A quick tip: An external hard drive is your best friend. Optimized games must go into the internal SSD, but many others that exist between generations (The Halo MCC, for example) will run just fine from a regular hard drive.
I do that. ☺️ I even have 3 types of storage for my XSX:
1) Internal SSD (800 GB NVMe SSD drive)
2) External Samsung T2 (500 GB SSD drive from several years ago)
3) External Seagate Xbox Game Drive (8 TB HDD)
Number 3 is just my storage drive. My entire library fits in there. But I never play games from it, I only use it for storage but keep those games updated. I could also just delete and redownload those games that I play and don’t need this drive (I even have fast fiber internet) but I just prefer to have it all local as well, besides this way I notice when there are updates available for the games stored there.
Drive number 2 is where I play all non-X|S optimised games from. But there are some games that have the X|S optimised logo that play from this drive as well, for example I have Halo MCC and AC Odyssey on there now. Also Wreckfest (which oddly doesn’t show the X|S logo). In general for games which are a bit older I always try first if I can run them from here. When I want to transfer a game from drive 3 to 2 you get a warning that they can’t be played from here, in that case they go to drive 1
And drive 1 is where i play the games from that really need the speed of the internal drive, or if I play an older game tons of times then I would just drop it here as well. I thought I might have gotten away with moving GRID Legends from drive 1 to drive 2 but nope, I get a notification it needs to be played from drive 1.
I also considered buying that Seagate external NVMe drive for the Series X|S but that thing is way too expensive for what it’s worth IMO. Perhaps in the future when prices for it drop, games are bigger in size and they all need to be on NVMe to be played I might get one. But for now I’m doing just fine with my transferring games back and forth. Realistically I play about 6 games simultaneously and they all fit even on drive 1.
Look, I'm sure you will have tons of fun with GT7. I have no doubt it is going to be a fantastic game. But I'm still curious.
What is the point of starting with a cheap car when you can enter the very first race in any car?
Where is this sense of progression when you need to acquire a licence that rewards you with a much better car?
What is the point of buying a used car when the first championship rewards you with a brand new car?
And not last. Those that want to support PD probably preordered the best edition and will start with 4 cars and 1.6M credits if I'm not mistaken. Better than FH5 sure, but still far from perfect.
In my experience games that focus on progression have many problems. My biggest problem is the low payout from early races. Those races became obsolete the moment you unlock a better ones. And another one is that usually you are stuck with the starter car for a few hours at best.
My opinion is that a good progression need a good career mode. Without it is pointless to start with a cheap car.
Each to their own I guess. There are 2 games in my memory where I absolutely enjoyed the career mode :
* Project CARS 1 - the game has an annual racing calendar where you could just sign up (or pass) for different championships that happened in that year. There were no credits to get, no cars to unlock, you just drove a particular car for a particular team in your chosen championship. Next to the championships were also invitational events. Really fun system if you ask me, also seeing the days in the calendar progress, that was some good stuff.
* Gran Turismo 5 - this was the first game in the series for me. Actually after Motorstorm even my first (proper) racing game on any console (and my first track racer). I have great memories of doing the first few races in a crappy car, even having to grind those first races in that car a little bit to save up enough money to buy a car eligible for the next few races. PD typically has you do some races in FF cars, then in FR, then in JDM cars before 1999, then a Turbo, then a Boxer engine, then 4WD etc. I absolutely enjoy that system: not having many credits or cars and carefully planning ahead what car to buy (or to upgrade an existing one).
You are correct I will start out with 1.6M credits and some extra cars, but I will absolutely ignore those until I am done with the career. There will be reward cars along the way of career (or these menu books from the GT Cafe) but that’s fine, as long as it’s not exaggerated as in FH5 (I win a hypercar from a wheelspin there every time I sneeze my nose). As far as the GT license tests (and circuit experiences) go, I actually really like these.
But those are the 2 types of career modes in racing games that I like. FM8 would fit in the GT7 system just fine if it would not throw so many cars and credits at you. The GRID series also fit in that system.
There are 2 types of career modes that I don’t like :
- FH5 - do ANY event in ANY car. They want to give us all the flexibility, but in the end it’s dull and boring IMO and ends up in a chase of completing icons on the map. I think FH3 was the last game that required you to do each championship in a certain car division? That was way more fun.
- Assetto Corsa - I only played a little of of this but the career here felt very lacklustre, it was more a bunch of challenges grouped together.
) games will come out, that is when your other choices to buy a console right now would fall short (OG Xbox One or even Xbox One X since they won‘t even be supported anymore then). But the series S still will be supported. And it’s a popular console that sells very well so I expect it to run future Microsoft first party titles pretty decent (FM8, FH6, …). So IMO just stick with the series S as long as you can until at some point you feel “ok I really need something better now”. And I hope by that time a Series X Pro or something will be out.
