I'm really very pleased with my 360. 
So I think everyone should have one! To that end, here's a guide to buying your very own Xbox 360 so that you can join me, Tetsuo, Piacular (when he gets back online) and Phryxus. Hell, maybe even we five might, y'know, play a game together sometime.
I did a fair bit of reading about in preparation for my 360. Here's the result...
All the links below go to Amazon.co.uk where I bought my console from, but feel free to shop around. I include the links to show you the exact product I mean.
Xbox 360 Console
Without the console this is all pointless... but the weird thing here is that you have at least two choices.
First is the Xbox 360 Console, which comes bundled with various bits and pieces. This is not be confused with the Xbox 360 Console Core System, which despite its longer name actually has less in the box and, if you buy the stuff piecemeal, will ultimately cost you more.
I bought the Console, not the Core one, because the Console comes with:
Where the Core System only comes with:
What that means, in short, is that the full system can, out of the box, allow you to download demos and updates for your games (stored on that hard drive), talk to your friends on Xbox Live, and connect to a HD TV (or a standard TV, with the same cable), where the basic/core system can do none of these things until you buy more stuff for it. I'll discuss the controllers in a bit.
The price difference is around £65. Looked at a different way, that's actually the price of the 360's hard drive. Wasn't really any competition for me... full system all the way. In fact, the core system pretty much requires you buy a 64 MB Memory Unit to save games to, rather like the PS2 and older consoles had, which at £20some just doesn't seem worth it.
Controllers, Wired & Wireless
Wires or no wires? Wireless costs you around £10 (40ish%) more than wired but the wireless controller is so splendid that I believe it's probably worth the difference.
The wireless controller takes two AA batteries, but I did away with those immediately and picked up a rechargeable battery as part of the Play and Charge Kit, which comes with one rechargeable battery and a cable that plugs into the wireless controller and the Xbox to charge up while you play. People say that it takes anything up to 6 hours to recharge your wireless controller using Play and Charge, which might not suit you.
The alternative appears to be the Quick Charge Kit, which I've not tried but also comes with one rechargeable battery, that allegedly charges much faster but you'll not be playing with that controller while it charges, unless you happen to have a second spare rechargeable battery.
I have the wireless controller that comes with the console, plus one wired controller bought so Rojaws could play coop games with me. In retrospect, I might have bought two wireless controllers and a spare rechargeable battery (only need one Play and Charge Kit, just charge the wireless controllers in rotation).
The wired controller, and the Play and Charge Kit, both have long cables. Say eight feet (2+ metres)? That's great for flexibility but the cables are a mess when you want to put them away.
Looking at response times, I see no difference between wired and wireless, even considering I have a wireless LAN in the same room as the 360, and a subwoofer right next to it. No apparent interference or connection problems.
Ready for a snazzy thing? The headset that comes with the full console plugs into the controller. Yes, not the console itself, your controller, and if that controller is wireless that means that you're completely self-contained. I've not tried it yet, which I really should, but the concept is really neat.
TV, HD TV & Cables
Not got an HD TV? Me neither. In fact, I have a cheap-as-chips stereo colour 20" TV. Bottom of the range, pretty much, and nearly three years old. Has two SCART sockets on the back and those multi-colour AV plugs on the front and a headphones-out socket. There's a [thread=1704]good thread[/thread] on the merits of HD TV and the 360, but the price was prohibitive for me so I opted to stay without HD TV to start with.
So, how does my TV pick up the task of 360's graphical loveliness?
Well, after much research I discovered that the Advanced AV Cable, a SCART connector, was considered by some as an "essential buy" for the 360 when you have a standard TV. Apparently it makes the picture sharper, colours brighter and generally improves the visual experience over the packaged cable with the full system that would plug into your AV sockets. I've picked one up and while I've not tried the AV sockets on the 360 I immediately noticed a quality improvement in picture over the fuzzy image I got from my PS2 using the AV connectors. Fine, comparing the PS2 and 360 on graphics is clearly madness, but if I just take general output quality as a factor I think the comparison can still work.
With that SCART cable in play I'm fairly pleased with the picture, though some text does have a little blur around the edges that I think is more a representation of how poor my TV is than how good/bad the cable and the 360 might be. Suffice to say that I can read everything just fine, but I want to be only four/five feet away from the TV to be happy I'm seeing everything ias intended.
That advanced AV cable comes with an optical audio out socket to plug into something that can read an optical feed for 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. I don't have any such things so I'm using the headphones-out on the TV to route into the line in on my laptop so I can half-heartedly post-process the sound into 5.1. Clearly it's just stereo split across 5 speakers but at least it spreads the sound a bit.
Hard drive
Well, there appears to be exactly one hard drive available for the 360, a mere 20GB, and very expensive at that. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we have much choice but to suck our teeth and buy it any way. You don't appear to be able to fit your own 3rd party hard drive, unfortunately.
What happens if you have no hard drive?
You can't download demos (too large). You can't download updates for your games (again, too large to be sensible). You need to buy a memory card to save games to, which is around a third of the cost of the hard drive and 0.3% of the size! You won't be able to store many Xbox Live Arcade games (small, cheap games, often retro-revivals such as Street Fighter II Hyper, or Galaga, etc)...
Personally, I think that the hard drive is pretty much a requirement and, as such, makes the core system console a bit pointless for me given that the price difference is the same as the cost of the 360's hard drive. Maybe your priorities differ?
There are some cables and packages sold by 3rd parties to allow you to archive your 360's hard drive content off to a PC but I've not investigated those seriously.
Xbox Live & Networking
Xbox Live... some games including PGR3 seem to have two free months of Xbox Live Gold bundled as a promotional scratch card. Xbox Live Gold allows you to do useful stuff with your console online... where the Silver just seems to exist to whet your appetite for Gold. It's a subscription service at £4.50 per month (bulk advance payments do not get discounts currently).
To get access to this you'll need to plug your console into the network... there is a Wireless Bridge to plug your console into your wireless LAN but at £60 I figured that was way too expensive so I bought myself 10 metres of cat-5e cable and plugged it in via the standard ethernet port on the back. It hooks up to a DHCP network just fine and was online, for me, in a matter of seconds. Easy peasy.
I've been downloading demos, pulling down updates and XBL Arcade trials quite happily. Just need to actually play some games online...
Anything Else...?
And that's about it. I've mentioned the headset that comes packaged with the full console, but I've done nothing more than pull it out, plug it in and ooo-ah at it. Who knows if it even works?
Cautionary Note: Scratched Game Discs
I saw a review the day before I bought my console that warns of 360's scratching game discs. I spent a few hours researching the problem and after much contradiction the problem appears to be as simple as this:
If you move your console while it is spinning a disc then the disc will scratch, possibly ruining your game disc. There are some products on the market that apparently can help you recover from scratches but I wouldn't rely on that. Do not move your console while it is spinning the disc, not even a bit. If this is a reason to buy wireless controllers so you don't accidentally trip over the cables and yank your console forward then seriously consider that.
People report that it happens more when the console is horizontal... others say vertical. No one seems to agree on that point. They do agree that movement is a key problem.
Personally, I'd never move anything while a part was spinning internally so I figure it won't be a problem for me.
Have You Say
If you've got a 360, or done some research on exactly this subject, then feel free to post and tell me your findings and I'll add them into this post (acknowledged, of course).
Hope this was useful!
So I think everyone should have one! To that end, here's a guide to buying your very own Xbox 360 so that you can join me, Tetsuo, Piacular (when he gets back online) and Phryxus. Hell, maybe even we five might, y'know, play a game together sometime.
I did a fair bit of reading about in preparation for my 360. Here's the result...
All the links below go to Amazon.co.uk where I bought my console from, but feel free to shop around. I include the links to show you the exact product I mean.
Xbox 360 Console
Without the console this is all pointless... but the weird thing here is that you have at least two choices.
First is the Xbox 360 Console, which comes bundled with various bits and pieces. This is not be confused with the Xbox 360 Console Core System, which despite its longer name actually has less in the box and, if you buy the stuff piecemeal, will ultimately cost you more.
I bought the Console, not the Core one, because the Console comes with:
- A 20GB hard drive
- Wireless controller
- Headset
- HD AV cable
Where the Core System only comes with:
- No hard drive
- Wired controller
- No headset
- Standard AV cable
What that means, in short, is that the full system can, out of the box, allow you to download demos and updates for your games (stored on that hard drive), talk to your friends on Xbox Live, and connect to a HD TV (or a standard TV, with the same cable), where the basic/core system can do none of these things until you buy more stuff for it. I'll discuss the controllers in a bit.
The price difference is around £65. Looked at a different way, that's actually the price of the 360's hard drive.
Wasn't really any competition for me... full system all the way. In fact, the core system pretty much requires you buy a 64 MB Memory Unit to save games to, rather like the PS2 and older consoles had, which at £20some just doesn't seem worth it.Controllers, Wired & Wireless
Wires or no wires? Wireless costs you around £10 (40ish%) more than wired but the wireless controller is so splendid that I believe it's probably worth the difference.
The wireless controller takes two AA batteries, but I did away with those immediately and picked up a rechargeable battery as part of the Play and Charge Kit, which comes with one rechargeable battery and a cable that plugs into the wireless controller and the Xbox to charge up while you play. People say that it takes anything up to 6 hours to recharge your wireless controller using Play and Charge, which might not suit you.
The alternative appears to be the Quick Charge Kit, which I've not tried but also comes with one rechargeable battery, that allegedly charges much faster but you'll not be playing with that controller while it charges, unless you happen to have a second spare rechargeable battery.
I have the wireless controller that comes with the console, plus one wired controller bought so Rojaws could play coop games with me. In retrospect, I might have bought two wireless controllers and a spare rechargeable battery (only need one Play and Charge Kit, just charge the wireless controllers in rotation).
The wired controller, and the Play and Charge Kit, both have long cables. Say eight feet (2+ metres)? That's great for flexibility but the cables are a mess when you want to put them away.
Looking at response times, I see no difference between wired and wireless, even considering I have a wireless LAN in the same room as the 360, and a subwoofer right next to it. No apparent interference or connection problems.
Ready for a snazzy thing? The headset that comes with the full console plugs into the controller. Yes, not the console itself, your controller, and if that controller is wireless that means that you're completely self-contained. I've not tried it yet, which I really should, but the concept is really neat.
TV, HD TV & Cables
Not got an HD TV? Me neither. In fact, I have a cheap-as-chips stereo colour 20" TV. Bottom of the range, pretty much, and nearly three years old. Has two SCART sockets on the back and those multi-colour AV plugs on the front and a headphones-out socket. There's a [thread=1704]good thread[/thread] on the merits of HD TV and the 360, but the price was prohibitive for me so I opted to stay without HD TV to start with.
So, how does my TV pick up the task of 360's graphical loveliness?
Well, after much research I discovered that the Advanced AV Cable, a SCART connector, was considered by some as an "essential buy" for the 360 when you have a standard TV. Apparently it makes the picture sharper, colours brighter and generally improves the visual experience over the packaged cable with the full system that would plug into your AV sockets. I've picked one up and while I've not tried the AV sockets on the 360 I immediately noticed a quality improvement in picture over the fuzzy image I got from my PS2 using the AV connectors. Fine, comparing the PS2 and 360 on graphics is clearly madness, but if I just take general output quality as a factor I think the comparison can still work.
With that SCART cable in play I'm fairly pleased with the picture, though some text does have a little blur around the edges that I think is more a representation of how poor my TV is than how good/bad the cable and the 360 might be. Suffice to say that I can read everything just fine, but I want to be only four/five feet away from the TV to be happy I'm seeing everything ias intended.
That advanced AV cable comes with an optical audio out socket to plug into something that can read an optical feed for 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. I don't have any such things so I'm using the headphones-out on the TV to route into the line in on my laptop so I can half-heartedly post-process the sound into 5.1. Clearly it's just stereo split across 5 speakers but at least it spreads the sound a bit.
Hard drive
Well, there appears to be exactly one hard drive available for the 360, a mere 20GB, and very expensive at that. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we have much choice but to suck our teeth and buy it any way. You don't appear to be able to fit your own 3rd party hard drive, unfortunately.
What happens if you have no hard drive?
You can't download demos (too large). You can't download updates for your games (again, too large to be sensible). You need to buy a memory card to save games to, which is around a third of the cost of the hard drive and 0.3% of the size! You won't be able to store many Xbox Live Arcade games (small, cheap games, often retro-revivals such as Street Fighter II Hyper, or Galaga, etc)...
Personally, I think that the hard drive is pretty much a requirement and, as such, makes the core system console a bit pointless for me given that the price difference is the same as the cost of the 360's hard drive. Maybe your priorities differ?
There are some cables and packages sold by 3rd parties to allow you to archive your 360's hard drive content off to a PC but I've not investigated those seriously.
Xbox Live & Networking
Xbox Live... some games including PGR3 seem to have two free months of Xbox Live Gold bundled as a promotional scratch card. Xbox Live Gold allows you to do useful stuff with your console online... where the Silver just seems to exist to whet your appetite for Gold. It's a subscription service at £4.50 per month (bulk advance payments do not get discounts currently).
To get access to this you'll need to plug your console into the network... there is a Wireless Bridge to plug your console into your wireless LAN but at £60 I figured that was way too expensive so I bought myself 10 metres of cat-5e cable and plugged it in via the standard ethernet port on the back. It hooks up to a DHCP network just fine and was online, for me, in a matter of seconds. Easy peasy.
I've been downloading demos, pulling down updates and XBL Arcade trials quite happily. Just need to actually play some games online...
Anything Else...?
And that's about it. I've mentioned the headset that comes packaged with the full console, but I've done nothing more than pull it out, plug it in and ooo-ah at it. Who knows if it even works?
Cautionary Note: Scratched Game Discs
I saw a review the day before I bought my console that warns of 360's scratching game discs. I spent a few hours researching the problem and after much contradiction the problem appears to be as simple as this:
If you move your console while it is spinning a disc then the disc will scratch, possibly ruining your game disc. There are some products on the market that apparently can help you recover from scratches but I wouldn't rely on that. Do not move your console while it is spinning the disc, not even a bit. If this is a reason to buy wireless controllers so you don't accidentally trip over the cables and yank your console forward then seriously consider that.
People report that it happens more when the console is horizontal... others say vertical. No one seems to agree on that point. They do agree that movement is a key problem.
Personally, I'd never move anything while a part was spinning internally so I figure it won't be a problem for me.
Have You Say
If you've got a 360, or done some research on exactly this subject, then feel free to post and tell me your findings and I'll add them into this post (acknowledged, of course).
Hope this was useful!
