Microsoft has now confirmed what we actually already knew. The company will offer a separate or upgrade 250GB hard drive for the Xbox 360 Slim. Those buying the Xbox 360 Slim Arcade will now be able to purchase the 250GB hard drive to add it to their system at some point in the future should they choose to, or want to add a hard drive to their system.

As has been the trend in the past, Microsoft will not be giving those who want to purchase the separate or upgrade 250GB hard drive any kind of a price break; but instead they will continue to charge $130 for the privilege of being able to purchase the compatible 250GB hard drive. Of course, the price is expensive, but it is the same as the 250GB hard drive for the older Xbox 360 units.

Despite the sticker shock, as with separate or upgrade 250GB hard drive units that Microsoft has sold in the past, it will include Hexic plus a number of Xbox Live Arcade game demos pre-loaded on the unit.

The new 250GB hard drive for the Slim Xbox 360 units does not include a transfer cable, which does seem to make sense since most users that could buy one at the present time would be upgrading from the Arcade console and not a Slim unit that would already have a 250GB hard drive. Of course, Microsoft is still selling the transfer cable separately should you want to upgrade from the older version hard drive to a slim console that uses the new hard drive.

Some buyers of the Xbox Slim Arcade bundle might question the wisdom of a hard drive purchase at all; given the 4GB of flash memory in the new console and the fact that with the additional USB ports on the back it would be easy to purchase two low-cost USB 16GB flash memory sticks, and use those for storage by leaving them plugged into the rear of the console all the time. With over 32GB+ of available storage when you count the internal flash storage as well, it does make a compelling case to consider going this route, as the cost of 16GB USB flash drives is very rock bottom when compared to the cost of the 250GB hard drive from Microsoft.