to provide this solution is a breath of fresh air.  Now, just watch as they make it propriety hardware locked..

Update: Fully read the article, now.  I jumped to a happy point upon seeing this news, and even in the announcement, Microsoft has taken away my joy.  There is a 16 GB limit to the storage device capability, with another limit of only being able to use two storage devices.  So, Microsoft, you have toyed with the consumer yet again.  While this is still a good option for backing up files, this won’t be the great advent of wow that I was originally hoping it to be.

Source: Xbox 360 gaining USB storage support in 2010 update — Joystiq.