Tips on Buying a 360

[Hidalgo]

Is the fail rate high for launch models or models in general.

I remember the old xbox having dvd drive problems due to those Thompson's in the early models(unfortunetly mine is one of them)

[Cidien]

The fail rate is high in general. My friend who's had his for a little over a year just had it die a little over a month ago. If you get one now make sure you get an intercooler.

One thing I should note with V2. It's not official yet, so it won't be out for a while. The reason (i assume) is M$ is gonna launch it at the same price. They just launched a bajillion units at christmas and they're gonna wanna sell up a lot of those before they release a better system.

BTW, I don't buy the warrantly on anything. I go with the free year most systems have. The money i've saved on warrantys for systems and tv's etc... more than makes up for anything that's broken.

[odin0425]

the fail rate falls within the normal fail rate for all electronics, i have had a launch console and havnt had anything wrong with it, same goes for all the people i know with 360's as for the intercooler that cidien talked about, they do more harm then good, they leach off of the 360's power supply making it unsatable...if your 360 does have a heating problem, get a usb powered fan, like the fanstand. as for the v2, its unconfirmed becasue its more then likally a lie...it was spread by this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcACuy4x8nA pretty convincing looking i admit, though if the guy was smart enough to tape up the serial number on the 360, id also think that he would cover up the tattoo on his wrist, MS would have found that guy right away and fired him for leaking company secrets...and becasue its MS it probably would have hit the news, and they would have had to have confirmed it, or it could very well be that the guy is a moron, and ms is keeping him quite somehow, who knows, thats just my 2 cents on that

[Cidien]

It's all over the news... as uncomfirmed of course. Most major places i've read it at think it's real. Or at least they did a few weeks ago when I was reading into it.

[geo85]

Well, look at it from a cost standpoint. Right now a large portion of units are failing and M$ is repairing them for free, thats costing them cash. Of the available units in homes and on store shelves the fail rate is high which means it will cost them cash to repair future units.

Ever since the psone I think every game console has had several generations, most notably the ps2. So since M$ wants to save and make cash more than they shell it out with no return I think it's safe to say there is going to be a gen2 360 there was with the xbox and the 360 has already had more issues than the xbox so far.

Cidien is probably right that M$ wants to sell the majority of current units before they produce the gen2. And with the way that 360's have been selling that will probably be between sep-dec.

[Schultz]

Yea the Original Xbox has 6 differerent revisions of it. I personally would wait a bit. I just read that Sony is already talking about *possibly* lowering the Ps3 price to try to sell more of them. If that happens i am sure Microsoft will drop the price of the 360. As how its currently standing they didn't have to as they already had a $200 price advantage.

[Hidalgo]

I know MS doesnt want to drop their price but they really should. If Sony does a price drop then I think that would force their hand.

Since they are still losing money on the whole Xbox expirement I can imagine they would not like to drop the system price and racheet up the loss per console. I know losing money on the console is normal, but despite all thier efforts their still bleeding and they would like to stop that sometime during this things lifecycle.

Though the thought of MS losing money and me getting fun out of it is kinda apealing.

[Schultz]

Well this is the hard thing about microsoft. You don't known really if they are making money on the Xbox or not. Since the Xbox is lumped into the Entertainment division which also sells many other things including the currently lack luster Zune. So who knows really who is affecting who. But don't get me wrong i am not defending Microsoft but they are the hardest to judge when it comes to if they are making money or not on just there gaming systems. but the funny thing is out of like 13 or so of there divisions the only ones that truely make money are there OS and Office suites. That brings in most if not all of there money. heh.

[Cidien]

I think the 360 is doing pretty well, and it should It's an amazing system. The way to judge how well a system is doing imo is to look at the top 20 games being sold. Gears of war is #1 right now. Obviously to sell enough to beat out the ps2 games it has to be doing pretty well. At least I don't think that's flawed logic lol.

[Hidalgo]

Well im talking about both the xbox and the 360

Microsoft has admitted that it has lost money each quarter with the systems. i've seen some news documentaries on gaming history that this is the case. Their mentality is that they have the money and they will keep to it till they are succesfull. They have that luxury, but event hey dont want to make anything of thsi worse. And Id figure at the moment they want to exploit Sony being its worst enemy at the moment.

[Cidien]

I think if M$ keeps listening to gamers they're going to win. Their console, especially compared to the ps3, is amazing. It's like M$ did everything they could do please gamers and sony gave gamers the middle finger cuz they think everyone will buy one cuz it's sony. I love the system so much and am so disgusted with the ps3 I border fanboy level with my praise of M$. I'll still buy a ps3 eventually for the ff series, but squaresoft is largely the only reason i'll buy one.

[Cidien]

Oh and I think the xbox woulda done better too if people just gave it a chance. I almost didn't. While I own about 4x as many ps2 games compared to xbox games I play the xbox way more. Most my ps2 games are rpgs i'm keeping just in case I decide to play them someday again.

[Elcoholic]

Don't over do it now Cidien (what you men with 'compared to the ps3' anyway?). 360 is alot of fun but I don't see it as a well built system because of the problems mentioned above and the disc read errors that make me go insane on some games. MS wants money for everything. They could have put the battery pack in the controller like sony did and they should have made the rip off called Live free (since we pay $50 to host our own games). They could charge less than $100 for 20gigs or a wireless set. This gen is about cash for them, not making gamers happy.

I understand they did it this way and its a smart move but its not just about making gamers happy.

On the other side I see sony with a console that costs alot but when put next to the 360 offers much much more and needs less peripherals (sp?) compared to ps2 (ethernet adapter, headset, multitap). I always compare the $500 ps3 with the $400 360. $100 gives you the play&charge kit, free online, bluray player, hdmi port, internet browser and full linux kit with its emulators and other uses.

Right now I'm looking for a 1080p bravia screen for a good price so for me the ps3 is the ultimate machine. Now all it needs is the games (btw, anyone seen the insanely good looking gran turismo demo?). 360 is still well ahead in the good games section though.

[Schultz]

I am not for microsoft here. But there is one thing that microsoft has catered to and one thing sony has totally not. and that is Game Developer's.

Microsoft's Game development tools have been said to be 100 times better then sony's. Its easier to develop great games and get great performances out of your games without you having to do alot of tweaks and such. And i don't mean just anyone can do it. While sony's pretty much has no support for it and basically drives up the costs for company's to develop games for the ps3 along with it is supposedly hard has hell to optimize games for the ps3.

And then costs wise they figure it takes about 1/3 the money to develop a Wii game compared to the other 2 systems.

Also i like what microsoft is doing with the Xbox Marketplace especially with the HD Content they are suppose to be delivering. As i have stated in the past i think the future for content will be online delivery and not a disc format like HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

[Hidalgo]

I think if M$ keeps listening to gamers they're going to win. Their console, especially compared to the ps3, is amazing. It's like M$ did everything they could do please gamers and sony gave gamers the middle finger cuz they think everyone will buy one cuz it's sony. I love the system so much and am so disgusted with the ps3 I border fanboy level with my praise of M$. I'll still buy a ps3 eventually for the ff series, but squaresoft is largely the only reason i'll buy one.

I don't know if id go that far. Microsoft dropped the ball with their poor backwards compatability, the core system being a joke, their HDD being too small to use the system as a media hub, and all the hidden costs of the system.

sure a premium model is 399.99 but tack on either 20 or 30 for a charge kit. Extra controlelrs are to be expected but that means more battery packs and basicly the nessessity of the 30 dollar quick charge station.

They really should have went with an internal battery for the controller and been done with the wired controller junk. But selling batteries and recharge stations gets you more money.

Remember this is MS were talking about its not as if they turned into everyone's friend over night.