I sold my dusty wii, and am looking to get a 360 now. I'll most likely be buying the Arcade version, as my brother has a spare 20gb I can have, and I have a spare hdmi cable to use. So I'm only missing out on the headset, which I saw on Amazon for like $7 (unless that's a crappy one?).
All of this considered, would it be worth it at all to get the pro version? I don't plan on going nuts with downloadable games and won't be using it for movies or anything. Is the installation of games really worth the extra cost? I will probably only be playing a couple of games at a time on it since I'll likely still play multi-platform games on my PS3. So being able to install a game or two, if I felt the need to do so, would probably be enough. Anyways, here are a few more questions.
1. What are the wireless options? My brother bought the official adapter for $100 a while ago, which seems like a complete rip off to me, so I was hoping there were other options.
2. I bought a few games online when I had borrowed my brothers 360 a while ago. Is there any way to transfer them off his account and onto my account or 360?
3. I have a save file on my brothers 360 for Bioshock that I would like to resume. How would I go about getting this save?
4. Besides playing games online, wha t do you miss out on if you don't have a gold account? I'll likely be subscribing after Christmas, but am wondering if I can still hop on live to buy games and download demos and updates until then.
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Personally I don't think I could ever go back to wired controllers that come with the Arcade.
Well, to answer one question, #2, Yes, you can transfer you stuff over, IF they were bought under your account and not his.
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Don't know the answer to 1, but I know that on 2 there's no way to get those games, unless your brother gives you his XBOX live ID to use forever. The games are the property of the ID, and the individual console, not the person who bought them and there is no way to transfer them. With regard to 3 it's possible that your brother could stick the save on a memory card and bring it to your 360 so you could play it, however I think that you aren't allowed to earn achievement points if you do that.
Not having a gold account sometimes makes you have to wait a bit longer for game demos, and you also can't do the netflix through your 360 thing.
On 2, not really.
On 3, you SHOULD be able to copy it to a memory card.
On 4, some DLC and demos are available for Gold members before Silver members.
The Arcade does not have a wired controller, at least not as of a few months ago.
How techy are you? Howtos like this explain how to make a home router into a wireless bridge for ~$40.
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Techy enough to save $60, that's for damn sure.
Can you use the 360 headset with a computer, or is it 360 only?
360 only.
To my knowledge, right now there's the Arcade, Pro, and Elite.
The Arcade is the cheapest and simplest. It's got a 256 MB memory card, sometimes a game, a single wireless controller, and a basic AV cable.
Then there's the Pro. 60 gig hard drive, sometimes some games, and a component+composite cable are the major differences.
The Elite has the biggest hard drive at 120(if memory serves), is black, and I believe comes with an HDMI cable.
They all have the same basic abilities, and all have HDMI ports. You can slap a 60 or 120 gig hard drive onto an Arcade just fine, so you aren't 'locked in' to anything.
Hmm. Thanks.
I see that the Arcade sells for about 200 dollars.
The Pro sells for 250.
An Elite of 500.
There is also a 60gig model I guess?
I don't know if the Arcade has a port for HDMI cable support; you might want to check that.
For wireless, at my store we have this weird Logitech(?) accessory that looks like a pair of speakers, but what it actually is is a wireless transmitter/receiver that you plug a cat-5 into on the separate ends of your networks. One of the boxes will hook up to a router, and the other to the 360. Seemed to work pretty well for the guy I was playing with, and they were 29.99 if I recall correctly.
2. I don't think so.
3. Memory card.
4. Demos are generally gold-exclusive for a week or two (I think). You can still buy games though.
All 360s have HDMI 1.2 now. This was the one thing I liked when my Xenon model died under my Gamestop warranty.
When you get your Arcade, before you do anything else, put your profile and all saves you can from your brother's machine onto your memory card. Then, pop it into your Arcade along with the spare HDD and do the first-start setup. Format your hard drive. Transfer everything over from the memory card (except your profile, if you want - I keep mine on my MU because it makes it easy to be 'me' on other consoles). Then log in under your Live profile and update the console to the latest version of the Dashboard.
Then, go to xbox.com/drm and log in. Transfer everything to your new console. This disassociates the licence from your brother's console for all the content you bought.
Then, go to Account Management and view your purchase history (either on your Xbox or at http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/myAccount/PurchaseHistory.aspx) and redownload everything you want. The act of redownloading reassociates the licence with your new console, which means that you can play them offline. If you didn't do the first step at xbox.com/drm then you would only be able to play them while signed in to Live.
I think that's it. Just remember that you can only have six downloads going at a time.
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I'd say it's worth it!
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Should I get an extended warranty from the store (likely EB Games) or does microsoft cover everything pretty well because of the red ring fiasco?
As far as I know, save files are tied to gamertags. So there will be no way to play that Bioshock save unless you also transfer over your brother's tag, and you'll only be able to play while signed in under that tag.
And as far as warranties, I think the current standard warranty is 1 year, plus 3 years for any red ring issues. The majority, but not all, of the problems you'll have on a 360 are red ring issues. The exception is something like a disc drive failure. Even then, you can go the sketchy route and purposely try to get your console to red ring after it's already broken.
Depends. I got it on my 360 and I've gotten it replaced twice. Once for red ring, and another for a DRE I was getting. Each time kept me from paying $150 for Microsoft to fix it (the red ring is free, for 3 years, but everything else is one year). I am completely happy buying the Best Buy warranty because I went into the store, swapped out my old box for a new one (swapped HDDs too) and then walked out of there in two minutes tops.
That was worth $59.
What sucks though, is that after the update there isn't any room on the memory card to download any games. Should have bought a game instead of a points card. To blockbuster i guess.
When I get the hard drive next week how do i get my profile and updates onto it? Just format the hard drive and start from scratch, then format the memory card? Or can I just transfer everyone off the memory card onto the hard drive?
Also, if I put my memory card in my brothers 360 can i log into my profile instead being a guest account while we play together?
If they're talking about alternating purchases, I imagine he has his own profile.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!