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Getting a 360 - Need Info
MegaMan001
CRNARochester, MNRegistered User regular
CRNARochester, MNRegistered User regular
I'm about to take the leap into purchasing a 360 because of the metric fuckton of games that appeal to me. It takes me a long time to finally convince myself to get a new system, so I'd like to do it right. I just had a few questions I was hoping to have answered.
1. Is there any serious reason to get the 360 Elite over the regular 360? Is hard drive space really a premium?
2. Is a high-definition TV pretty much a requisite to really enjoy the experience?
1. Is there any serious reason to get the 360 Elite over the regular 360? Is hard drive space really a premium?
2. Is a high-definition TV pretty much a requisite to really enjoy the experience?
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2) I play my Xbox 360 with a decent 27'' standard definition television, with a nice little $60 Logitech 5.1 Surround Sound setup, and I adore it. A high-def television won't hurt, but it's absolutely not necessary for enjoyment of your purchase.
The systems should be quieter, cooler and require less power. They should also be less prone to faults.
Elites have been shown to have better protection against the red ring of death, too. I assume these changes are being folded into the standard 360 production process, though.
I have about a 34inch 4:3 old school standard def telly. Everything looks great.
Obviously if you get a hi-def things will look better.
Satans..... hints.....
Can anyone recommend any good package deals or bundles? Or should I just find a good price on eBay? (new, not used)
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
1. If you have HDMI on your TV and/or your home theater receiver, then HDMI is a reason to get the Elite -- one less cable you have to buy (HDMI cable obviates the need for an optical audio cable which is normally sold separately).
The hard disk that comes with the 360 Premium is 20GB but only 12GB of it is usable for storing your stuff (I guess 8GB is set aside for caching game content or something). A single HD movie on Marketplace is 6.4GB. So, you will never be able to rent two HD movies at the same time. Also, some of the downloadable content is huge -- the map packs for GRAW and GRAW2 are hundreds of MegaBytes each. If you're in a space crunch you can delete content and re-download it later (except Hexic HD!) but I am afraid to do it in case they try to charge me again.
2. I think so -- I can't stand standard def anymore. Some games (such as Dead Rising) have text that some have complained is too small to read in SD. Also if you're gaming in SD, you're at a distinct disadvantage in multiplayer games because your opponent can see the battlefield clearer than you can.
2. i'm a regular old teevee guy too. I am sure and hdtv is great but coming from the ps2 gen straight into this one it looks really nice to me. i dont think it's necessary to a good experience on the box.
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I'll go with the standard. Thanks for the tip of the 65 mm chip, is there anywhere on the package that will declare they are of the 65 mm variety so I know what to look for?
I have a 360 and I found it very loud when I first got it, I hardly notice the noise any more. I don't know how much of a heat/sound reduction you're going to see from going to 65nm. The heat reduction on desktop cpus from process shrinks is marginal at best.
But it saved me like $50, not including another 30-40 dollars of tax I'm sure. That's money I can use on games and accessories.
Speaking of which, which cooler is good and which one was killing xboxen back at launch?
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
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Barring that (but I think it's necessary) at LEAST have a flat-glass TV (Sony WEGA, Panasonic TAU, etc)
Also, the Elite upconverts DVD's over HDMI, so if you want better looking movie and have an HDMI TV, its a good all-in-one solution. I traded my upconverting player to a friend for Dead Rising and some AMC movie passes.
As for the TV, you don't NEED an HDTV, but man does it make life easier. As other mentioned some things are impossible, or very difficult, to read on SD-TV.
In my experience, Gears of War has some text issues, and looked bad on split screen, Test Drive Unlimited's map is almost impossible to figure out because the black dots that represent points when zoomed out are unclear, and the text on other games (like Dead Rising) is harder to read.
I have a 42" Sony Grand Wega HDTV, and everything looks beautiful, I take the system to my girlfriends house sometimes and she has a 30-something inch SDTV, and I might as well be playing the Wii with how different stuff looks.
Many of the 360 games were simply designed around widescreen, and the game experience is not the same without it.
Otherwise, its an AWESOME system, Live is sweet, and there are plenty of good games. For Live Arcade I highly recommend Catan, UNO, Aegis Wing, and Cloning Clyde's. I have a Wii, but it has gone untouched since January, but I play the 360 almost every night, there is just no substitute for Live when you can't have friends over every single night to play the Wii.
I'm on my 3rd 360. Got the 1st last May & it lasted until Thanksgiving iirc. Exchanged and that one lasted until new years. I hope this one is a keeper.
Don't get me wrong, I love the system, but after the 2nd death I seriously looked at my game collection and I was debating just taking the cash and putting it towards something else. I had 2 360 games coming in the mail, though and I figured I might have decent luck with the next replacement.
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A lot of 360 games don't play the same at 4:3 at all, so if you can't pick up a decent HDTV (or even a cheapass CRT EDTV just so you'll at least have 480p), try to at least find something that is either widescreen, or gives you the option to display a 16:9 image. Mine is a flat glass 24" CRT that only cost me $140 on sale, and this was over a year ago, so a similar model today should be pretty cheap.
The majority of 360 games look pretty impressive even at 480i, so if you don't get a nice TV until sometime down the line, it'll just give you an incentive to replay all of your games at higher resolutions. Be aware of the text or map issues in certain games at SD, like Test Drive and Dead Rising previously mentioned.
If your current TV sucks, but you can't get an HDTV, at least get something with component input(s) and widescreen, and hopefully progressive scan. But a flat screen TV that'll do 720p in the mid-30s inch wise can be had for less than $500, so if you can put up with a crappy picture for a while while you save up, it would probably be worth it.
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Yeah, most problems with SDTV's and games could be solved with an EDTV widescreen since I think the problem is just scaling for non-widescreen formats.
The warranty it comes with is one year, correct?
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Yeah, the extension through Microsoft (for my Elite at least) was 49.50.
So don't get a Best Buy warranty or whatever (at 79.99 or whatever they are), get it right from Microsoft and save yourself some cash and know you are getting it from the source.
The Xbox includes a form to send it to get it, but you can just call them and have them charge your credit card or whatever, thats what I did. Now my warranty runs until June 2010. (1 year standard plus the 2 year extended)
Excellent. That's a good deal.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.