Like any consumer with common sense, you’ve no doubt wondered why Microsoft has continued to charge such high prices for it’s HDD addons for the 360 consoles, in comparison to what you can get on, say, a PC for the same price, but twice or more of the capacity. It’s the kind of priveledge on PS3 users are getting right now… so why is that?

Where Microsoft interjects the usual PR jargon to justify their prices, MTV Multiplayer Blog  has gone the extra length by contacting a reputable hardware analyzer, iSupli.

iSupli representative Krishna Chander expects the hard drive came from electronics manufacturers Toshiba or Seagate . When the hard drive ships to retail, it comes pre-loaded with starter software (i.e. Xbox Live Arcade trials) and “specific Gaming Instructions and some levels of the OS,” said Chander.

Unlike an off-the-shelf drive that can simply be loaded into your standard PS3, Chander explained, the Xbox 360 drive’s pricing also includes color tuning and packaging. This begins to drive the price up from what you might see at an online retailer like NewEgg.

The software-loaded drives are then sold to what’s called Value Added Resellers (VARs). These folks take the base drives and apply the casing and packaging. iSuppli expects VARs purchase the drives for $75, before charging $5 to add their part to the final package that ends up appearing at your local games store.

These drives are then delivered to Microsoft. iSuppli believes the markup on the drives could be as much as $20, making the drives $100 a pop for Microsoft.