The Xbox 360 is currently the #2 best selling “next generation” (guess this should be the NOW generation) video game system, second only to the Wii from Nintendo.
For your money, if you are purchasing a system where you wish to play nearly all the great games from this generation and HD movie viewing via Blu Ray isn’t on your to-do list, this is the system to buy. Dollar for dollar, compared to the PS3, you are saving a ton of money while still being able to play most all of the must haves. The only must have games that you will be missing out on are the PS3 exclusives, not many of which exist (in my opinion only).
The controller has a great feel and with a rechargeable battery, play time wirelessly is quite extensive. The only issue I have with the controller is that it doesn’t come with the rechargeable battery in the box. With regular AA batteries play time is roughly 4-6 hours from my experience. You can get 3-5 times this with the rechargeable pack.
The expanded hard drive space, compared to the previous Pro model 360, is 3x as large. One thing to keep in mind, this system comes with some games and videos on the drive, so when you first start the system you will have about 45 gigs of space, despite it being a 60 GB drive. Removing this content will get you up to about 52 gigs of space. The other 8 gigs, as with the previous 20 gig system, is taken up with the system software and data cache. Getting more than 52 gigs is difficult at best.
That being said, for most gamers, this will be more than enough space. You will be able to save a ton of saved games and still have room for demos, movies and so on that you may want. If you are one of those people that likes to watch all kinds of digital content, then you may want to opt to purchase the Elite system for the 160 gig drive which should be more than enough for most of the content you may wish to watch. You can also plug in external hard drives and USB devices (USB memory sticks) in and watch content from there. You CANNOT save games or game content to an external drive.
System differences:
Arcade – 256 MB internal storage only, no hard drive, HAS HDMI output capability but HDMI cable is not included nor is the network cable. Standard Xbox AV cable is included (can do 1080p via component)
Pro – 60 GB hard drive, HAS HDMI output capability but HDMI is not included, network cable included. Standard Xbox AV cable is included (can do 1080p via component)
Elite – 120 GB hard drive, has HDMI cable and standard Xbox AV cable included.
FOR THOSE WITH OPTICAL AUDIO CONNECTIONS -
You may want to opt for the Elite if you use optical audio and want to use HDMI out. Microsoft has engineered the back of the system so that if you use the HDMI out option, the standard AV cable cannot be plugged in, which means you can’t use optical output any longer. The ONLY way around this is to either hack your AV cable or purchase the over priced Xbox 360 HDMI AV pack. The cost is ~$50 and for only ~$50 more, if you purchase the Pro system, you can purchase the Elite with the larger hard drive instead.
Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones, included in this holiday bundle, currently sell for about $80 retail. That means you are getting an $80 value with this bundle for free. Whether you’ll actually play the games or not, well that’s a different story. If you wish to trade these games in at say, that popular haven for stolen systems and games, you’re likely to only see an extremely limited amount of this $80 value given that this is 2 games in a single case that they know you are getting for “free” with your system.
Over all I enjoy the X-Box 360′s games. Some must haves for my money would be:
Mass Effect
Gears of War 1 and 2
Halo 3
Call of Duty 4
Fallout 3
For those that think their system is too loud and too hot, the latest update to the X-Box 360′s system software, the “New Xbox Experience” as it is called, you can copy games directly to the hard drive. You still need the game disc in the drive to start play, but the game runs entirely off the hard drive, which means the DVD-ROM barely spins up, making for a much quieter, much cooler (temperature wise) 360 experience. The only problem is that at ~8 GBs a disc, the 60 GB drive will tend to only allow 4-8 games to be installed this way. I install the games I’m playing the most to the hard drive and will delete them once I purchase games that take over from what I’m currently playing.
In the end, which system you buy comes down to one thing: what do you wish to do with your system?
If you wish to play games with people sitting with you physically in your house, the Wii may be the way to go (if only it weren’t for all those party games)
If you wish to play all the latest games over the Internet with friends, pick up the 360.
If you wish to play some games but want to have the ability to watch movies in HD on discs, pick up the PS3.
Or, get the best of all worlds and buy all three.
