I’m being lured into Xbox 360-ville by a combination of low prices and outdated computer hardware (mine, not the 360’s), plus a desire to play Saint’s Row 2. And as much as I hate to give up the mouse, I now face an almost total lack of RPG goodness anymore. Since graphics card makers have decide dto basically pee all over my attempts to find reasonable hardware and even figure out which effin card does what, I am considering an Xbox 360.
Basically, though, does the kind matter? I’m not talking black vs. white here, but is it worth it to go for the high-end version? Does the extra processing come into play?
The “Arcade” lacks a hard drive, so you have limited saving and download capabilities. They all have the same power, but the next tiers just have gigs upon gigs of disk space.
There’s no difference in processing power between the arcade, pro, and elite. It’s all in accessories. The arcade has no hard drive (has 256 MB internal storage to save games), and comes with an SD only cable. The pro comes with a 60 Gb drive, an SD/HD cable, and a headset. The elite adds an HDMI cable, a 120 Gb drive, 2 games, and is a nifty black color. I believe all 3 now support HDMI, they just toss in an HDMI cable (which you could buy yourself for $10 or so) to make it sound better.
The only reason I’d buy an elite is if I thought I’d actually want the 2 games they give you - I don’t think the rest of it is worth the additional cost. If you never plan to download stuff from xbox live, and can live with only a few saved games (they get big quickly), and don’t care about the disk spinning continuously while you play, go arcade. Otherwise go pro. YMMV
It’s actually much more pronounced. The Arcade comes with 256 mb. Harddrives start at 20Gb. Do a little searching on eBay to see if you can’t get a harddrive for less than the cost of the in-store upgrade. There won’t be much of a difference at all between a brand new 20gb HD versus a 4 year old one off of ebay (and sometimes they’ll have games loaded on them).
I’ve got the arcade which has the external 256mb card and I filled it up with saved games after a year (and numerous different Fallout 3 saves). I haven’t noticed any processor issues but I use it only for solo offline play. I also don’t use any DLC. So if you’re like me, then the Arcade is fine.
The black one is the elite one. It may have better features, but is mostly a prestige thing (with “elite” in the name giving it away). I believe all 360’s come with HDMI now, so getting “the best” doesn’t really matter unless you need what the best comes with.
If you’re not concerned about that, at the bare minimum, get one with a hard drive. Every time our group of players plays with someone with the arcade version, it sucks, because they can’t download maps. You can get the arcade if you want and get an HD later though.
I sprang for the one in the middle, xBox 360 Pro they called it at the time. HDD, HDMI, Headset & Silver Live package. Very happy with it. All I needed was to buy an HDMI cable… $4 bucks and some change on eBay.
Get the pro. As stated you don’t need the bells and whistles of the elite but you do want the hard drive. 2 reasons
Don’t have to worry about savegame storage space, gives you the option of DLC.
More importantly, you can save a game to the hard drive. Thereafter it just checks there is a legitimate copy of the game DVD in the machine when you start it up. It then runs from the hard drive. Why is this important? The dirty secret of the 360 is that the disc drive in operation can be appallingly noisy. Certain games especially, Mass effect i’m looking at you.
Their normal prices are the same prices you’ll get at Best Buy, etc., but with free shipping and no up front sales tax. Where are you getting high prices from?
MSRP for the Pro model is $299. The only consoles I could find on Buy.com are the standard new price.
Prices on consoles tend to stay relative immobile, because for both retailers and manufacturers, there’s usually little to no profit margin. Most console manufacturers actually lose money each time a system is sold, for most of the system’s lifespan, because the object is to get the console into more households and make money back on licensing fees.
So, barring permanent price drops or crazy overstock sales, it’s extremely rare to find new gaming consoles at a discount.
To the OP: I would vote the Pro model unless you plan on never taking it online. Even downloading basic GUI upgrades and hotfixes for games will take up most of the small memory unit the Arcade comes with, but it’s still a decent starting point, since you can always get the harddrive and the component cables later. The Arcade only comes with composite.
Actually now i think about it, if like me you don’t care about playing on-line or the other bells and whistles. Just get the arcade and buy the hard drive seperatly.
If your planning to use it to watch movies as well you might want a remote also. I’ve found the 360 to be an excellent dvd player, much better than the old xbox was.
Mostly, the prices were high to me because they were charging a lot for crappy games packaged with the elite. Plus, the hard drive that comes with the Pro is more expensive, it seems, that what I can buy online.
Can the Xbox 360 conect to wireless networks? 'Cause I’m not running a cable up to my gaming room.
Edit: Let me explain - how well does this work in practice? Is the wireless router a good investment?