With the recent price drops, I’m considering getting a 360, but I do have a few inqueries before I do.
[ul]
[li]Is there any difference at all between the Pro and the Elite, other than the larger hard drive on the Elite?[/li]
[li]Would I ever really need a 120 GB hard drive? [/li]
[li]What’s the deal with backwards compatibility? I remember reading years ago that only certain games would be backwards compatible, since they had to be individually “programmed” into the firmware or some such. Is this the case?[/li]
[li]Do the achievements do anything? I know each one gives a certain amount of “points,” but are those used for anything other than bragging rights, or can you “redeem” them for downloads or something?[/li]
[li]I have a Netflix account, and I know it can stream to 360, but does it cost extra, or is it considered the same as streaming to my PC?[/li]
[li]I can just use a regular HDMI cable, right? For video and audio?[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Is there any difference at all between the Pro and the Elite, other than the larger hard drive on the Elite?[/li]Now? No - no difference. The Elite used to be the only one with an HDMI connection, but no more. Make sure you can tell the difference between the types of motherboards if you want the more dependable version.
[li]Would I ever really need a 120 GB hard drive? [/li]Not if you have an internet connection. A lot of people put media on their HD which takes up space. Others just connect to their media using Windows Media.
[li]What’s the deal with backwards compatibility? I remember reading years ago that only certain games would be backwards compatible, since they had to be individually “programmed” into the firmware or some such. Is this the case?[/li]List of Xbox games compatible with Xbox 360 - Wikipedia
[li]Do the achievements do anything? I know each one gives a certain amount of “points,” but are those used for anything other than bragging rights, or can you “redeem” them for downloads or something?[/li]They don’t do anything other than allow you to brag. And feed your achievement addiction.
[li]I have a Netflix account, and I know it can stream to 360, but does it cost extra, or is it considered the same as streaming to my PC?[/li]You have to have a Gold Live membership to stream to the 360 (~$35/year).
[li]I can just use a regular HDMI cable, right? For video and audio?[/li]Yup.
[/ul]
The Elite has the aility to do HDMI with optical Audio (with a separate cable)
120 GB hard drive would be useful if you want to download a lot of games, HD movies or other content (like a lot of rock band songs) - however a 60GB would hold most people over just fine (or even a 20 if you don’t do a lot of videos)
The hard drive is useful, and extends the life of your console. The 360 has a feature that lets you download your games to your hard drive, and play them from the hard drive instead of the cd. Your disc tray doesn’t have to spin (but the system checks to make sure the disc is inside before it lets you play) which cuts down on noise and reduces the amount of stress put on the disc reader. It probably reduces the amount of heat generated and power used by the machine, too. A better egghead than myself will have to confirm that last bit.
Having the space to download games also gives you the freedom to escape a few instances of games that consistently freeze up on you for whatever reason.
Fable II and Portal both used to freeze up on me mere seconds after beginning a game. Downloading them to my harddrive fixed that problem no questions asked.
Older Elites (which may still be in stock at some retailers if they had a lot of back stock) included an HDMI cable, pro does not, but it supports HDMI if you buy your own.
Newer Elites include only composite cables in the box. Pro has composite and component on a single set of cables which also include optical audio out. Old Elites also had this cable in addition to the HDMI cable, but MS has removed it [del]so you have to buy another cable to play in HD[/del] to provide flexibility to their customers.
In case you wonder what BurnMeUp and Munch were disagreeing on, the connector on MS’s composite/component/optical cable is too big, so it blocks the HDMI port. Many people think this means you need MS’s overpriced HDMI cable (with a special adapter included) to get both HDMI and optical, but in reality you can also either break off the casing from the MS cable (the guts aren’t that big and work without the casing) or buy a third party composite cable with optical out (third party cables use a more reasonably sized connector).
Direct-download games take up usually 2–4 GB of space, patches and add-on content can run a GB or so, you can elect to save some of your games on disk for performance reasons, Live Arcade games also take up space ,though usually less than a GB. Those things add up even if you don’t keep any videos around.