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Will I regret jumping on the new lower-priced Xbox Arcade?

L

Lara F

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 5, 2005
853
10
Montreal, Quebec
I'm basically your casual Wii gamer. For that reason I haven't gotten a PS3 or Xbox 360. But now I read the Arcade's come down to $150 which makes it pretty darn tempting for my spare bedroom TV. My airport extreme's located there so I won't need to pay extra for wifi. Basically, I just want to ensure three things:

1) I can use Netflix, Pandora etc (Live Gold membership caveat I know)
2) I can play Final Fantasy XIII (the one game I'd be interested in)
3) Kinect compatible (it's an add-on not a whole new console correct?)

If there's any other reason I'd regret not getting the Elite or new Slim version please let me know.

Thanks in advance! :)
 
Lara F said:
Will I regret jumping on the new lower-priced Xbox Arcade?
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Well you'll probably break it. So i'd say a definitive yes.

If your really that angry with it try blending or microwaving it. Probably will be more fun, also make a neat little youtube video.
 
I say you will. Microsoft really intends for the 360 to be an entertainment system now, and for that you'll want the hard drive to save content. Also there are awful lot of great demo available, and without a hd you're out of luck. The first unit with a hard drive has been similarly knocked down in price $50, so it goes for $199. It's well worth it.

If you're on the fence though, you can pick up a hard drive later, albeit at an inflated price. I think you'll want the hard drive though.

Will a lack of a hard drive affect the system's performance ( i.e. getting on Live and what not ), no. Still if you want demos, if you want to install games on the drive for slighter faster load times, and of course for game saves, go with the hard drive.

I am not sure of the game saves size of Final Fantasy. You maybe be able to get away with a usb flash or memory card.

All of the other features such as Netflix, Last FM, do work without the hard drive. Was so hoping the rumors of Hulu were true though.

Yes, Kinect is a seperate add on, that needs it's own power source if you are not using it with the newest Xbox.
 
I've been happy with my arcade unit. You can use thumbdrives now (up to 16GB) and I also found a 20GB harddrive for $40 about a year ago. So there's not a big reason to go to a bigger tier unless you have the money.

All the Arcades out now are the Jasper chipset so he shouldn't have a RROD.

And you can do all three with the Arcade. It has 256MB of storage builtin and Game saves are pretty tiny. My biggest I think is around 10MB and that's Fallout 3 with almost 300 saves on it.
 
Well, to update the new $150 Arcade with $50 Target gift card deal was too much to pass up. :)

Very happy so far. Noise hasn't been an issue as this is a newer model, there's definitely a hum but you have to be right beside the machine to hear it. Love the media extender capability, makes my Windows 7 netbook all the more useful (and was psyched to find HD broadcasts of the Olympics available on the Zune marketplace, unlike iTunes). LOST on Netflix was excellent in HD - I'll be very curious to compare the quality with the new HD selections on my Mac Mini. I had fun creating my avatar and liked the Twitter/Facebook interface.

And yes, I will play some games too. ;) :D
 
I just bought one myself, and AUGGHH on the deal you got. I paid $150 but had no idea about the darn Target deal. I was at Target before I went to GameStop! NOOO!!! Oh well, too late to do anything. Still seems to be a very neat system. I wasn't feeling comfortable spending $300 on a totally new system when I could've totally hated it. This way I can at least ease myself in. I may eventually regret it, but I'm not right now. I actually have a system instead of I'm waiting for one.
 
micahR said:
See if gamestop will take the system back or give you some kind of store credit to make up the difference.
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Considering the manager has offered to get me his discounts on games, I think I'll just stick with it. I also checked Target online and didn't see this deal. Hell, if anything I'd want to return it for the $300 version after finding out how immensely awesome everything online is. But I still had no idea what I was getting into before, so hooray for low-balling entry point.
 
You need a hard drive. If you can add one externally and save money, that would be a consideration, but there are too many download opportunities (trial games, free content, $10 expansions), not to have one.
 
Huntn said:
You need a hard drive. If you can add one externally and save money, that would be a consideration, but there are too many download opportunities (trial games, free content, $10 expansions), not to have one.
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You do realize the 360 now supports up to 16GB in external storage via USB, right? I have two 16GB Flash Drives plugged into my 360, and it allowed me to avoid paying Microsoft's ridiculous inflated Hard Drive prices. At 32GB I've actually got more storage than the 20GB my Pro came with originally.

That being said, the $150 arcade is a sexcellent deal and if you don't have a 360 I'd say snap it up.

The only thing that's really missing (Since storage isn't an issue: see above) is the built-in wireless that the new model has. And for some people (see: me) this isn't an issue either.
 
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