As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Where can I buy an Xbox 360 cheapest?
Ein
CaliforniaRegistered User regular
CaliforniaRegistered User regular
So my fiance has expressed a reasonable interest in video gaming, which I am more than enthusiastic to encourage. Over the past few months, she's taken a shine to Viva Pinata. Since we are not able to live together currently, she doesn't have access to an xbox regularly, and uses mine when she's around.
Her birthday is coming up, and I wanted to get her an xbox of her own to play Viva Pinata and its sequel with. However, it's been ages since I paid the console market any attention, as I'm primarily a PC gamer. I don't have the slightest clue about the different Xbox models anymore, and I have no idea what would be good for her or where to get it.
I assume whatever I get her will need to have some sort of hard drive capacity, but with that said I doubt she'll be the 'hardcore-gaming xbox-live' type. She'll probably use it for cute/fun games like, well, Viva Pinata.
I'm hoping someone can give me some pointers to picking up an affordable Xbox for her that will suit her needs, as I have no idea where to buy from. A quick search on google turns up plenty of sites that seem to have the console for cheap, but they look dubious at best.
Her birthday is coming up, and I wanted to get her an xbox of her own to play Viva Pinata and its sequel with. However, it's been ages since I paid the console market any attention, as I'm primarily a PC gamer. I don't have the slightest clue about the different Xbox models anymore, and I have no idea what would be good for her or where to get it.
I assume whatever I get her will need to have some sort of hard drive capacity, but with that said I doubt she'll be the 'hardcore-gaming xbox-live' type. She'll probably use it for cute/fun games like, well, Viva Pinata.
I'm hoping someone can give me some pointers to picking up an affordable Xbox for her that will suit her needs, as I have no idea where to buy from. A quick search on google turns up plenty of sites that seem to have the console for cheap, but they look dubious at best.
Ein on
0
Posts
Will she be using this on an HDTV or SDTV? If HDTV, add the cost of cables. Will she have this connected to Live? If so, can she plug a cable into the back or it, or does it need to be wireless? That also adds to the cost (though you can get a solution much cheaper than the official $100 Microsoft one). Will she be downloading a lot of DLC for the games she owns, or downloading demos for retail games, or many arcade games?
If she wants it online, and can plug a cable, but doesn't need any more space than to hold some save games and a couple arcade titles, I would go with the Arcade unit. You could still pick that up, and just find a cheap 20GB HDD somewhere. Look around for deals at retail stores, many times there will be a free game or controller, or even a gift card with the purchase of a system.
EDIT: This is going with the surefire retail method. You'd be covered by warranty as well. I wouldn't trust refurbished or ebay systems.
From the bottom up:
Yes, I wanted to avoid ebay or refurbished systems, as I'm well aware of the technical SNAFUs 360s run into from time to time.
I seriously doubt she'll take it online, ever. Her house only recently has internet that isn't dial-up, and she's just not predisposed to that sort of thing. The most the hard drive will really need is space for game saves and whatever else the xbox needs to fundamentally operate.
I've got all the cables in the universe to hook the Xbox up for her. She's going to be using her PC monitor, because she has a crappy SDTV and games like viva pinata are unreadable on it. I've already got the components to set that up for her.
The Arcade unit sounds workable. Are the games included, or are they things she'd have to get/redeem from Live? Is 256MB enough to keep her up and running in terms of game saves? If I buy her a hard drive for it, does it have to be an xbox-specific device, or can the console use other HDDs? I consider $200-ish to be reasonable, but I'm just exploring my options.
It has to be an xbox-specific hard drive (there's a proprietary connector), and the prices for them are much higher than what you'd pay for the same capacity in a generic hard drive. Microsoft was offering refurb 20GB hard drives for cheap to upgrade arcade consoles to NXE, but I can't find the details on it anymore so I don't know if the offer is still good.
To hook up to a monitor, you mentioned you already have it covered - keep in mind that there are official Xbox 360 VGA cables which work perfectly. I can vouch for the MS branded one, though I know there are cheaper options.
She may not play online, but I recommend having her hook it up to Live with a silver account. You want to have the firmware updates, and game patches downloaded as they become available. There are also a few free games on Live which she can download and play (Yaris, Dash of Destruction, Aegis Wing, and Totemball [need Live camera]).
EDIT: No clue if she uses it, but if she has MSN/Live messenger, you can chat through the Xbox, includes voice and video chat. The You're in the Movies bundle with the Live camera just dropped to $20. I have no idea on the quality of the included game, but it will also allow her to play totemball for free (pretty bad game, but I actually got a fair way into it). Viva Pinata 2 has support for the camera as well. Again, most people will probably advise against it, but it is pretty cheap (and it can be used on computer too).