Xbox 360? [probably not]

[Flame of Anor]

I've been looking into possibly getting a gaming console, and I'm currently leaning toward the Xbox 360, as having good graphics and lots of games and being not terribly expensive. Also, I'd like to know where to get one new for the lowest price. Discuss.

[BizzaroStormy]

All places are pretty much going to have the same price if you're in the market for a new one. Your best be would be to choose a place with a good warranty policy (i got mine at best buy). I will say one thing however, do not get the core/arcade model.

There are so many aspects that require you to have a hard drive(not just a memory card) as well as all the DLC you'll miss out on. The size you'll want depends on how much of a gamer you are. Hard Drives come in 20GB, 60GB, and 120GB.

[Flame of Anor]

I've certainly heard enough that tells me not to get the bare-minimum version. Like that one Ctrl+Alt+Del comic...you've probably seen it...where two guys (not Ethan and Lucas) get 360's, one tells the other that he got the Core instead of the upgraded version, and the other tells the first one that they are no longer friends.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Yeah, make sure you at least get a 20G hard drive (comes with the premium model). You don't really need anything larger than that unless you plan on playing alot of arcade games. I have around 15 arcade games on my drive, as well as all of my normal saves, and Xbox Original, and always keep room for a demo or two. All on 20G.

I woulden't stress getting a warranty too much, unless you are worried that something might happen aside from Red Rings of Death. RRoD is covered for all consoles I believe (correct me if I'm wrong).

But yeah, if you are asking if the 360 is worth the purchase: It really is. If you like Shooters, RPG's, or any combination of the two, then the 360 is your best friend. :smallbiggrin: Of course it still has at least a little of everything else, just those two are the two which pop out to me as the defining the 360's main genres.

[Flame of Anor]

Great, I think I'm decided.

Now to convince my mom...:smalleek:

[Joran]

You're in luck. The Xbox 360 just came out with a new hardware revision, codenamed Jasper. It should eliminate the Red Ring problem.

Here's how to spot a Jasper:

http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3472&p=2


All places are pretty much going to have the same price if you're in the market for a new one. Your best be would be to choose a place with a good warranty policy (i got mine at best buy). I will say one thing however, do not get the core/arcade model.


There's nothing specifically wrong with getting the Arcade model. Buy a separate hard drive, buy the correct cables for your TV, and it's basically a full-fledged Pro or Elite. Price out what HDMI cables (or Component) and a hard drive would cost. If they cost more than $100, then get the Pro, if it costs less, go with the Arcade. Also, remember that the Xbox 360 doesn't come with a wifi connector (/sigh) and you should probably buy a second controller if you want to play multiplayer, so factor those in as well to get total cost. If you want to play online multiplayer, Xbox Live will run you another 40-50 bucks a year.

If you start adding with a Pro ($300) and add just a wireless adapter ($99), you're actually getting into PS3 price territory, FYI.

If your family gets Netflix, you can justify by using it to stream movies from Netflix, which is an awesome feature.

[Flame of Anor]

This is good info, thanks. A couple more questions: How many controllers can be used at once? Would you recommend Circuit City's refurbished 20GB model for a $50 savings? How likely, actually, is the RRoD?

[Myatar_Panwar]

RRoD used to pretty much be a guarantee to happen to any console at some point in its career, though I think they have fixed the problem for their new models. But even if it does occur, to have it fixed is free and fairly quick (1-3 weeks).

4 controllers on one console.

No idea about the refurbished HD, but I'd assume it would be fine.

[Flame of Anor]

The refurbished one wouldn't be more susceptible to RRoD?

[BizzaroStormy]

It really depends on when it was made. As for getting a refurbished model, I still would not reccomend getting one without some kind of warranty.

[Joran]

It really depends on when it was made. As for getting a refurbished model, I still would not reccomend getting one without some kind of warranty.

Don't forget that Circuit City may go under soon, so the warranty may not be worth the paper it's printed on.

One of the major caveats about the refurbished ones, is that you don't know which model you're going to get. You could get one of the original Xbox 360's that may be more inclined to Red Ring (also it could lack a HDMI port). The Xbox has been through 3 different motherboard architectures, so I would personally go with the most recent one, the Jasper.

[Crispy Dave]

The newer models have newer parts in them so I would go for those. I would check local stores and online stores and see what they are including with their consoles. Many places Offer a gift card or game when you buy a console.

[BizzaroStormy]

Mine actually just got the RRoD, luckily my HD is fnie and i bought Best Buy's replacement warranty so i just get to go pick it up tomorrow.

[snoopy13a]

If you really want a cheap 360, buy one used. A disadvantage of the 360 versus the Playstation 3 is that the Playstation 3 has a Blu-Ray player while the 360 has the HDDVD. Blu-Ray has appeared to have won the next-gen DVD battle.

As for warranties, I believe that Microsoft is responsible for them, not the retailer.

[Joran]

If you really want a cheap 360, buy one used. A disadvantage of the 360 versus the Playstation 3 is that the Playstation 3 has a Blu-Ray player while the 360 has the HDDVD. Blu-Ray has appeared to have won the next-gen DVD battle.

As for warranties, I believe that Microsoft is responsible for them, not the retailer.
Quick correction: The Xbox 360 does not come with a HD-DVD drive; you have to purchase it. Of course, HD-DVD is a dead format now; Blu-Ray has won.

As a Netflix subscriber, I find having both consoles to be useful. I can stream some Netflix movies to the Xbox 360 and can play the Netflix Blu-Ray discs on the PS3.

[Flame of Anor]

If I buy a used or refurbished 360, and either the seller doesn't give a warranty or it runs out, and then it RRoD's, will Microsoft still fix it for free?

[BizzaroStormy]

since you likely wont get one that is still in its warranty period...no, MS will charge you $100 to fix it.

[Myatar_Panwar]

I'm pretty sure that a 3-year warranty is used for boxes that RRoD. Could certainly be within a refurbished time frame.

[JabberwockySupafly]

This is good info, thanks. A couple more questions: How many controllers can be used at once? Would you recommend Circuit City's refurbished 20GB model for a $50 savings? How likely, actually, is the RRoD?

Hi as someone who works for a Video Games Retailer, I am going to suggest NOT getting a refurbished 360. The reason for this is a lot of them are the older models and don't have the new hardware in them, plus the 20GB HDD is going to be too small for reasons which I will touch upon shortly.


Also, there are questions that need to be addressed as to what model you might want:

#1 Are you going to be hooked up to the net with it?
#2 Are you going to be playing online with it?
#3 Do you plan on having a lot of DLC/Extra Maps/ECT downloaded if you answered Yes to #1?

If you answered Yes to ANY of the above questions, get the new 360 with the new hardware, and the most important part, the 60gb HDD. Why is that important, you say? Because due to the newest firmware update by Microsoft you can now legally install games to your hard drive. That's 4-8 GB (Dual layer DVDs) per disc.

This is fantastic because the console makes virtually no noise and loads games nearly twice as fast while consuming less energy. Now, before visions of piracy dance through anyone's head, you still need to keep the disc in the disc tray in order for the game to verify you own it. So no buy, install, return tricks! The new Hardware also helps prevent RRoD, and even if you do get it, you still have a 3 year warranty with MS specifically for the RRoD.

A 20 GB HDD will only store 2-3 games, where as a 60GB HDD can store up to 10, and have plenty of room for awesome DLC like Braid, Castle Crashers, Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, ect ect ect.

Just some friendly advice to someone who works in the retail division of the industry, and also happens to own one as well :D As for price? Just go where the deals are :D Look at places like Gamestop or Best Buy where they tend to give you free games with the purchase of a console.

[Crispy Dave]

Hi as someone who works for a Video Games Retailer, I am going to suggest NOT getting a refurbished 360. The reason for this is a lot of them are the older models and don't have the new hardware in them, plus the 20GB HDD is going to be too small for reasons which I will touch upon shortly.


Also, there are questions that need to be addressed as to what model you might want:

#1 Are you going to be hooked up to the net with it?
#2 Are you going to be playing online with it?
#3 Do you plan on having a lot of DLC/Extra Maps/ECT downloaded if you answered Yes to #1?

If you answered Yes to ANY of the above questions, get the new 360 with the new hardware, and the most important part, the 60gb HDD. Why is that important, you say? Because due to the newest firmware update by Microsoft you can now legally install games to your hard drive. That's 4-8 GB (Dual layer DVDs) per disc.

This is fantastic because the console makes virtually no noise and loads games nearly twice as fast while consuming less energy. Now, before visions of piracy dance through anyone's head, you still need to keep the disc in the disc tray in order for the game to verify you own it. So no buy, install, return tricks! The new Hardware also helps prevent RRoD, and even if you do get it, you still have a 3 year warranty with MS specifically for the RRoD.

A 20 GB HDD will only store 2-3 games, where as a 60GB HDD can store up to 10, and have plenty of room for awesome DLC like Braid, Castle Crashers, Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, ect ect ect.

Just some friendly advice to someone who works in the retail division of the industry, and also happens to own one as well :D As for price? Just go where the deals are :D Look at places like Gamestop or Best Buy where they tend to give you free games with the purchase of a console.


he defently knows what he is talking about and I secont this.(I only have a 20 gig HD and hate it:smallfurious:)

[Stormthorn]

Don't forget that Circuit City may go under soon, so the warranty may not be worth the paper it's printed on.

One of the major caveats about the refurbished ones, is that you don't know which model you're going to get. You could get one of the original Xbox 360's that may be more inclined to Red Ring (also it could lack a HDMI port). The Xbox has been through 3 different motherboard architectures, so I would personally go with the most recent one, the Jasper.

I tend to buy from game stores or Best Buy.


I have a 360 and feel no need for the other two current gen consoles. Wouldnt mind a ps2 tho.

[Flame of Anor]

What cooling unit do you recommend?

[Joran]

What cooling unit do you recommend?
I don't know how good they are, but so far, keeping it out in the open seems to be doing the trick.

Did you purchase your Xbox?

[Flame of Anor]

I do plan to keep it in the open, and right now I'm leaning towards the upright cooling station, because the separate power is probably a good thing...and it looks cool.

I haven't purchased one yet, but I plan on buying a recertified Elite from unclevic.com (where it only costs $299.99!).

[Joran]

I do plan to keep it in the open, and right now I'm leaning towards the upright cooling station, because the separate power is probably a good thing...and it looks cool.

I haven't purchased one yet, but I plan on buying a recertified Elite from unclevic.com (where it only costs $299.99!).

Okay, a refurbished Elite will probably be a Zephyr. I'd personally go with a Jasper Pro for the same price, but that's just me. You'd lose 60 GB worth of hard drive space, but gain a lot in reliability.

[Crispy Dave]

I agree with the OP. I would get one of the new ones with the 60 Gig HD's. Also you dont want a cooling unit they will void your warranty with Microsoft.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Plus I have no idea on how you can use 120 gigs of space. Really has never seemed worth it to me. I have only a 20 gig, and its not like I don't use it or anything, I have quite a bit on there!

60 should be plenty unless you plan on downloading every Xbox Arcade game ever.

[Flame of Anor]

Okay guys, one two more questions. First, am I really going to need more than 20 gigs? and second, is there a game for Xbox 360 that's similar to MotorStorm? That game alone was cool enough it almost convinced me to buy a PS3... :smallfrown:

[Mc. Lovin']

I don't know what Motor Storm is, so I can't help you there, but on the 20 gigs thing ...

It depends what you want to do with your 360. I tnink you can download full movies on to there, but I always just go out to buy them anyways. There's also a new feature where you can install games to the hard drive, you still need the disk to play, but it gives you quicker loading times, and a *much* quieter 360

It's pretty easy to manage, I only ever have around 2 games on the go (one multiplayer, one singleplayer) which takes up around 12 - 16 gigs, which leaves you 4 for whatever.

So really, if you keep on top of what you do and dont still use, then it's fine to go for the 20gig one.

[JabberwockySupafly]

Okay guys, one two more questions. First, am I really going to need more than 20 gigs? and second, is there a game for Xbox 360 that's similar to MotorStorm? That game alone was cool enough it almost convinced me to buy a PS3... :smallfrown:


For the First Question, it comes down to how many games you plan on installing on your HDD and how much extra content you plan on getting. An Example: I have Dead Space, Fallout 3, Call of Duty: World at War, Infinite Undiscovery (Disc 2), and Oblivion (with KotN & Shivering Isles downloaded), various Arcade Games, and I still have around 12 or so GB left on mine, which is quite a bit.

If you just plan on having one or two games installed at a time, than 20GB is enough, but to give you an example, with Oblivion, the DLC for it is 1.2GB itself. the game is around 6.5GB and the 20GB HDD actually equates to around 16.8GB, because it's 20,000MB, whereas an actual GB is something like 1024MB, plus include the 360 Software in it as well.

So, if you have Oblivion: GotY edition installed, this brings your total down to less than 10GB already. If you plan on putting music or any extras on there, this will drop it even further.

Question The Second: There's... not a lot like MotorStorm out there unfortunately. Closest you'd probably get is something like PURE (http://disney.go.com/disneyinteractivestudios/pure/home.html?fbid=NVOFPEwTMze), if you're interested in just ATVs, but otherwise, yeah, there's nothing quite like MotorStorm which gives you multiple vehicle types to choose from.

I mean, there's MX vs. ATV which is mediocre at best normally, there's Burnout: Revenge & Paradise for cars (Revenge is the better of the two due to Couch Co-Op), and there's PGR4 (Project Gotham Racing 4), which includes motorcycles as well as cars. Most decent driving games (save for PGR4) are multi-platform, like the above-mentioned Burnouts and games like Midnight Club: LA & Racedriver: GRID.

[Flame of Anor]

Hard drive question: Thanks for the reality check. I understand that this means that, with a 20G, I would only have space for a few games installed at a time. Does that mean that I could only play those games, or could I play others, but they'd just be slower? I wouldn't mind having only my few favorite games installed if it just meant that they would be the faster ones, but I really don't want to have to uninstall something if I want to play a new game. Also, I would guess that if I uninstall something, I can leave the saved games intact, but I don't want to assume anything--is that the case?

Racing game question: I'm not picky about vehicles (well, I'd rather not race a school bus, but car/truck/ATV/bike are fine). I just want something where I can race through a cool, varied, outdoor environment. Preferably something where I don't have to do tricks or shoot weapons, though a damage feature is always really cool.

[sheepofoblivion]

In my humble, somewhat misinformed almost fanboy status opinion, I'd really recommend the PS3. According to a reliable source, the PS3 is actually one of the higher quality blu-ray players, this alone attracts quite a bit of attention. However if you want to focus more on games, and less on graphics, the Xbox does have some advantages... mostly the fact that many extremely good games are for the Xbox

Pros:
--It has Halo, despite that not really being that valid of a point, it must be taken into consideration nonetheless...
--Same as stated above... the games available are generally more popular, and so one would expect the console to be held in higher regard as well. (I'm refering to games like oblivion, fallout 3 (is that 360 exclusive?), halo (at the risk of being repetative) and among others, gears of war 2)

Cons:
--As an owner of both, I find the free online play of playstation to be a much needed relief. In a world with increasing prices, surrounded by wow-addicts for friends, I am positively sick of monthly fee's, which are in my opinion a life-sucking-operation-which-is-both-sick-and-twisted.
--Many of the options on the xbox rely on xbox live, this goes hand and hand with the above statement... simply playing online will cost quite a bit in the long run.
--PS3 still has some pretty good games... racing games, METAL GEAR SOLID 4 THE GREATEST GAME EVER, and plenty of other games which will keep you occupied.

There are many other points that I've no doubt neglected, but this is sorta a poke in the PS direction, after having bad experiences with internet arguments in the past.

Another thing is hard drive space... Now many people may have very bad computers, but in case, my computer is an amazing box of limitless storage for games, online play (with just about no extra cost) and wonderful graphics... My computer is actually 7 years old. So it's either really well built, or I just don't get out enough.

Regardless of all of this, choose which one you want more.

(If there are any errors in my post, please feel free/obliged to point them out)

[Flame of Anor]

Oh, I'd never say that a PS3 wouldn't be fun--and I certainly plan on getting one at some point--but I think I'll start with a 360.

[Flame of Anor]

Okay, I've changed my mind, I think I'll get a PlayStation 3 now and maybe get a 360 sometime in the future.

There are various reasons going into this. Some of the main ones are:

-* MotorStorm is ****ing epic.
-* I was misled to believe that there was no online multiplayer for PS3.
-* The PS3 is cheaper than I thought. I found a site that sells them for only $250.
-* The game selection is better than I had been led to believe. For example, Fallout 3, Elder Scrolls, and EndWar are available.
-* PS3's don't RRoD.
-* I have these weird abrupt mind-flips sometimes.
-* Did I mention MotorStorm?

[sheepofoblivion]

MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!! I WIN!!!!!!!!! BOW TO MY GREATNESS!!!!! good choice man, but whatever works out better for you. (Just be careful where you buy it, as it may not really be the most reliable retailing site thing)

[Flame of Anor]

*bows to greatness*

[Trazoi]

-* PS3's don't RRoD.
Just as a note: Xbox 360s are moving to a new chipset (Jasper) that according to reports I've read is a lot more stable (as well as drawing less power, thus running cooler and quieter as well). These newer models probably don't have the RRoD problem to nearly the same extent as earlier models.

Not that that should be as significant a factor as buying the console that plays the games you want, of course. :smallwink:

[Oregano]

Apparently they don't have the problem at all(unless you cause it somehow).

Oh yeah this might be important I've heard that the updates on the PS3 have a tendency to F up consoles, I don't know if it's true but it's worth considering.