Ok so I think I'm finally ready to jump on the the 360 bandwagon; I preordered the Limited Edition of Halo 3 last week and the Halo edition console is coming out in September. But I got a few questions first before I finally spend my tax return money on the system (yes I still haven't spent it). So here goes: 1) Are the issues that plagued the system early on (rings of death, overheating, etc) pretty much a thing of the past? Or do I run just as much of a risk of the console crashing now than if I had bought it a year or so ago? (I do realize they extended the warranty but I would rather the system be more reliable) 2) Is the Elite worth it (see number one) or is it just a Pro with a bigger hard drive but the same bugs? 3) I'd like to get the limited edition Halo 360 (if I can) but of course it only has a 20 gig drive....I probably won't be downloading a lot of demos/videos/games and I doubt I'd be using it to store music. So is 20 gigs enough for basically saving games? I plan on getting one (if I do) around mid-september...and really the biggest concern for me is the reliability of the system.
1. I'm sure it's better than it was a year ago. Prob not a thing of the past just yet, i had mine resting up vertically and mine died after having it a couple months. I read having it laying horizontally is the best route. So thats what I do now 2. IMO the elite isnt worth it, especially if you arent going to be d-loading or storing music. 3. I'd say 20 gigs should be fine hope that helps
the newer ones will be improved, but make sure you don't cram your system in a tight space with no airflow. depends if you download movies and lots of demos. i would say NO. get the Elite cause you get the bigger HD. its nicer, you can rip and save music etc. you'll end up downloading stuff, trust me on this one. Xbox Arcade is awesome. its fine. I have one 2 months after launch. it has occasionally froze up, but mininal amounts of time. the newer systems have much improved heat sinks .
1) Not as bad as before, but still bad. See if the store is offering warranty. That way if something happens you can run to the store and get a quick exchange rather than wait an entire month with Microsoft. Though you'll probably get a refurb because the stores were complaining that giving brand new consoles is costing them too much money. FYI, Microsoft now has a 3yr warranty cause they're finally admitting to the 360 high failure rate. 2) No, unless you gonna keep your demos and other videos available on marketplace. I got 400+ songs on my 360 and still have 8GB remaining. 3)Easily
1) Even if they still do crash a lot, it only takes 1 week to fix, and you get a free month of xbox live
20 gigs is pretty small. With the amount of videos, demos, games, etc that are released each week, I find myself deleting stuff I'd rather keep every week. I'd buy a 120gb drive if they weren't so overpriced.
if all you do is truly *only* save games, then the 20 gig drive is plenty however, as others said it's very easy and interesting to DL demos and videos from the Marketplace
From what understand, not quite. The Elites had basically the same issues as the normal systems, and the new systems with HDMI have the same internals as the Elites IIRC. They've done a few tweaks here and there between the different SKUs and models, but the problems are still mostly there I think. It will probably be less of an issue when they start shipping out systems with 65nm chips, which should be very soon I believe (probably before the year is out). Hmm...the LE Halo 360s might even be the first systems to have them, but that is purely guesswork on my part. As others have said, that should be plenty if you all you do is save games. But yeah, it is REALLY nice to download demos (and other content) and keep them on the HDD, so you'll have to watch yourself there. The only other concern I might have would be if a larger number of games start requiring the HDD, forcing you to install parts of the game on the system. A few PS3 games require multiple GBs when doing this IIRC, so if 360 games do it the same way, that might eat up a lot of HDD space. This would probably be close to a worse case scenario though, and you could probably still work around it without much of an issue.
I may be wrong on this one, but I don't think you'll know unless you open up the system and check for yourself. I'm thinking of getting one myself but probably won't until the new chips come out. (It'll take awhile for me since I live in Canada )
Some people will probably find out that some 360s have the chips, and then you can start searching for 360s with a certain serial number on the box when you go look for one. Of course, if a particular SKU has the chips, you can just order that SKU. Now I just read that they're producing only the CPU at 65nm, and the GPU will still be 90nm in the new models (I thought both would be 65nm). Apparently, the GPU is the biggest source of heat in the 360, so now I'm not sure if this will make as big of a difference as I thought it would. Otherwise, I would have recommended waiting a little longer for these systems to come out.
Rings of death may still happen at a frequent rate. I read all the Madden/NCAA boards right when those games come out. The number of people starting threads about their systems dying was huge. Many of them had JUST gotten the 360 specifically for these games only to have it die that day. Of course they still could have been older units still sitting around on the shelf though.
You can always get a core, and buy the 120gig HDD....the only difference between an elite and other is HDMI outputs...and that is hardly noticable from the component outputs... I have two 360s, one has the 20 gig and the other 120 gig....both core systems and wireless controllers purchased seperatly. DD
A Core and a 120GB HDD is more expensive than an Elite I believe, so he would probably be better off just getting an Elite if he wants 120GB of storage.
Actually only the Core models don't have HDMI. The other 2 models do. About the only major difference between the two HDMI models is the Elite has 100 gigs more space.
Isn't that what I said? Maybe I wasn't clear. I bought 2 core models and then the HDD seperate......I use component out for both, and when I tested the HDMI vs Component picture quality I could not tell the difference, so I went the least expensive route. Sorry if I was confusing. If that is true, then he should just buy the elite, but I think you can find some good used Core systems at EB and Gamestop....FYI DD
I couldn't tell by the phrase "and other" if you meant "and the other" or "and the others". The Core model also doesn't have the Zephyr mobo in it yet from what I know. Rumors are it will be phased out in favor of a Zephyr-enabled model that will be named something other than "Core". The new Premiums and Elites also have the newer heat sinks from what I understand. I dunno about the Core. HDMI and component can produce different picture quality, but it depends on the use and no one can really say for certain. I've heard of HDMI output on dvd players being much better than component while on others the component being better. The other route to go is to buy a Premium bundle if you need an extra controller and like a game included. I've seen a Premium + 1 game (Madden 2008?) and an extra wireless controller for around $399 at CompUSA... but it sold out quickly.
