Rumours are beginning to surface regarding new storage solutions for the Xbox 360, specifically USB-based drives.

Microsoft recently put the kibosh on 3rd-party memory cards with a recent update, rendering them useless. It seems however that the company may relent to an extent and allow users some leeway in their options.

Documentation obtained and published by Internet gaming site Joystiq shows that USB Mass Storage Device Support on Xbox 360 will arrive in an update to the system in the Spring, and will let users both save and load data from USB drives, up to a maximum of 16GB.

All types of content will could be stored on the drive, including Live Arcade games, demos, title updates and of course full game installs, using the system in place now with the disc in the 360 for authentication.

Detailed information on this upcoming feature can be found over at Joystiq.com.