Xbox 360 Fanboy

How does that overpriced console own anything?

I think he might be referring to the fact that you can provide your own drive for use with the PS3.

However, I doubt a 360 + 120GB HDD is any more expensive than a PS3 + Arbitrary User-purchased drive

I've posted on both PS3FB and here a bunch of times about this, but I'll do it real quick again. If you need HDMI, HD movie disc capability, a big hard drive, etc, you're better off with a PS3. Why? An Elite 360 or a HDMI-able Pro + 120 gig HD runs you about 450 - 500, depending on which route you take. If you want to bother with an HD DVD drive (why?), tack on a few extra bucks. And if you want *more* than 120GB, you're out of luck. Alternately, you can get a $500 PS3 and add on any hard drive you want for market price (which, as the article points out, is a hell of a lot less than what MS is charging). If you "need" online mulitplayer, your first year of Live brings the Elite price up to match the 80GB PS3.

Of course, if you don't care about HDD space, HDMI, Live, or HDDVD/Bluray, you can just get a Pro for $350 and save a bunch of money. It's all about your needs.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Morgan: if you really wanted to, you could get a $400 PS3 and add a $47 160 gig hard drive (like this http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=ST9160821AS-R) to make a system that's basically the same price, with 40 gigs more space (and a "free" 40 GB leftover HDD). Of course, to me it would make more sense to get one of the PS3s that has backwards compatibility, but if you already own a PS2 and have the room/TV hookups to use it at the same time, maybe that doesn't matter to you.

Like I said, it's all about what your needs are.

Yeah but people who actually see a difference between HD and non-HD are either fags or don't own a good DVD players to upscale it.

Could somebody PLEASE inform James and the other PS3 fanboys that ALL new 360s come with HDMI... even the Arcade system.

I'm tired of seeing their incorrect assertions posted over and over again. If you're going to compare a system you own to a system you don't you should at least take some care to ensure that you know what you're talking about.

Thank you

The point is that it's a *bad* business plan -- these things do not sell at the current price point. You'd have to be a complete idiot to buy a Core ($300) plus one of these ($180) instead of an Elite ($450), which is basically the same thing (do Cores even have HDMI?) for 30 bucks less. Plus, since they force you to use their custom hardware interface (unlike the PS3 which can use any 2.5" SATA laptop drive), the biggest drive you can get is 120 gigs. That means that when you hit that cap, you have to stop buying their content off XBLM or delete something. Which is another bad business decision.

James, there's one little thing you failed to express when you are explaining the whol 120Gb hard drive vs the PS3's "any size you want" drive. The point is that 120GB can go a lot further on the 360 than the PS3. Why you ask? mandatory installs

@ James:

Cores (Arcade) do not cost $300, it cost $280 and they do have have HDMI and a Wireless controller. It would be a $10 difference buying a core (arcade) + 120gb HD compared to the elite, but the elite is still the way to go because you get a headset and a HDMI cable.

@xJx, thanks for setting me straight. I hadn't followed the price drops, and they don't SAY you get HDMI on the product pages, though at the Gamestop website there's a user comment to that effect that I hadn't noticed.

@DSK, a few games so far have mandatory installs, but not that many, and the biggest ones are ~5 gigs. That's one HD movie from the XBLM. I'm not saying I like it -- my PS3 is an un-upgraded 20GB, so my HDD space kept me from buying the PS3 versions of Devil May Cry 4 and GTA4 -- but if I *do* decide I need more space, my $-per-gig options are a whole lot better than on my old 20GB 360 Pro.

The Arcade (formerly Core) system is identical to the other SKUs in terms of guts, build, etc.. The only difference is cosmetic: The drive bezel is white instead of chrome. Otherwise, yes, it's got the HDMI port and everything else you'd expect to find on any Xbox 360.

For those of us who already had a hard drive, headset, and HDMI cable, the Arcade is a good buy. (honestly, I hate using the headset anyway-- Like I want to hear a bunch of 13-year-olds swearing at me while I kill them in GTA IV.)

I totally agree! I'm NOT paying that much money for 120 GB no matter how "special" (read proprietary) it is, even if I can afford it.

And its NOT a sound business decision by MS because I would be purchasing more movie views on Xbox Live Marketplace if I didn't have to clean house on my 20 GB (only 13 GB free when new!?) every time I want to rent a single HD movie!

Add me to this list. I'd get one if it were reasonably-priced, but as it's a whopping $100 markup over what I can get for ANY other hard drive for any other computer or console, I'm not buying one. If MS wants to move these things, they'll drop the MSRP to something in the area of $100 even.

For now, I can put my non-MS media (movies and music) on an external HDD built from an OEM 2.5" drive and a MacAlly enclosure. As long as I have Handbrake, I don't need to buy movies from the Xbox Marketplace... And as long as MS makes it too expensive and inconvenient for me, I won't.