New Xbox One Bundle Comes With 1TB Hybrid Drive, New Elite Controller For $499

Microsoft just announced a new bundle for the Xbox One. The Xbox One Elite Bundle is the first bundle to come with Microsoft’s new Elite controller. But that’s not all, as the company also switched to a hybrid 1TB SSD and HDD drive for the first time. This bundle costs $499.

Using a hybrid drive makes sense for a few reasons. Consoles now require you to install games on your hard drive before you can play. Most of the time, it means copying files from a Blu-ray to a hard drive and then loading the game from the hard drive. The 5400 RPM hard drive is the bottleneck when you install a game.

Moreover, having a faster hard drive means that games can load faster. Booting the console should be 20 percent faster as well. While, the PlayStation 4 has a replaceable hard drive, you can’t replace the Xbox hard drive without voiding the warranty.

Yet, switching to an SSD would be hard for Microsoft as the company needs to provide a big drive to store a few games and keep a low price tag. Now that games generally require between 30GB and 50GB, a 256GB SSD wouldn’t make sense. That’s why the company opted for a hybrid drive.

When it comes to the new wireless controller, Microsoft announced it at E3 in June. It comes with hair-trigger locks, a textured rolling pad instead of the good old D-pad and bumpers. Components are swappable, meaning that you can replace the joystick with the D-pad for example.

You can also remap all the controls and customize the sensitivity of the sticks and triggers. While this controller works with any Xbox One and PC, it costs $150. So today’s new bundle could be a good deal if you want a new Xbox One and want to pay less for the controller. The Elite controller as well as the new bundle will ship in October.