Xbox 360, what do you know?

[HotStuff]

I have heard so many good things about this console that I was thinking of treating myself and just getting one. I know I have always said that consoles are for boys and PC's are for men but Xbox 360 seems to have a good online gaming service with some bloody good games!

Having a xbox360 to play as an alternative choice to PC games would take away the unstability, compatibility and game patch issues of the PC. These issues with the PC don't seem to be improving with time or technology. At least with consoles every machine has the same hardware, so hardware issues are much less likely and all software is optimised to run at best possible speed/framerate.

So, I have a number of questions:

1) Does xbox360 give out a HD picture, I got this quote from amazon,

"Includes a Component HD AV Cable which is optimized for high-definition as well as standard TVs"

Not really sure what that means, I thought HDMI sockets are necessary for HD.

2) What is xbox live like? I know there is a gold membership with a subscription that allows you to play online effortlessy. Do you have to pay for the time you connect or is it standard one off payments? Main reason I am interested actually, I get very little fun from single player games.

3) Is the xbox360 rock solid stable or does it crash?

4) Do the games have to be patched?

5) Has anyone played racing online with a steering wheel? and if so what steering wheel do you recommned?

6) How does the 25 frames per second(or is Xbox360 NTSC with 30fps) of the TV affect the playability of console games if you are used to PC gaming?

Thanks in anticipation!

 

[Ronin Storm]

1) Does xbox360 give out a HD picture [...] Not really sure what that means, I thought HDMI sockets are necessary for HD.

Courtesy of some random forum:

The difference is HDMI is digital and component is analogue. Digital offers improved clarity over analogue. So theoretically, the picture should look better with HDMI but component can still carry decent high definition feeds.

The answer to your question is "yes, it gives an HD picture".

2) What is xbox live like?

Well, I think it's pretty good but conversely I do most of my online gaming on the PC. Perverse, I realise. The Gold service, which is what allows you to play games with others, costs a small monthly fee (~£6pcm IIRC). Silver allows you to chat but not play.

3) Is the xbox360 rock solid stable or does it crash?

Largely, it's very stable. Older models can overheat and much older models had a poor survival record. I've had my current box for a year, though, after the first one died and this one has been fine. It has crashed once, playing Assassin's Creed.

4) Do the games have to be patched?

Yes, but that happens quickly and automatically. You'll barely notice, probably.

5) Has anyone played racing online with a steering wheel?

Not me. Though the dual-analog pads are quite responsive.

6) How does the 25 frames per second(or is Xbox360 NTSC with 30fps) of the TV affect the playability of console games if you are used to PC gaming?

It's that low? I'd not have noticed. Seems pretty fluid to me.

 

[Iron_fist]

the HD and AV output is a standard 50fps PAL or 60 for NTSC (hence why if you put a DVD into your computer you can see from the VOBs that if it is PAL it is 50FPS MPEG2)

 

[Nanor]

3) Is the xbox360 rock solid stable or does it crash?

My friend got a new x-box and 3 weeks later it died.

 

[BiG D]

I know there is a gold membership with a subscription that allows you to play online effortlessy.

Like hell it does. I've had nothing but trouble with it. Overall unreliable service, with all kinds of constant problems, including the low point of being down for the entire week the one week last year I could've really made use of it. If you think your membership fees are buying some kind of easy to use, reliable service, you'll wanna think again. Multiplayer gaming on the PC is much better, period.

 

[thatbloke]

Like hell it does. I've had nothing but trouble with it. Overall unreliable service, with all kinds of constant problems, including the low point of being down for the entire week the one week last year I could've really made use of it. If you think your membership fees are buying some kind of easy to use, reliable service, you'll wanna think again. Multiplayer gaming on the PC is much better, period.

in reply to D's comment, when it works it works very well. but for nearly a month now there have been lots of reported problems with it, although i havent experienced any of them myself. i have had the 360 elite for nearly 3 weeks now and i am loving it, the elite comes with a proper hdmi cable and also a nice audio splitter that allows you to feed either analogue or optical audio into any device of your choice. the elite comes with a proper headset too,which is nice, and the 120 gb hard drive will take you a while to fill

 

[elDiablo]

My friend got a new x-box and 3 weeks later it died.

Myself and people at Introversion have had them a lot longer than that, and have never had any bricking issues, but then it is pretty luck of the draw whether yours dies or not. A lot of people have had problems, that's for sure.

I wrote a long post. It turned into a PC vs Console argument again. So it got deleted.

In answer to your questions,

• the 360 is pretty solid (now), though some people do still have problems (like a broken headset, eh blokey? )
• the online service does suck at times (but then, other online services do to, so I don't know why people give MS such a hard time over it other than the fact that you pretty much HAVE to pay to do any online gaming, which sucks so much, but it's a monthly subscription (or multiple there of) which you pay for, not hours you connect),
• it's easy as pie to set up, if you want HDMI, go for the Elite (it's just so nice, and black is nice),
• Patching is easy as pie (as Ronin said), but your console will need patching every now and then too. It's not hard, but you have to do it when MS say so,
• haven't tried a steering wheel - I don't play racing games, sorry,
• using HDMI, I'm pretty sure it's not "25FPS" as it's not PAL (is it?). I thought it was pretty much a computer screen then, which means its affected by refresh rate of the screen you are using (usually ~60Hz?), though obviously some games will slow at certain points as the game developers are trying too hard to push the console which is limited hardware. Mass Effect is a good example of this, but for the most part it doesn't happen.

Hmm, still a pretty long post, but with all the argumentativeness removed!

 

[KillCrazy]

I can comment on the picture and xbox live questions as I've experienced both.

The xbox 360 does give out a HD picture and I can say it looks fantastic. We have it plugged into a HD TV of course and the picture is very clear and sharp. Game graphics look fantastic especially if it is on a large HD TV.

xbox live didn't interest me too much. I paid for one month subscription and hardly used it. The online games didn't catch my attention as much as online gaming with a PC.

Our first xbox would take a few times to start up, as all the rings around the power button would go red for the first time it boots up for some reason, and it had trouble reading a lot of game DVDs. We had it sent away and now the one we got back was brand new and worked perfectly.

All in all my experience with the console didn't impress me much, apart from the HD graphics. Just my oppinion really as I am more of a PC person, but I would only use the xbox 360 to play a game that I want to play that I can't get for the PC.

 

[HotStuff]

Thanks guys for the info, I have been some more digging and found that there is an "xbox 360 elite" console version which has HDMI output and bigger hard disk and a few other extras. The other main advancement is a slightly different design/newer motherboard from older xbox 360's and therefore RROD (red ring of death) issue has been much reduced. Also Microsoft, who have addmitted RROD problem now give you a 3 year warranty with xbox 360's, a very unusual thing to be offered by console manufacturers - that is confidence in their new units! New versions of xbox premiums also have been manufactured with this new "falcon technology". You can tell if your xbox 360 is the new few spec by checking power rating of power supply, 175W is falcon, 203W is older less stable version.

PS3 sounds a bit of joke in comparison to Xbox 360 elite. However PS3 also have a more souped up version called the PS3 Premium. It's obviously getting a bit serious this console war between sony and microsoft with tit for tat responces.

Ultimatley, Looks like more games available for xbox 360, better online facility. PS3 has better hardware but less game choice and UK version doesn't include proper backward compatibility with PS2 and PS1 games as it excludes the important "emmotion chip" required to run older games. Also PS3 only has one year warranty and is more expensive that xbox.

A shame no one has experience of xbox 360 on line steering wheel games. This is an avenue I would have liked more informed information on.

I will still be giving this more thought, having a quality games console looks like it can provide a stable, simple device with quality on line gaming, albeit the choice is not as wide.

 

[Iron_fist]

prod Tets to give you a reply as i know he has one

 

[elDiablo]

I can't really comment on the PS3 as I'm just not interested in it, though I have heard the problem with backwards compatibility. Still, someone has said it's nearly the cheapest BluRay player you can get, and it comes with a free console attached!

It depends what games you want, how much you want to spend, and what you're looking for. If you want a BluRay player with 8 cores so you can run Folding@Home while you never play a single game, go for it. If you want a console though, arguably, the XBox is the way to go.

 

[Tetsuo_Shima]

WHAT THE HELL!! I posted a reply to this yesterday about the steering wheel! Where did it go! Bloody useless work computers, it was a big post as well I'll give you a quick rundown version of it then:

I got the official wireless racing wheel about a year ago now, which is probably the best steering wheel out there, but still has it's shortcomings and isn't really worth 80-90 squid.
First, it's a 270-degree wheel as opposed to the hi-quality 900's (i.e. 3/4 turn lock-to-lock wheel rotation as opposed to 2 1/2 turns) and whilst that alone isn't so bad (car racing wheels do only spin 270 deg.s), when coupled with the (non-adjustable) super-sensitivity of the wheel it makes driving pretty hard indeed. You can get used to it, but you shouldn't have to!
Secondly, after a few sessions of flinging a Mitsubishi Lancer round a slalom course, the force feedback started to weaken and now it's really not as strong as it used to be (which is a shame, because it was great at first when the wheel used to judder about in your hands going over rumble strips).

There are good points, like the decent pedals and the solid paddle-shifty gearbox, and driving a 70s Chevvy Camaro round a track with the tail kicking out and the engine roaring is BRILLIANT FUN, but all in all it doesnt justify 80 quid I don't think. Also, take the 'wireless' with a handful of salt, because you need to have a power cable plugged in for the feedback to operate.

One last thing is that there aren't far too many racing games out that work well with the wheel. PGR3/4 and Forza 2 are certainly good with it (PGR especially, with the in-car view, very nice), but Colin McRae Dirt, Burnout and Testdrive and suchlike really aren't quite up to it.

So, to sum up, is it good for online racing? No, it's too hard and you're better off with the joypad. Is it fun? Yes, but could have been better for 80 quids. What do I do then if I'm proper into racing games? Wait for a 900-degree stick-shift 3rd party solution.

Hope that helps!

And for what it's worth, even though I've just launched a torpedo into the steering wheel aspect, X360s are definitely great fun!

 

[KillCrazy]

I can comment briefly on the PS3. While hearing that it is a very poor console for games, I can say it makes a fantastic console for multimedia.

Unlike the xbox360, the ps3 has a web browser that can display most websites, including youtube videos. Just like the xbox360, it can connect to media servers, but it supports more formats. As far as I am aware the xbox still will only play wmv videos, where the ps3 supports avi, mpeg and even some obscure digital camera video file formats. This makes it great for playing back videos from your pc that you would rather sit and watch on a TV screen. All in all I feel that you can immerse yourself in the workings of the ps3 more than you can on the xbox360, but that's just me

Anyway, you are probably more interested in it as a gaming console, not a multimedia one.

 

[BiG D]

As far as I am aware the xbox still will only play wmv videos, where the ps3 supports avi, mpeg and even some obscure digital camera video file formats. This makes it great for playing back videos from your pc that you would rather sit and watch on a TV screen.

As far as I'm aware, the latest 360 fall update added support for divx and all that, so you should be able to stream videos from your computer. Haven't tried it myself, though, as I have a dvd player that does the same.

 

[DocBot]

There are some(one?) really good programs for that (cba to find it now) that lets you stream from your pc to your xbox, and thus watch/listen to anything you can on your pc.

 

[BiG D]

It's built right into the dashboard, actually

 

[DocBot]

think again. That dashboard thing lets you _receive_ streams, which is a whole other thing.

 

[BiG D]

Ok.. Clarify the difference? I can listen to music on my xbox, streaming from my PC without installing anything...

 

[DocBot]

yes, but you don't stream it from your pc by using the dashboard, right? Or does your pc just hand over controls to the xbox? And my point, really, was that you can't stream, say .ogg from your pc, can you? Or .Xvid? Or .flac? or .mov? etc etc?

But there is an app that converts everything to xbox-friendly formats on-the-fly. Thus, full access!