I just moved into a new place which has a TV, and I need a DVD player… thinking about an xbox 360, since I’d quite like to get back into console games.
I know I don’t want the one without a hard disk (in part 'cos I want to use it for netflix view instantly).
I see a lot of xbox 360s (pro/premium) with 20GB hard disks and a couple of accessories on ebay … I know there’s a small risk getting it used, but the cheapest one with a HD at walmart is $300. Do these mark a price/performance sweetspot, or should I spend a bit more?
The $300 model has a 60GB harddrive, which is more than plenty for most uses (most of my gamer friends got saddled with a 20GB for being early adopters, and it’s fairly easy to keep game saves and downloads within that limit). The only advantage to getting the Elite ($400) model is the 120 gig drive, the included HDMI cable, and the black finish. With the recent upgrade to 60GB for the Pro, it becomes even less of a worthwhile deal.
Alternately, some retail outlets will have an official Microsoft Refurbished Xbox for $250, which includes most everything a Pro has but with an older 20GB harddrive. It also has the full warranty through MS, which is the best reason not to get a used 360.
There’s a fairly substantial risk in getting a 360 used. They’re prone to dying - which is problematic under warranty if you’re not listed in Microsoft’s database as being the registered owner. There’s also a chance that the box has been banned from being used online. In short, I wouldn’t risk it unless the box was sufficiently cheap that you don’t mind if it dies in a few months.
I believe that all new 360s these days come with HDMI out (but you might like to check that - earlier ones didn’t), but otherwise the basic box is the same. Just work out how much HD space you’re likely to want. If you download movies, want to download a couple of larger games and you want to install games rather than playing them from disc (360s are noisy), you’re going to be bumping up against the 13 GB that the 20 GB drive allows you to use pretty quickly (7 GB is put aside for system use).
I’d agree that a used box is not likely worth it. THere’s a slight risk of RRoD (red ring of death) but a pretty good risk the box has been banned from XBox Live, which is no good. I’d pony up and drop your loot on a shiny new box.
As for storage, I was one of the suckers who went out and got a new 120gig drive when they first came out cause I was butting up against my 20gig limit. THat said, I’ve never used ANYWHERE near my 120 gigs, not even with movies and demos and such. I’d go 60gig, seems the perfect amount for me (though now you just need a netflix account and can do streaming, which might make even the 20gig perfectly fine)
I haven’t gotten an XBox 360 yet but there’s no way I’d touch a used one. Given the fact that among the people that I know with 360’s the failure rate is around 150% (yes, several people with multiple XBox failures) it’s just too much of a gamble for me especially when I couldn’t get a cheap in warranty repair. If it’s the chip solder, which accounts for the majority of the failures, then I know an fix that works fairly often but there’s also things like drive failures. So really I couldn’t recommend staying away from the used ones more strongly.
Now personally I’m waiting for the $150 price point on a system with a hard drive so it’ll be a few more years for me (there’s nothing on the system yet that justifies paying more than that for me). I can wait, however. It’s not like I’m terminally ill and there’s hundreds of games I have yet to play on other systems…
damn, your friends all have terrible luck. Most of my friends, myself included have had their x360s almost since launch (or at least a couple years now) with maybe 1 failure in the entire lot knock on wood
I’m going to point out that using your 360 as your primary DVD player isn’t a great idea. It’s a terrible player, not worth the use on your drive, and you’d be better off spending an extra $30 on a generic player alongside your 360.
If you’re getting a new one it’s probably worth it to make sure you get one that uses the new Jasper motherboard, as those are supposedly less prone to the RROD problem. You can tell which motherboard the console has by looking at the barcode. Look for one that has 12.1V V listed next to the 12V rail. For more details, check out
I’m not sure what the current status is, but a couple months ago it seemed that only Arcade versions were being shipped with Jasper. That might be different now though.
I have to disagree with this. Those $30 players are worth even less than you spend on them (Used to have one in the living room and still have one in my exercise room). We switched over to the Xbox player and haven’t had any problems. (I won’t say it’s better than a more expensive DVD player, but it’s far superior to a cheap model).
