Could someone please explain the difference between the regular Xbox 360 system with a 20GB hard drive and the Xbox 360 Arcade. I know the Arcade doesn't say anything about a hardrive but is that the only difference? And what is the benefit of the hard drive other than to store music/movies to play on the 360. Thanks!

9/18/2008 8:39:53 AM

Although it does have built-in 256MB flash storage, this will mostly just be for storage and critical updates to the xbox360 software. You won't even be able to download some larger patches for games, extra game content (not much at least), and may run out of storage space for save games depending on what you do put on there.

9/18/2008 9:31:35 AM

get a ps3

9/18/2008 9:38:05 AM

I would go with the 20 (or the new 60) gb hd version. Without the hd you won't be able to download any game demos or movies, etc... You would also only be able to hold maybe 2 downloaded arcade games at a time.

9/18/2008 10:28:38 AM

^^ too expensive! plus i dont really care for playstation controllers. what i am really after is a system to play rock band/guitar hero on...yes i know PS2 is really cheap nowadays but i would like to keep all my regular xbox games to play as well

^ these downloaded games (or music/movies for that matter) you are talking about...you get those by connecting with xbox live? or just an ethernet connection to the 360? how does that work?

[Edited on September 18, 2008 at 10:54 AM. Reason : music/movies]

9/18/2008 10:53:20 AM

the Arcade systems do not have HDMI. All the others do. the arcade systems dont come with wireless controllers (they might now, but check to be sure).

you have to connect to Xbox Live! to get Live! Arcade games, hence the name. You also have to connect to Live! to get downloaded songs for rock band. Which you will want. And each song is 40-60mb, so you might be able to fit 3 songs on the flash.

9/18/2008 11:39:41 AM

Quote :

"the Arcade systems do not have HDMI."

false. they don't come with any hd cable, hdmi or component, however they do have an hdmi port.

9/18/2008 11:45:40 AM

in either case, it's well worth the extra $50 for the pro. the arcade edition is so they can advertise"starting at $199" on tv. i'm a little peeved that i bought the pro like a month before they decided to put in a 60 GB drive. but only a little.

9/18/2008 3:03:24 PM

Can you attach external usb HDD to 360 arcade?

9/19/2008 3:24:06 PM

Quote :

"the Arcade systems do not have HDMI. All the others do. the arcade systems dont come with wireless controllers (they might now, but check to be sure)."

Quote :

"you have to connect to Xbox Live! to get Live! Arcade games, hence the name. "

The Arcade has HDMI port, but doesn't come with an HDMI cable
The Arcade comes with a wireless controller
The Arcade comes with a disk that contains five Arcade games

Quote :

"Can you attach external usb HDD to 360 arcade?"

Yes, but you can't save games on it and it has to be formatted FAT32 (which means it doesn't support files larger than 4GB; same deal with the PS3)

9/19/2008 4:02:49 PM

I was tempted to get one when the price dropped to $199. Do the newer manufactured models still suffer from the RRoD? The 360 wouldn't be worth getting at any price (for me) until that's settled. I'd only want one for NCAA Football anyway. GTA will eventually come to the PC.

9/19/2008 4:53:40 PM

please guys, i have a match tonight

9/19/2008 4:56:38 PM

^^^Thanks Stein I'm obviously way behind the curve.

9/20/2008 11:27:22 AM

Quote :

"Do the newer manufactured models still suffer from the RRoD? The 360 wouldn't be worth getting at any price (for me) until that's settled."

i ALMOST posted in this thread the other day that my friend has had one since the first shipment with no problems, but i didn't. i guess even thinking about it was enough though, because he got the ring sunday afternoon. good timing though - 1 month left on the warranty.

9/22/2008 9:30:57 PM

All of the new models on the current production line have around 10-20% failure rate for the 5 year predicted lifespan. I think the current number puts it around 13%. The testing procedures are better than they were, so you shouldn't get one of the 13% that is going to die. The first manufacturing generation had like a 70-90% failure rate for the 5 year predicted lifespan. The original problems were the same problem that Nvidia is having with some of their geforce 8M series. The bought some cheap-shitty silicon.

9/23/2008 10:50:26 AM

Quote :

"In 2008-09-05 VentureBeat digital media published a follow up story titled "Xbox 360 defects: An inside history of Microsoft's video game console woes". The Microsoft employee appearing in the article was later fired by Microsoft for his part in the story. In the early months after the console's launch, Microsoft stated that the Xbox 360's failure rate was within the consumer electronics industry average of 3% to 5%. Nevertheless, Microsoft has not released their official statistics on the failure rate of the various versions of the console; the company's press relations policy is to focus on the prompt resolution of any technical problems. In February 2008 an examination of 1040 Xbox 360s by SquareTrade found a 16.4% failure rate; 171 were returned under warranty as "disabled", 60% of which with general hardware failure. However SquareTrade also admits that their estimates are likely much lower than reality, due to many owners of failed consoles who are getting them repaired directly via Microsoft, they also note that the consoles were only tracked for 6-10 months, and in the longer term, many more consoles will have failed. This ties in with most other sources claiming 30%-40% failure rates, and 10% on even the more recent models. On July 5, 2007, the Vice-President of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division published an open letter recognizing the console's problems, as well as announcing a three-year warranty extension for every Xbox 360 console that experiences the "general hardware failure" indicated by three flashing red LEDs on the console. During GDC 08, Microsoft announced that the "Failure rate has officially dropped"."

Quote :

"General hardware failure rates of the “Falcon” motherboard are rumored to be around 10%"

Good read.


[Edited on September 23, 2008 at 11:42 AM. Reason : .]

9/23/2008 11:41:06 AM

Just a quick question, might be stupid, I don't care.

I'm about to head home for Thanksgiving, and my brother has a 360 at home. If I just bring my hard drive and connect it to his, I'll still be able to play all my games without any problems, correct? I know the games are saved there and I can play them, but I'm wondering if it will cause any problems having played them on two different consoles.

I hope that makes sense.

11/25/2008 10:41:18 PM

should be fine

11/25/2008 10:45:05 PM

^^Everything will be fine except for DLC.

For DLC to work, you EITHER must be connected to xbox live, or have the harddrive connected to the console you purchased the content from. This is a big pain in the ass for rock band

11/26/2008 6:20:07 AM

Well Rock Band DLC was the biggest reason I was going to bring my HD home. Wanted to have all those songs there. The TV we play on at home isn't exactly conveniently located for an Xbox Live connection either. Oh well.

Thanks for the help.

11/26/2008 9:38:46 AM

On the PS3, you can share your Rock Band DLC with 4 other friends at no extra charge; just go to their place, login under your PSN id, download the songs that you've already purchased, then make them buy you beer in exchange.

11/26/2008 9:52:49 AM