Arcade, Premium or Elite?

kingtut

Hi all,

It is with regret that I am turning to 'the dark side', I have always owned and loved Nintendo products and games (and always will). Seeing as Rare is now owned by Microsoft I realise that the only way I will get to play the sequels to the games I played a lot when they were owned by Nintendo such as Banjo Kazooie and Perfect Dark is by buying an xbox.

So can someone simply tell me what I should go for: Arcade, Premium or Elite and why? Having done my own research, Arcade looks useful for the kind of person who wants to play games but does not want any storage capacity... that leaves the premium and the elite and other than memory space I cannot figure out what differences they offer...

Thanks in advance!

Atavan-Halen

If you just want to play games and not bothered about xbox live, go for the arcade. If you do however want to play online, go for the premium or elite, because most games require you to have HDD for online play. Some games only require the memory card which I think comes with the arcade. It all depends on what you use it for really. If you'll be downloading alot of videos or plan to put the games on the hard drive, go for the elite, what with the 120 gig HD and all. I'd personally recommend the premium. It's a good all-rounder and plenty of space on the HD.

SeantheMan

Premium,

I don't see how anyone could use up the 120gig,

I still have about 10gig of my 20 available

I've always felt the elite was just brought out for TOTAL fanboys...especially with the name "Elite" that it was given

"Hey man...you got a 360 ?"
"Yeah...yourself ??"
"Yeah...what version you got ?"
"Ehh...the one with the 20 gig HD i think"
"Cool....me....i got the ELITE !!"
"Congrats....still plays the same games doesn't and everythin the same as mine doesnt it ?"
"Yeah,,,but it has like 120 gig HDD, and its Elite"
"Ok..nice one, I'm gonna go over here now !"

randomname

SeantheMan wrote: »

Premium,

I don't see how anyone could use up the 120gig,

I still have about 10gig of my 20 available

I've always felt the elite was just brought out for TOTAL fanboys...especially with the name "Elite" that it was given

Depending how many add ons you have downloaded or how many games you save to hard drive, you could easily use about 40 or 50 gigs. Playing games off the hard drive makes the big hard drive worthwhile.

SeantheMan

randomname wrote: »

Depending how many add ons you have downloaded or how many games you save to hard drive, you could easily use about 40 or 50 gigs. Playing games off the hard drive makes the big hard drive worthwhile.

You still need to insert the disc to start them though don't ye ?

amacachi

SeantheMan wrote: »

You still need to insert the disc to start them though don't ye ?

Yeah, makes it far less likely for the disc to get scratched or any other problems with the disc. Also makes loading faster and everything runs quieter.

I would recommend the Premium. 60 gig harddrive should be big enough and a HDMI cable is only about a tenner, and those are the only differences compared to the elite.

kingtut

The main reason I am getting an xbox360 is to play two particular rare games that had their first 'outings' on nintendo consoles. Can anyone tell me 3 must have games for the xbox360? the kind of ones that you play and will always remember. (All genres welcome).

SeantheMan wrote: »

Premium,

I don't see how anyone could use up the 120gig,

I still have about 10gig of my 20 available

I've always felt the elite was just brought out for TOTAL fanboys...especially with the name "Elite" that it was given

"Hey man...you got a 360 ?"
"Yeah...yourself ??"
"Yeah...what version you got ?"
"Ehh...the one with the 20 gig HD i think"
"Cool....me....i got the ELITE !!"
"Congrats....still plays the same games doesn't and everythin the same as mine doesnt it ?"
"Yeah,,,but it has like 120 gig HDD, and its Elite"
"Ok..nice one, I'm gonna go over here now !"

lol

atavan-halen wrote: »

If you just want to play games and not bothered about xbox live, go for the arcade. If you do however want to play online, go for the premium or elite, because most games require you to have HDD for online play. Some games only require the memory card which I think comes with the arcade. It all depends on what you use it for really. If you'll be downloading alot of videos or plan to put the games on the hard drive, go for the elite, what with the 120 gig HD and all. I'd personally recommend the premium. It's a good all-rounder and plenty of space on the HD.

Oh I would definitely want to play them online, if a game has an online feature I feel it would be outrageous not using it. How much space do the games take up on the HDD? Am I right in assuming that the only reason that you would want to put the games on the HDD is so that you would have either reduced or no loading times?

kingtut

amacachi wrote: »

I would recommend the Premium. 60 gig harddrive should be big enough and a HDMI cable is only about a tenner, and those are the only differences compared to the elite.

Thanks. I consider to be a reasonably 'techie' guy however HDMI cables are new to me....can you please tell me why they are needed? As far as I know the arcade does not come with one so that leads me to think it is for online play?

ironictoaster

Games I recommend would be

COD4/WaW
FIFA 09
Fallout 3

Also get Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie on the xbox live marketplace!

SeantheMan

HDMI is a High Definition cable, to make use of the 360s ability to play games in HD. However, its wasted unless ye have a decent 32-50" HD TV to play it on.

Games -

-Gears of War 2 is excellent, the 360 Flagship game of the moment really
-Fallout 3 - it will keep you going for 50+ hours easily
-Rock Band

Failing that there are LOADS of threads relating to peoples fave games on here
else visit http://www.metacritic.com/games/xbox360/scores/ which will give you the average score of combined reviews from leading gaming magazines on all 360 games., so you can see what is the highest rated game etc

Great top 10 on there

1 Grand Theft Auto IV 2008 98
2 BioShock 2007 96
3 Orange Box, The 2007 96
4 Gears of War 2006 94
5 Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The 2006 94
6 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2007 94
7 Halo 3 2007 94
8 Street Fighter IV 2009 93
9 Fallout 3 2008 93


New Batman game comes out, looks totally amazing

amacachi

kingtut wrote: »

Thanks. I consider to be a reasonably 'techie' guy however HDMI cables are new to me....can you please tell me why they are needed? As far as I know the arcade does not come with one so that leads me to think it is for online play?

As above. The Premium comes with a Component Cable so ya can still get 720p, just not 1080p "Full HD". But since very few games run at 1080p it makes very little difference. The only difference between the elite and premium are the bigger hard drive, the colour, and the HDMI cable. Unless I was getting the elite for less than 25euro more than a premium, I'd choose the premium.

Atavan-Halen

kingtut wrote: »

How much space do the games take up on the HDD? Am I right in assuming that the only reason that you would want to put the games on the HDD is so that you would have either reduced or no loading times?

About 4-7GB depending on the game. I think the main reason poeple put games on is to make it quieter, it's quite a noisy console. But yes it will reduce loading times

helios12

Get an Arcade (with the new Jasper chip-set ) and then hop on the net or go up north and pick up a hard drive on the cheap. This gives you the latest and most reliable Xbox for far cheaper

amacachi

helios12 wrote: »

Get an Arcade (with the new Jasper chip-set ) and then hop on the net or go up north and pick up a hard drive on the cheap. This gives you the latest and most reliable Xbox for far cheaper

For the price difference it would be hard enough to find a harddrive for less than the price difference between the arcade and premium.

helios12

amacachi wrote: »

For the price difference it would be hard enough to find a harddrive for less than the price difference between the arcade and premium.

Not many Jasper Premiums/Elites (besides limited edition, which is actually an ok deal if you can live with the red) around yet though, even if it ended up costing a little more I'd still recommend that route.

amacachi

Thought at this point almost all the consoles were Jaspers?

helios12

amacachi wrote: »

Thought at this point almost all the consoles were Jaspers?

you may be right but they were scarce a couple of weeks ago when I was looking. The only safe bet was Arcades and the limited edition red monstrosity.

KTRIC

Is there any way to tell which ones are "jasper" without opening the box to see the back panel of the machine ?

I'm thinking of picking up a 360 soon to replace my PS3 but I don't want to make the mistake of getting a hoover like my 360 from launch day.