“Your Xbox Series has an expiration date”: is an Internet user accusing Microsoft of planned obsolescence?

While the debate on planned obsolescence resurfaces in France with the Epson printer affair, Microsoft is also being attacked by an Internet user posting under the name Diego Lucas. In focus: the SSD present in the Xbox Series S and Series X consoles.

Remember that the component itself is a standard NVMe M.2 2230 PCIe Gen 4 SSD. However, it has a particularity in that it is cryptographically linked to the processor of each copy of the machine. And this, with a unique encryption key.

Consequence: in the event of SSD failure, it is impossible to repair the Xbox Series since the keys necessary for its operation are located on the now unusable disk. In any case, by official means. Without this connection with the CPU, it would be enough to replace the SSD to find a functional console.

“This needs to change before the next Xbox comes out”

For Diego Lucas, Microsoft voluntarily implemented this system (without providing proof, let us point out). He reminds that on Xbox One, One S and One X, it is possible to change the internal SSD without restriction. In his post, the Internet user asks several things.

First, the removal of this cryptographic “lock” on current Xbox Series. Then, the assurance that it will not exist on the next Microsoft consoles. Finally, the deployment of a recovery tool “capable of generating and saving the necessary derived encryption keys on a replacement SSD”. At the time of publishing this article, the Redmond firm did not respond to Lucas' message.