Microsoft, the creator of the Xbox 360 home gaming console, has announced that it plans to release an external 250 GB hard drive for its platform on the Japanese market. The new storage device is set to arrive on March 11 alongside other accessories and will cost interested players 15,540 Yen, which is about 172 dollars.

It seems that the fresh hard drive peripheral is the same the company offered when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released as part of the bundle that involved the Xbox 360.

After gamers inquired about the availability of the new storage solution, Microsoft strongly denied having plans to release it as a standalone product. The software giant has clearly changed its mind since the days of fall 2009.

At the moment, those who pick up the Elite version of the Xbox 360 get a 120 GB hard drive and players who have the Arcade version of the console or an older Pro version, which is no longer manufactured and sold, can also get it as a standalone accessory. If the company plans to put out the 250 GB drive in North America and in Europe as well, it will effectively offer double the potential storage capacity of those who own an Xbox 360.

It's odd to see a bigger capacity hard drive initially released on the Japanese market, which is normally seen as less than welcoming for the Xbox 360 that only sells a few thousand units during one week, according to the hardware charts. It is probably part of the offensive that Microsoft is planning, begun with the announcement that Monster Hunter Frontier, a MMO based on the popular Capcom franchise, was set to also arrive on the platform this year. Those who are interested in getting more space to install XBLA games and retail releases might do well to wait for an announcement for North America and Europe in the coming weeks.