Microsoft quickly ended speculation today by confirming that it's shipping Xbox 360 Arcade units with 512MB of storage. The company tells Eurogamer that the extra capacity is there to "enjoy more experiences" on Xbox Live that include both essential saved game space as well as downloadable content and smaller Xbox Live Arcade games. It's not known if the 512MB version will be standard worldwide or only show in specific areas.

The capacity is twice the 256MB found on current systems and is a doubling again of the 128MB that was added for Arcade units in the past. Microsoft previously needed to add the space both for save data and, this fall, to provide more room for the much larger New Xbox Experience (NXE) interface.