24 replies to this topic

[RickHarrisMaine]

I was about to bite the bullet and send my somewhat ailing Xbox 360 to Microsoft for out of warranty repair when I ran across this deal....

http://www.gamestop....gs/default.aspx

Micosoft wouldn't cut me a better deal than this, so I just traded in my 360 to Gamestop and hopefully this turns out to be a better deal than I would have gotten....At least this way I can use trade credits from Gamestop to make the price a bit better. For me, that turned out to be about $20 out of my pocket.

Just thought I'd share....

[bennybingo]

WOW! That's a great deal. I was planning to pick up a used XBOX for my cousin who lives in FL now, as a means of keeping our gaming tradition alive. I'm gonna get one of these instead.

I also noticed that they had other bundles which came with 2 controllers, Gears 2 and Modern Warfare 2. That might be the best route for me.

Thanks for the heads up!

[wood_jl]

RickHarrisMaine, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 3:56 AM, said:

I was about to bite the bullet and send my somewhat ailing Xbox 360 to Microsoft for out of warranty repair when I ran across this deal....

http://www.gamestop....gs/default.aspx

Micosoft wouldn't cut me a better deal than this, so I just traded in my 360 to Gamestop and hopefully this turns out to be a better deal than I would have gotten....

Will they take non-functioning 360s in for trade, or do they ask if it works, or do they test them or take a person's word for it? I figure they're going to want a working one for resale, but since they're in the business of refurbished stuff, I suppose they could make a broken one work, eventually, so it'd be worth something to them.

RickHarrisMaine, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 3:56 AM, said:

At least this way I can use trade credits from Gamestop to make the price a bit better. For me, that turned out to be about $20 out of my pocket.

$20 for effective repair sounds pretty cheap!
I was not aware that trade-in credits could be used online, which is cool.

I just wonder what the stuff you get will look like, and what "Refurbished" means, exactly. Do they disassemble the controllers and wash the funk off the parts?

If you don't happen to own a Wireless adapter already (and need one), the price of the the adapter makes this much less-attractive, however. (relative to a used "slim" I suppose).

Edited by wood_jl, Wed Jul 6, 2011 4:38 AM.

[MCHufnagel]

I read somewhere that these units are leftovers from MS's RROD warranty program. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but since they are refurbished by MS it might be true. I don't know where the extras (HDD, controllers, etc.) come from though. Maybe from trade-ins? My current unit was from that program and it's now two years old and hasn't had any problems. But I think it would be worth it to have as a back-up/second console.

[Mendon]

MCHufnagel, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 6:30 AM, said:

I read somewhere that these units are leftovers from MS's RROD warranty program. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but since they are refurbished by MS it might be true. I don't know where the extras (HDD, controllers, etc.) come from though. Maybe from trade-ins? My current unit was from that program and it's now two years old and hasn't had any problems. But I think it would be worth it to have as a back-up/second console.

Are these actually refurbished my MS?

Reason I ask is because a couple years ago I witnessed a Gamestop clerk taking a 360 in on trade and immediately wrapping all the cords neatly and putting everything in a GS box labeled as "Clean and Refurbished System". When I asked the clerk if that system was available for purchase, I was told "Yes".

Maybe the clerk misspoke and that console was actually sent somewhere for refurbishing or maybe it was sold to the next customer who wanted one...... it was enough to make me totally distrust Gamestop and was one of several reasons I stopped shopping there years ago.

Hopefully, these "refurbished" $99 consoles give years of service.


Mendon

Edited by Mendon, Wed Jul 6, 2011 8:34 AM.

[MCHufnagel]

Mendon, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 8:31 AM, said:

MCHufnagel, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 6:30 AM, said:

I read somewhere that these units are leftovers from MS's RROD warranty program. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but since they are refurbished by MS it might be true. I don't know where the extras (HDD, controllers, etc.) come from though. Maybe from trade-ins? My current unit was from that program and it's now two years old and hasn't had any problems. But I think it would be worth it to have as a back-up/second console.

Are these actually refurbished my MS?

Reason I ask is because a couple years ago I witnessed a Gamestop clerk taking a 360 in on trade and immediately wrapping all the cords neatly and putting everything in a GS box labeled as "Clean and Refurbished System". When I asked the clerk if that system was available for purchase, I was told "Yes".

Maybe the clerk misspoke and that console was actually sent somewhere for refurbishing or maybe it was sold to the next customer who wanted one...... it was enough to make me totally distrust Gamestop and was one of several reasons I stopped shopping there years ago.

Hopefully, these "refurbished" $99 consoles give years of service.


Mendon

Since they are only available online and do state that they are MS refurbished consoles, I think they probably are. Gamestop probably bought them from MS and ship them out from one warehouse. Cheaper than shipping to and distributling them from local stores. At least they aren't the nasty trade-ins that the local stores have on hand.

[NightSprinter]

Yeah, and now that the 360 supports using flash drives for storage of profiles and games/data this would effectively give me a 360 with 36GB of storage from the start.

[Rex Dart]

NightSprinter, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 9:24 AM, said:

Yeah, and now that the 360 supports using flash drives for storage of profiles and games/data this would effectively give me a 360 with 36GB of storage from the start.

Yeah, that's handy as hell. I have a the same deal. 20GB Xbox HDD on top, 16GB flash drive the size of your thumbnail in the back.

[ATARI7800fan]

Rex Dart, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 9:33 AM, said:

NightSprinter, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 9:24 AM, said:

Yeah, and now that the 360 supports using flash drives for storage of profiles and games/data this would effectively give me a 360 with 36GB of storage from the start.

Yeah, that's handy as hell. I have a the same deal. 20GB Xbox HDD on top, 16GB flash drive the size of your thumbnail in the back.

Really, I never knew that, would defiantly help with only have a 20GB Xbox HDD. how do you set it up to use flash drives for game saves/data and profile, is it automatic or do you need to set it up. Can you download games onto a flash drive. How does it work.

[Rex Dart]

Pretty simple. I don't remember the exact process, but I believe you just slap the USB drive into the 360, go to the Memory Management section of the system settings, and choose to format it for the Xbox. It does format it fully or partially (your choice) as xfat or fatx or some caca, so that portion of it will be normally inaccessible by your computer (without special software).

Yeah, you can save games to it.

[Mendon]

Since you are talking about USB drives, how do you put your Gamer Tag on a USB drive/memory card so that you can use your account on another Xbox without having to recover your account on each system every time?

I've never done this before but heard about it and thought I might give it a try for when I go to a friends house.


Mendon

[HuckleCat]

Mendon, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 8:31 AM, said:

Are these actually refurbished my MS?

Reason I ask is because a couple years ago I witnessed a Gamestop clerk taking a 360 in on trade and immediately wrapping all the cords neatly and putting everything in a GS box labeled as "Clean and Refurbished System". When I asked the clerk if that system was available for purchase, I was told "Yes".

Here's how that works - If they get a used system and it looks worn/used, like has scratches or otherwise looks like it's seen a few years of use, then they sell it as a "used" system. If someone brings in a system and it looks like they took good care of it - no scratches, no yellowing or discoloring, etc, then they sell it as "refurbished". It's an underhanded way to make an extra 10-15 bucks off the better-looking used systems.

[MCHufnagel]

HuckleCat, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 1:34 PM, said:

Mendon, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 8:31 AM, said:

Are these actually refurbished my MS?

Reason I ask is because a couple years ago I witnessed a Gamestop clerk taking a 360 in on trade and immediately wrapping all the cords neatly and putting everything in a GS box labeled as "Clean and Refurbished System". When I asked the clerk if that system was available for purchase, I was told "Yes".

Here's how that works - If they get a used system and it looks worn/used, like has scratches or otherwise looks like it's seen a few years of use, then they sell it as a "used" system. If someone brings in a system and it looks like they took good care of it - no scratches, no yellowing or discoloring, etc, then they sell it as "refurbished". It's an underhanded way to make an extra 10-15 bucks off the better-looking used systems.

Hey, I don't trust Gamestop either. But I have to call bullshit on this statement. If you go to the Gamestop site, you'll see that the Gamestop "refurbished" models that are available in-store cost $50 more, don't have a hdd, headset or ethernet cable and have a wired controller.

[cparsley]

I don't know if I trust these came from MS... As MS is still having people with the error so they want to keep that stock on hand themselves... The deal however, does look "tempting" at least...

[toptenmaterial]

I am skeptical of how thorough Game Stop's refurbs are, I had some issues with the disk drive on my original old Xbox, which was a refurb.

I am a little interested in that $700 PC setup with new Xbox 360 deal I've seen in some stores, though.

Edited by toptenmaterial, Wed Jul 6, 2011 2:58 PM.

[RickHarrisMaine]

To answer a few questions....

the console came in the mail today. It is indeed a Microsoft-refurbished system, with a new "manufacture date" on the back. Mine's an old Xbox 360 arcade, with a 20 GB HDD (I'm going to use my 250 GB that I had on my other system), with a 203W power supply. It looks brand-spanking new. And the controller is a black one too.....

Gamestop does take in non-working units for trade, and for the next couple of days, is offering an extra $25 trade in value for the 360. this would make a non-working 360 have a $50 trade-in value. Makes it a pretty cheap way to go in my book.

so far so good. it played Halo: Reach right from the outset, and my old one didn't do that! It stopped being able to play that in January for some reason. Never could play Borderlands, or COD Modern Warfare 2.

90 days of warranty on it. this is precisely what I would have gotten if I had just sent my machine to Microsoft for refurbishing.....

[Mendon]

That's good info to know, Rick. Thanks for posting your experience!!


Mendon

[Taskmaster99]

not a bad deal at all. My wife has my old 20 gig that was fixed by MS but this would be a good back up if it went down again. I say hers becuz i dont see my slim dying anytime soon.

[NightSprinter]

Mendon, in the memory management all you have to do is select your Live profile and opt to either copy or move to the reformatted flash drive. I find it quite useful, as it would eliminate the need to constantly have to recover your gamertag all the time.

[RickHarrisMaine]

Okay, I've gone and done the live update, set up my Kinect, and tried out some games. all work flawlessly. My COD Modern Warfare 2 and Halo: Reach are playable again....

It's a xenon system for sure, which I believe is the launch model, and it's an Xbox 360 core from what I can tell. the 203W power supply and the white dvd drive tray and lack of HDMI (which I don't need anyways) are a dead giveaway.

It's not a bad deal in the long run. two years ago, I bought a 360 Pro on craigslist for $100 with the profits from the sale of a rare NES game I picked up at a flea market for $4. That worked fine for two years, then got a bit on the buggy side, so I find this deal, trade in my 360 at Gamestop, got $70 trade credit, and put that towards this machine. So total, I've got less than $40 involved in my Xbox 360, and I got my Kinect on ebay for $94.....oh, and my 250GB HDD from circuitcity.com for $65, which was also brand new.

It's a bit on the loud side, but my old one was too. Otherwise, so far I'm happy with it all.

[cimerians]

NightSprinter, on Wed Jul 6, 2011 7:44 PM, said:

Mendon, in the memory management all you have to do is select your Live profile and opt to either copy or move to the reformatted flash drive. I find it quite useful, as it would eliminate the need to constantly have to recover your gamertag all the time.

Right, just copy it to a USB stick. I use it to play on my other Xbox I have in an adjacent room. My main Xbox is in the living room on a bigger TV. Very handy. I think cloud saving is coming soon like the PS3 and thats also very cool but Im not sure how it will work with gamertags. I'm hoping we can save our gamertags on their cloud and then just point to it on the other Xbox and login. Then we dont need USB sticks anymore unless they are really stingy with cloud storage space. Which they probably will be.

[Mendon]

Thanks for the info, Nightsprinter and Cimerians!! Much appreciated!!

I'll give it a shot when I get home tonight.


Mendon

[NightSprinter]

Hey, always glad to help. Just keep in mind, for flash drives on the 360 there are two things to be aware of: maximum capacity of 16GB, and the device needs to be capable of sustaining a certain read/write speed at minimum (not sure what it is) to be considered usable for the 360.

[Rex Dart]

Yeah, I know my 360 complained about the speed of my USB drive... it's actually a class 4 SDHC card stuffed in a tiny reader... but it works fine, and it's faster than an optical disc any day.

[NightSprinter]

That's one of the things people loved about using flash drives: at slowest it reads as fast as the optical drive and at fastest it works as fast as the harddrive itself.