Our New Toy: Xbox 360 Elite

[ZacFields]

Yeah, so I told myself that I was never going to buy the Xbox 360. Said that I just had too much money invested in the old Xbox and the graphics suffice just fine for me. I eventually decided to get out of the rat-race and started to buy some games for my computer.

Anyway I went to best buy today and bought the new xbox 360 elite. I decided I had to go with a 360 and NOT a PS3 because I have over $500 invested in games for the xbox. So I needed to not only get a 360, but I needed once that is backwards compatible.

The elite comes with a 120GB hard drive which otherwise costs $175 to add to your existing 360 and the elite is just like $75 more expensive than the xbox premium and apparantly its a limited time thing. But I hear you can download songs, movies, games, etc on Xbox live but you'll need something a little more than the standard hard drive that comes on the regular 360's.

Anyways... Ash and I thought it would be a good thing to keep us in the house and keep us from going out and wasting gas on our days off. With these gas prices being so high, we'de be better off staying in more often. (Or at least that's how we rationalized this purchase)

Here's the xbox website for the elite if you want to read up on it. We have xbox live now also...if that means anything to anyone.

Zac

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/news/2007/0327-microsoftunveilsxbox360elite.htm

[fbodyguy]

I am waiting for the High Def DVD player that is supposed to be coming out in them soon. I can suddenly see my current X-Box having problems....

[DustinsDuster]

i am glad i dont ever really feel the desire to play videogames much anymore. and all the ones i do want to play i already own and the graphics are just fine for me....

[ZacFields]

^ I'm just glad the 360 is backwards compatible for the games that I had on my old xbox.

I'm usually about a year behind the times... everyone where I work is into gaming (go figure, an office job, lol) and so they're always talking about xbox 360, playstation 3, and the wii. Before I got this, I had told myself so many times that I'm not going to get a 360. but now that I have one and I'm all set up on Xbox Live and stuff, I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase. It's really not all that expensive and it gives me something to do besides getting out and wasting gas.

Zac

[TurboZ28]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R98qC0fd_1w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljZOHnZNaBc

[TurboZ28]

I am not a ps3 fan i went with the Wii. i want to get the x-box elite tho
as for back words compatable in the ps3 this will show the diffrence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCD9TwLrVs

[ZacFields]

All those movies are hilariouis. Good finds turboz28.

Before these last few days I knew nothing about the ps3 vs xbox vs wii "battle" but now I've seen, read, and watched so much that I feel like almost an expert on it.

At first I was under the impression that the fact that PS3 came out with blu-ray was basically an indication that it was going to blow the xbox 360 out of the water. Blu-Ray holds something like 50 gigs of data whereas the standard DVD that xbox uses only holds about 7 gigs.

But then I read that blu-ray is way ahead of its time right now because it will be at least 3-5 more years before our technology could even possibly create graphics good enough to merit the need for a higher capacity DVD, and they say there's a good chance in 3-5 years there will be a new Xbox out using HD-DVD....again, when it's needed.

There are some games that are really long, and thus come with two discs that when you get to a certain point in the game you'de have to switch, but again it's not a graphics issue. They can make graphics twice as good as they are now and still theoretically use the same DVD-discs.

Plus I also read that *IF* there was a game out there with graphics so good that it needed to be on a blu-ray disc, the PS3's processors wouldn't be able to handle it anyways.

So overall it was a dumb idea for PS3 to go with blu-ray technology. Especially since the only reason they did it was to try and push blu-ray to be the next movie/game disc format.

Just keeps making me happier and happier about my choice of gaming console. :)

Zac

[ZacFields]

oh and as far as the wii goes, I don't consider it the same type of thing as the xbox. The wii is all about motion sensing and stuff. Like for instance, I would buy a wii as well as an xbox if I wanted to get a wii, but I wouldn't buy a PS3 and and Xbox because that would be redundant.

One of these days I could own a wii. Just depends on how bored I get. I could see myself putting it in the living room ( the 360 is in my bedroom) since there's more room in there to play something like that.

Zac

[Caleb]

Standard DVD's: 4.7 gigs
Standard Dual Layer DVD's: Just over 9 gigs
HD-DVD Discs: 25gigs
Blu-Ray Discs: 50 gigs

I'll give Blu-Ray about 2-3 more years for the sales on them to start really picking up, I agree its slightly ahead of its time by a little bit. But @ Sears, a lot of the newer LCD TV's come in 2 versions, 720p and 1080p both HD but the 1080p houses a lot more detail in the screen than your regular 720 television. I think in the end Blu-Ray is going to better for movies and games and storage in the near future because of the detail and space that it possess. Happy Feet and Ice Age 2 Look incredible on the Blu Ray DVD players we have. I'm not trying to knock on Xbox 360 at all, my friend has one and its still a great gaming system. Just in my personal opinion its great right now, but in the future, the 25gig vs 50gig is gonna come back and limit the systems capabilities eventually. But that probably wont be for a while. Gaming will always evolve. But 1080p will be the final product when the whole HD scene becomes standard here in a few years. But I've thought about getting a Xbox myself for some games that look fun. But can't afford it right now :-p, must get my summer car done!


BTW - Wii's are cool as hell. Little bros own one.

[fbodyguy]

Thats good to know, on the Blu-ray I didn't know what they held that much data.

[biohazard]

I almost bought the Elite but I'm going to go get a PS3 (cause I just saw some news on Gran Turismo 5).

[Nicolaskl]

I've currently got the 360 Premium + the HD DVD player addon. I'll probably end up getting a PS3 and a Wii too though.

[ZacFields]

Once I pay off some bills I plan to get a Wii for the living room (the 360 is in my bedroom) but probably not the PS3 since I don't see any games for it that justify the expense.

The wii seems like it would be good to have in addition to another gaming console though. I just can't imagine playing a game on the wii being better than say, Gears of War or Halo 3.

Zac

[TbTalon94]

PS3 sucks...it's a waste of money

Xbox360 is grand....Wii is awesome fun if you have the right game and 4 controllers.

[Scott]

i got both of them and it really depends on the amount of alcohol consumed I think, more interactive games when your drunk is alot of fun, but the new games on 360 are cool as hell but not as much fun as the Wii. I gotta go pick up the new forza still, I've had it on hold for about 2 weeks now.

[ZacFields]

^ that makes sense.

My only concern with the Wii is just how long America can be fascinated by movement sensing controllers again. Gotta remember this technology is actually more than 20 years old. The idea behind Wii actually comes from that old Nintendo game called "Duck Hunting" where you had the little pistol and you had to shoot the ducks, etc.

People seem to love the Wii right now, and I'm sure when I buy one I'll be no exception, but that's just my dilemma as far as the future of the Wii goes. It just all depends on how long this remains fascinating to people.

Duck Hunting was a cool game to play for a while, but it wasn't really all that successful and that's why Nintendo didn't pursue motion detecting controllers for the Super Nintendo.... but ponder this a moment: What if they had? The Super Nintendo would have been doing what the Wii is doing right now about 15 years ago. Kinda makes you wonder if Nintendo just sat around all these years knowing they had something up their sleeve but were waiting for the right time to bring it out?

Zac

[ZacFields]

And to add to that, I think wii would be a really fun console to play on a ginormous TV. like a 72 inch plasma. I could probably do that all day.

Zac

[TbTalon94]

I play it on a 52" hd tv and it's still fun as hell. The game i play the most is the game that comes with the system (wii sports) because the games are fun as hell and you can play them with 4 people over and over again. Fun times...specially when alcohol is involved. You just have to make sure people don't throw your controllers!

[Nicolaskl]

^ that makes sense.

My only concern with the Wii is just how long America can be fascinated by movement sensing controllers again. Gotta remember this technology is actually more than 20 years old. The idea behind Wii actually comes from that old Nintendo game called "Duck Hunting" where you had the little pistol and you had to shoot the ducks, etc.

People seem to love the Wii right now, and I'm sure when I buy one I'll be no exception, but that's just my dilemma as far as the future of the Wii goes. It just all depends on how long this remains fascinating to people.

Duck Hunting was a cool game to play for a while, but it wasn't really all that successful and that's why Nintendo didn't pursue motion detecting controllers for the Super Nintendo.... but ponder this a moment: What if they had? The Super Nintendo would have been doing what the Wii is doing right now about 15 years ago. Kinda makes you wonder if Nintendo just sat around all these years knowing they had something up their sleeve but were waiting for the right time to bring it out?

Zac

The gun in Duck Hunt wasn't motion sensing, it was light sensing. It's a total different technology and the tech in the Wii will have totally different ways to be implemented.

[Nicolaskl]

And to add to that, I think wii would be a really fun console to play on a ginormous TV. like a 72 inch plasma. I could probably do that all day.

Zac

I'm pretty close to that size :)

http://home.mchsi.com/~nloper/DSC03864.JPG

[DustinsDuster]

wow, someone has a clean home. you have a girl in your life, dont you?

[TbTalon94]

that's really close to my set-up. I have the same tv and almost the same table that it sets on. Except mine has a 360, wii, game cube, media com box, and 5-disc dvd player in it. Looks good though :)