26 replies to this topic

[PressureCooker2600]

The deal I had going with my brother fell through...........he was too indecisive.....and ultimately I took it as a 'no' and decided to just get a new one.

I'm going to get the Arcade Core Bundle because I don't have the extra cash to blow on the extra fluff. If I ever need to upgrade, I'll just buy add-on shit. Plus, I don't have an HD-TV, so I don't have to worry about that shit, either.

My main reason for breaking down to buy one is Fallout 3. It's coming out soon and I have high hopes. The first 2 were my favorite RPGs of all-time. This one will hopefully follow closely in their footsteps. The previews are great so far.

I've heard Microsoft sells used consoles as new. Is that all just a buncha BS or is there any truth to it?

[godslabrat]

PressureCooker2600, on Sat May 24, 2008 2:37 PM, said:

I've heard Microsoft sells used consoles as new. Is that all just a buncha BS or is there any truth to it?

I'd find that very hard to believe. They've had more than enough bad PR about the RRoD issue, the last thing MS wants is to get caught in out-and-out fraud. They might be selling refurbished units out of some outlets, but those would be clearly labeled as such.

[Random Terrain]

Is that the one without the hard drive? If so, I thought most games sucked without it?

[JamesD]

PressureCooker2600, on Sat May 24, 2008 1:37 PM, said:

The deal I had going with my brother fell through...........he was too indecisive.....and ultimately I took it as a 'no' and decided to just get a new one.

I'm going to get the Arcade Core Bundle because I don't have the extra cash to blow on the extra fluff. If I ever need to upgrade, I'll just buy add-on shit. Plus, I don't have an HD-TV, so I don't have to worry about that shit, either.

My main reason for breaking down to buy one is Fallout 3. It's coming out soon and I have high hopes. The first 2 were my favorite RPGs of all-time. This one will hopefully follow closely in their footsteps. The previews are great so far.

I've heard Microsoft sells used consoles as new. Is that all just a buncha BS or is there any truth to it?

CompUSA and some other places sell refurbished units. They can't sell refurbs as new without getting into trouble but as long as they call them refurbished it's legal.

[PressureCooker2600]

Random Terrain, on Sat May 24, 2008 3:11 PM, said:

Is that the one without the hard drive? If so, I thought most games sucked without it?

It comes with a 256? MB memory card. It's good for saving your 'save games' and all.

The hard drive is for videos, downloadable maps, downloadable arcade games, etc.

As long as I can save my games, I'm fine.

[Random Terrain]

PressureCooker2600, on Sat May 24, 2008 4:27 PM, said:

Random Terrain, on Sat May 24, 2008 3:11 PM, said:

Is that the one without the hard drive? If so, I thought most games sucked without it?

It comes with a 256? MB memory card. It's good for saving your 'save games' and all.

The hard drive is for videos, downloadable maps, downloadable arcade games, etc.

As long as I can save my games, I'm fine.

Oh, I thought when I was drooling over Oblivion that people said it was better to have a hard drive. I just went searching and although I couldn't find the posts I was looking for, I did find this:

therealred5, on Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:18 PM, said:

Back to the HD / no HD debate...

This is from an Oblivion interview with a developer:

In regards to the loading times, are you able to give us a comparison between the Xbox 360 core, the Xbox 360 with hard drive and the PC?

Load times depend on a wide variety of factors such as the area you’re loading, how much data is cached, and how many assets can be reused from the area you’re leaving. Overall they should be on par with most other 360 titles. That said, an Xbox 360 with a hard drive will in general be about 50% faster loading than the core system. The PC depends a lot on the quality of your hard drive and motherboard interface, but on average, the PC should be at least as fast as a 360 with a hard drive, and probably slightly faster in many situations.

So, an Xbox 360 with a hard drive will load about 50% faster than the core system when playing Oblivion. I wonder if that's true for other games too?

[godslabrat]

Random Terrain, on Sat May 24, 2008 2:56 PM, said:

So, an Xbox 360 with a hard drive will load about 50% faster than the core system when playing Oblivion. I wonder if that's true for other games too?

Being with a month of owning a 360 myself, I can say I sympathize with the OP. I plan to get an Elite model, since I can make use of all the extra goodies right away. (I've got an HD set, I really want the HDD stuff, etc.) However, you know, if an Arcade model just happened to fall in my lap, I certainly wouldn't pass it up. The savings you get with the Elite bundle vs. buying everything separately aren't that drastic, IMO.

Yeah, if money is tight and you can do without a HDD for a while (even if it means slower games at first) go for the Arcade. It gets you up and running, and you can cherry-pick your accessories as your budget allows.

[pmpddytim]

You may want to wait and make sure Fallout wont require the HDD. 360 HDDs are stupid expensive for the amount of GB you get. Its a much better deal to get the system with the HDD only $50 more than the Arcade system I believe.

-T

Edited by pmpddytim, Sat May 24, 2008 5:47 PM.

[godslabrat]

pmpddytim, on Sat May 24, 2008 6:46 PM, said:

You may want to wait and make sure Fallout wont require the HDD. 360 HDDs are stupid expensive for the amount of GB you get. Its a much better deal to get the system with the HDD only $50 more than the Arcade system I believe.

-T

There is a bundle with a 20GB HDD, but I really think that's a waste. You might as well put the money into the good hard drive, that's where the best bang:buck ratio is (even if the cost per gig is higher than for a regular PC drive). If you're skimping, the Arcade bundle is super cheap, giving you room to save up for the big drive.

Arcade or Elite, don't bother with the middle child.

[nonner242]

You will NEED & WANT the hard drive for this game!! Yes it will also run quite faster too! This game is HUGE and will be using EVERYTHING the 360 can muster! Plus the games add ons (which if your a fan will WANT....REALLY BAD)via DL will use up that mem card in a DL or 2! Save your money till it comes out for at least a HDD Xbox..The Elite is worth every penny for the extras plus the better parts it is build with. Just giving you some inside info! FO3 WILL ROCK!

Edited by nonner242, Mon May 26, 2008 6:55 AM.

[PressureCooker2600]

All my fuckin best buds that were prodding me to get a 360 for years.....to play them online...............now have ps3s and practically play them all the time.

so much for that...........

oh well.............ill still have the arcade bundle and get add-ons as needed

[moycon]

PressureCooker2600, on Sun May 25, 2008 11:05 AM, said:

All my fuckin best buds that were prodding me to get a 360 for years.....to play them online...............now have ps3s and practically play them all the time.

With best buds like that you don't need enemies.
I'm suprised any prior 360 owner would prefer playing PS3 online over the Xbox 360.
I have both systems, the PS3 online leaves much to be desired.
Might be time to make some new buds.
Just post your gamertag.

[Random Terrain]

moycon, on Mon May 26, 2008 2:51 AM, said:

I'm surprised any prior 360 owner would prefer playing PS3 online over the Xbox 360.

But the PS3 has umm . . . umm . . . I know! Some PS3s play PS2 games!

[pmpddytim]

Random Terrain, on Mon May 26, 2008 12:16 PM, said:

moycon, on Mon May 26, 2008 2:51 AM, said:

I'm surprised any prior 360 owner would prefer playing PS3 online over the Xbox 360.

But the PS3 has umm . . . umm . . . I know! Some PS3s play PS2 games!

Edit.... Never mind, I won't go there.

Edited by pmpddytim, Mon May 26, 2008 2:28 PM.

[Mendon]

I'm confused.... games on a 360 run faster if you have a hard drive???

I believe games on a PS3 run faster with a hard drive because many games are doing an "install" to the hard drive to speed up load times on the slower Blu-ray drive. But I thought all 360 games, like GTA4 as an example, did no install but ran entirely from the disk, and thus the presense of a hard drive would have no effect on the speed or load time of a 360 game.

I have very little or no technical know-how, so please, someone enlighten me on this "360 games run faster on a Pro/Elite because of the presense of a hard drive" line of reasoning.



Mendon

[Mendon]

nonner242, on Sat May 24, 2008 11:34 PM, said:

You will NEED & WANT the hard drive for this game!! Yes it will also run quite faster too! This game is HUGE and will be using EVERYTHING the 360 can muster! Plus the games add ons (which if your a fan will WANT....REALLY BAD)via DL will use up that mem card in a DL or 2! Save your money till it comes out for at least a HDD Xbox..The Elite is worth every penny for the extras plus the better parts it is build with. Just giving you some inside info! FO3 WILL ROCK!

What better parts and extra's?

I was under the impression that current Pro's and Elites have the exact same parts and ports, and that the only extras included with the Elite was the color, controller charge cable and bigger hard drive.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

And speaking only for myself, unless you are into downloading and storing big amounts of TV shows (movies have a life limit so storage isn't an issue) and videos or storing lots of music files, then the extra HD space of the Elite is a waste of money. I have several demo's and many, many game saves, gamerpic's, themes, DLC's, Arcade games, etc sitting on my HD and still have plenty of space to spare. And if I want music, I use my Ipod.

If you don't download TV shows or store music/videos, then buying the Pro and a charge cable saves you $85, enough for a game or two.


Mendon

[Atari5200]

the only thing I can think of is that the hard drive may be used as extra ram maybe. It doesn't technically install anything, just uses some of the 6gb of hd space you can't touch to load things into, much like a ram drive does, but once you cut the power, everything is erased. So without the HD you have just the system ram to load into and no extra space. I could be wrong though, i'm no expert, but it seems logical to me.

[Mendon]

Atari5200, on Tue May 27, 2008 9:00 AM, said:

the only thing I can think of is that the hard drive may be used as extra ram maybe. It doesn't technically install anything, just uses some of the 6gb of hd space you can't touch to load things into, much like a ram drive does, but once you cut the power, everything is erased. So without the HD you have just the system ram to load into and no extra space. I could be wrong though, i'm no expert, but it seems logical to me.

Sounds reasonable and highly possible, because I know a lot of times you have to clear the "cache" on Oblivion to speed things up and remove glitches, so the game may build a cache on the HD. But... couldn't the memory card, if space is allowed, be used as a cache source also?


Mendon

[Atari5200]

I guess, but the 20gb hard drive has 6gb free space alloted for system use. That's a huge difference in potential space from a 256 card, even compressed.

[Zeptari1]

Atari5200, on Tue May 27, 2008 9:28 AM, said:

I guess, but the 20gb hard drive has 6gb free space alloted for system use. That's a huge difference in potential space from a 256 card, even compressed.

Weird, mine had 10.2 GB free....

never mind I read that wrong.....

system 6GB...... so about 12GB free for user. right?

-rick

[remowilliams]

Mendon, on Tue May 27, 2008 8:43 AM, said:

I'm confused.... games on a 360 run faster if you have a hard drive???

Yes, some do. Probably quite a few actually. There is no 'install' required, the HD is used as a file cache, as it's much faster than DVD access.

Zeptari1, on Tue May 27, 2008 4:05 PM, said:

so about 12GB free for user. right?

On a stock 20GB HD, that's about the right number.

[nonner242]

Mendon, on Tue May 27, 2008 7:56 AM, said:

nonner242, on Sat May 24, 2008 11:34 PM, said:

You will NEED & WANT the hard drive for this game!! Yes it will also run quite faster too! This game is HUGE and will be using EVERYTHING the 360 can muster! Plus the games add ons (which if your a fan will WANT....REALLY BAD)via DL will use up that mem card in a DL or 2! Save your money till it comes out for at least a HDD Xbox..The Elite is worth every penny for the extras plus the better parts it is build with. Just giving you some inside info! FO3 WILL ROCK!

What better parts and extra's?

I was under the impression that current Pro's and Elites have the exact same parts and ports, and that the only extras included with the Elite was the color, controller charge cable and bigger hard drive.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

And speaking only for myself, unless you are into downloading and storing big amounts of TV shows (movies have a life limit so storage isn't an issue) and videos or storing lots of music files, then the extra HD space of the Elite is a waste of money. I have several demo's and many, many game saves, gamerpic's, themes, DLC's, Arcade games, etc sitting on my HD and still have plenty of space to spare. And if I want music, I use my Ipod.

If you don't download TV shows or store music/videos, then buying the Pro and a charge cable saves you $85, enough for a game or two.


Mendon

Better Parts, Such as heavy duty, very quite fans and they rerouted the air flow inside with a tube, keeps it much cooler, Extra Heat sink & sheild, Drives, and the wireless controller the HDMI cable whichs is at least $50 itself, the Black case I dont remember if I got a battery and cable recharge kit with it....And the bigger HDD

And after DL my 60+ Arcade games which I love and my GOW,COD2,3,4 Maps and all my Gamerpics Themes and updates that seem to take to much room up on you hdd ,older Xbox games.....Im happy I dont have the 20gig Not that I need a 120 a 40 or 60 would be fine but you never know what the future will hold...Im ready and dont have to buy anything down the road for awhile. And by the way I do not put music or Movies or DL video on my HDD. All for games and such. Im at 79% free right now.

[pmpddytim]

Quote

the HDMI cable whichs is at least $50 itself,

In a retail store maybe but you can pick the up at newegg.com all day long for less than $20. Mine were both 9.99 shipped for six footers.

-Tim

[Atariboy]

The 20 gig hd fills up quick. I only have around 250 mb's left, the rest is 3 Xbox Originals, 50 or so XBLA releases, game saves, content for games, etc. Besides 1 gig for 1 marketplace video. Especially if you want to play Oblivion, that eats up a ton of hd space if you want the expansions like Shivering Isles.

If you fall in love with XBLA, it might not be enough room a couple years down the road, I thought the same thing at first. Not to mention we might be seeing a lot of larger XBLA releases now that they've relaxed the file size restrictions. 3 XBLA releases have the potential to take a full gig of room now.

Edited by Atariboy, Tue May 27, 2008 6:55 PM.

[PressureCooker2600]

I bought the Arcade Pack. Now to get connected.

Does the Arcade version play older X-Box games after updates? I heard the Arcade version of the 360 doesn't.