XBOX 360 version differences? [Archive]

Sherardp

06-28-2008, 04:48 PM

Any of them, the new Arcade version offers HDMI now also. I bought one to have as a backup so I can confirm this. The elite comes in black, the rest is just cables, controllers, etc. The most common thing they share is the RED RING of Death, but I suggest you still get one.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/compare101.htm?WT.svl=nav

lanion

06-28-2008, 05:03 PM

The arcade doesn't come with a hard drive though. You really need one if you plan on downloading anything.

Shizelbs

06-28-2008, 05:10 PM

Get the premium. FWIW, there is a rumored price drop just around the corner.

mutelight

06-28-2008, 05:18 PM

Arcade: No HDD, no component cables, wired controller
Premium: 20GB HDD, component cables, wireless controller
Elits: 120GB HDD, component cables, HDMI cable, wireless controller and it is black

appadv

06-28-2008, 05:47 PM

Do you need a hard drive to play games? Meaning is it absolutely necessary or just an add-on? Also, the Arcade comes with a memory card - is that enough for games?

Shizelbs

06-28-2008, 05:56 PM

A hard drive is not totally necessary. You can still play games and save your games to the memory card. However, it will fill up fast if you save many games, or download any arcade games. Also, just a memory card would prevent you from downloading pretty much any expansion pack or other downloadable content for the most part.

appadv

06-28-2008, 06:13 PM

Thanks, so you're saying that if one were just to play a few games and not download any online content, the 256MB memory card is enough?

mutelight

06-28-2008, 06:47 PM

Thanks, so you're saying that if one were just to play a few games and not download any online content, the 256MB memory card is enough?

It would be but it also doesn't allow you backwards compatibility with original Xbox games.

The HDD is also worth it because you can download demos for games and try before you buy. Also there are a bunch of great arcade games which can fill up your memory card pretty quick. Also it seems this generation many games are patched with updates so those consume space as well.

Shizelbs

06-28-2008, 06:47 PM

Yes. But, you're going to want that hard drive when you find a game that you simply must have the expansion packs for.

Face

06-28-2008, 06:53 PM

It's a waste without the HDD.

appadv

06-28-2008, 06:56 PM

Can't you buy the HDD separately if you need it later and then add it on to your Arcade system?

appadv

06-28-2008, 06:59 PM

FWIW, there is a rumored price drop just around the corner.

Do you know if the price drop applies to all three editions or just the Premium?

mutelight

06-28-2008, 07:01 PM

You can but they are ridiculously over-priced if you buy them separately.

$100 for the 20GB and $180 for the 120GB.

Also are you going to be running the system in HD? Because you will have to add onto the Arcade's price for the component cable.

appadv

06-28-2008, 07:22 PM

Also are you going to be running the system in HD?

Yes, with an Epson 1080UB projector. But because I already have a 50' HDMI cable run to the projector through the ceiling, I can plug that directly into the XBOX without the need for a component cable.

appadv

06-29-2008, 12:06 AM

Yes. But, you're going to want that hard drive when you find a game that you simply must have the expansion packs for.

Can you give me an example of such a game?

Most of my friends play Guitar Hero so that's probably what it will be used for most of the time. And as a non-gamer (rarely play), I'm mostly interested in "classic" games such as Pac-Man, Tetris, Pong, etc. so I'm not planning on downloading anything that takes up a lot of space anyways.

Shizelbs

06-29-2008, 12:17 AM

appadv

06-29-2008, 12:25 AM

Guitar Hero and Rock Band all have songs that you can download and play on the game. While I'm sure you could download some onto the memory card, I doubt its very many.

Even if you don't go with one with a hard drive, you can always buy one later.

Yeah, I was looking through eBay and a used 20gig HD can be picked up for $40, so even if you add that to the Arcade ($279.99) the final cost is $320, less than that of the Premium.

Now do you need to pay to download additional songs or is it included with the game purchase?

BeRad

06-29-2008, 12:41 AM

Most downloadable content for games costs money.

kuntasensei

06-29-2008, 10:33 AM

I say just spring for the Premium. By the time you add the hard drive and a wireless controller to an Arcade, there'd be no point. And trust me - the wireless controller is worth it. The wired one with the Arcade only has one plus, and that's that you can use it on your PC if you want. But let's face it... If you're gaming on a projector like I am (and like you are gonna be), wireless controller = NECESSARY.

As far as whether you need the hard drive, there are a lot of features that are essentially hamstrung without it. Even if you don't think you'll use their movie download service (I never have), the free HD movie trailers, game videos, demos of upcoming games, videos from E3, etc. all require the hard drive. And for the casual gamer, the sheer amount of trial versions of arcade games will fill up memory cards in a snap. Right now, you could get a 360 with a hard drive and there are so many game demos and trial versions that you could just about not even buy a game for months and still have a ton of fun with it. Plus, just the free downloads for Guitar Hero III right now would pretty much fill up a memory card.

Shizel's right though... If money is an issue and you're in no rush, WAIT. There's a rumored price drop to coincide with E3 that will make most of this moot.

zx_toth

06-29-2008, 11:32 AM

Definately AVOID the Arcade version. I own the Elite and am I glad I did. I dont download full games but I do download demos to play, which are free, each on is between 0.5-1.5 gigs, additionally expansion packs for games can be large too .4-1 gig or so. And these expansions eventually become free ... I downloaded 4-5 expansions for GRAW 2 which added up to over 2 gigs as well the Heroic pack for Halo 3 became free a couple of months ago, Im just waiting for the Lengendary pack to become free (maybe in 4 months). Additionally I noticed that some games have mandatory updates, stating 'a new update is required to play this game online', whether it be fixes to bugs or updating information to balance the game play post-release. Considering a premium is 20 gigs with 4-5 gigs already eaten up software I would go the Elite. Consider you download the free herioc pack for Halo, an expansion for Gears of War, a couple of demos that you are playing online with your buddies, a couple of cds worth of songs to play while playing a racing game in-game and you are starting to fill up that hard drive uncomfortably fast.

My buddy who has a premium has 2-3 gigs on his hard drive left and before he downloads much of anything he has to delete stuff to accomodate it, he has indicated to me taht he will be selling his premium and getting an Elite.

My vote an Elite ... keep in mind you will want updates, free expansion packs, song packs for games like Guitar hero, the occassional demo. If you plan on keeping your Xbox for a long time all the expansion packs for lets say 10-20 games will add up and willl eventually fill up a 15 gig hard drive and unlike the PS3 you cant use an external hard drive.

Zsolt

appadv

06-29-2008, 02:32 PM

Thanks, I guess I'll wait for the price drop on the Premium and then go with that then.

avelanchefan

06-29-2008, 02:54 PM

I am almost positive that the arcade version does have the HDMI out.

Sherardp

06-29-2008, 06:49 PM

I am almost positive that the arcade version does have the HDMI out.

It does have HDMI out, why wait. Go ahead and pick one up, and grab a copy of Call of Duty 4 while youre at it. We're all on Live waiting for you.

appadv

06-29-2008, 07:03 PM

It does have HDMI out, why wait. Go ahead and pick one up, and grab a copy of Call of Duty 4 while youre at it. We're all on Live waiting for you.

To be honest with you, I'm quite a non-gamer. Sure I play once in a while, but I don't really play that often. The reason I'm thinking about the 360 is because my friends always bring their systems over to play and it's a huge inconvenience to setup/disconnect especially with a FP setup.

So I'm still on the "contemplating" side...

avelanchefan

06-30-2008, 04:24 AM

Well the other great thing about the 360 is it being a great media server. Especially if you like to watch .avi movies. And it streams music very well. I have never thought the 360 sounded like crap with my mp3's. It does a great job streaming them in 5 channel stereo. I personally use the media server part of it more than the gaming part of it as of late.

kuntasensei

06-30-2008, 04:29 PM

...and if you know where to look, you can get 1080p rips of Blu-Ray movies in WMV-HD format that stream nicely to the 360 across a home network.

Uhm... just saying. Not advocating it. :D

appadv

06-30-2008, 06:25 PM

eh? Blu-Ray on the XBOX 360? How does that work?

mutelight

06-30-2008, 07:20 PM

eh? Blu-Ray on the XBOX 360? How does that work?

People rip Blu-ray movies and then compress them way down to make them about about 10GB a movie in WMV format. They also take the vanilla AC3 stream and include that.

As far as music on the 360 it is alright I suppose. But it does transcode any music you are streaming (at least from the dashboard) to AC3 which is too bad. One of the reason I stream all my media to my PS3.

appadv

06-30-2008, 07:31 PM

Cool. I'm waiting for the price drop, do you guys think the Arcade and Elite will be included?

mutelight

06-30-2008, 07:50 PM

They are saying that they are dropping the price of the Premium $50 so it will be $299.

Scan from a K-mart ad.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/luxarific/SGP_ks1tgFI/AAAAAAAAABM/ELVLJTiJdU8/s400/0626081219.jpg

appadv

06-30-2008, 08:08 PM

Dangit. I guess the price drop only applies to the Premium then.

appadv

06-30-2008, 11:08 PM

One more question,

With regards to the online multiplayer games -

Do you need some kind of a paid subscription to be able to play?

Face

06-30-2008, 11:28 PM

Don't buy the arcade version, you'll be kicking yourself later.

appadv

06-30-2008, 11:37 PM

Don't buy the arcade version, you'll be kicking yourself later.

Can't afford the higher end (and higher priced) models...

Face

06-30-2008, 11:44 PM

Save up and do it right the first time.

appadv

06-30-2008, 11:46 PM

Argh, I've stopped mowing lawns since 2 years ago, but I guess I need to save up for the Premium model ;)

avelanchefan

07-03-2008, 02:52 AM

...and if you know where to look, you can get 1080p rips of Blu-Ray movies in WMV-HD format that stream nicely to the 360 across a home network.

Uhm... just saying. Not advocating it. :D

LOL, yep sensei that is really a joy to watch. I actually found the Cowboys (old John Wayne Movie) Blu Ray or HDDVD rip not sure but it was great fun to watch again. I have gotten quite a few others. And surprisingly all of them have been fantastic.

appadv

07-03-2008, 01:31 PM

I was thinking about the following -

If I go with the Premium version, and use the "Arcade" disc from one of the Arcade 360's (someone else's), will it work on my Premium just like on the Arcade console?

Reason being I like 2-3 of the games that come bundled with the Arcade console.

kuntasensei

07-03-2008, 04:59 PM

LOL, yep sensei that is really a joy to watch. I actually found the Cowboys (old John Wayne Movie) Blu Ray or HDDVD rip not sure but it was great fun to watch again. I have gotten quite a few others. And surprisingly all of them have been fantastic.

Yup. I ran Bee Movie in 1080p on my Sanyo Z2000 projector the other night... and I have no urge to buy a Blu-Ray player. It looked AMAZING.

Xbox 360 + 1080p projector + 100" screen + 7.1 surround + SVS sub + Buttkicker LFE = :D

mutelight

07-03-2008, 08:57 PM

kuntasensei

07-05-2008, 01:50 PM

Haha, why buy Blu-ray for its superior bit rate in both audio and video when you can illegally download them for free?

Blu-ray or HD DVD are the only way I will watch a HD movie, full non transcoded audio and video > any download.

Again, I'm not advocating piracy... but I guarantee that a 1080p rip encoded in VC1 with 768kbps/48kHz/24-bit audio isn't noticeably different, even on my 100" screen. And for those who either can't afford Blu-Ray or just don't want to get stuck with another failed media format, at least there are options.

But I think $25 a movie vs. free in a very similar quality pretty much answers your question as to why people do it, doesn't it? :D

mutelight

07-05-2008, 04:19 PM

Haha, I never once questioned why people pirate media. I am just highly against it.

djlogix

07-07-2008, 05:45 PM

People rip Blu-ray movies and then compress them way down to make them about about 10GB a movie in WMV format. They also take the vanilla AC3 stream and include that.

As far as music on the 360 it is alright I suppose. But it does transcode any music you are streaming (at least from the dashboard) to AC3 which is too bad. One of the reason I stream all my media to my PS3.

I won't say what you're stating is neccesarily completely false, as there is some truth to it concerning the methods of the music streaming function. I will say however that a bit ago it was remedied and going to be even further with a nice update (not the Spring update that came and went).

Streaming to the PS3 imo is just as if not in some cases worse than the Xbox 360 concerning the different enviroments you get with the music. It's also highly dependent on the formats the source are in.

avelanchefan

07-08-2008, 04:21 AM

I won't say what you're stating is neccesarily completely false, as there is some truth to it concerning the methods of the music streaming function. I will say however that a bit ago it was remedied and going to be even further with a nice update (not the Spring update that came and went).

Streaming to the PS3 imo is just as if not in some cases worse than the Xbox 360 concerning the different enviroments you get with the music. It's also highly dependent on the formats the source are in.

Well lets put it this way. I have some mp4 videos of the X-Files, and I can say for certain that the Xbox streams it much better than the ps3. Overall clarity, and sound are much improved with the Xbox. Not sure why that is, but for some reason I get a ton of patchiness with the ps3, and the blacks are horrid.

appadv

07-11-2008, 01:58 PM

After having a brief conversation with Mike (Face), I think I'm going to go with the 360 Premium.

Now when is that price drop coming? ;)

Face

07-11-2008, 02:59 PM

Sunday.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/14753.cfm

Sherardp

07-11-2008, 06:21 PM

After having a brief conversation with Mike (Face), I think I'm going to go with the 360 Premium.

Now when is that price drop coming? ;)

Excellent choice, now dont forget Call of Duty 4

mmadden28

07-13-2008, 03:33 AM

They are saying that they are dropping the price of the Premium $50 so it will be $299.

Scan from a K-mart ad.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/luxarific/SGP_ks1tgFI/AAAAAAAAABM/ELVLJTiJdU8/s400/0626081219.jpg

Damn and I had the opportunity to get the Premium brand new from Sharper Image in ther Bankruptcy sell off for $250. I decided I was going to wait to get the Elite rather than another Premium (which I have now)-Main reason-I want an HDMI connector. It was in my hands---crap.

You can't get full 1080p output from the Xbox via the component cable-only 1080i. The Xbox HD-DVD is capable of providing 1080P, but if your Xbox output is only 1080i....You have to have the HDMI cable (and I believe you can also use the VGA cable if you're TV supports it). Same goes for any other 1080p content.

In my opinion, don't go less than the Premium. I am not a big gamer, but I love playing them-Just don't have time (kids). I am at my max (20GB) almost all the time-conatantly shuffling which demos to keep and get rid of. The thing wouyld seriously be crippled without one.
Can you even recover a Gamer tag without a hard drive? If you're freinds will be using it, then it's a necessity.

F(*&%%^& MS for making the damn HDD proprietary (in some way). 20GB for $100? fricken scam! You can buy a 500GB HDD for less than $100 for your PC. Its like Apple and the need for a headphone adapter for the iPhone (orig). :mad:

mutelight

07-13-2008, 08:37 AM

Damn and I had the opportunity to get the Premium brand new from Sharper Image in ther Bankruptcy sell off for $250. I decided I was going to wait to get the Elite rather than another Premium (which I have now)-Main reason-I want an HDMI connector. It was in my hands---crap.

You can't get full 1080p output from the Xbox via the component cable-only 1080i. The Xbox HD-DVD is capable of providing 1080P, but if your Xbox output is only 1080i....You have to have the HDMI cable (and I believe you can also use the VGA cable if you're TV supports it). Same goes for any other 1080p content.

I am running 1080p on my launch (well repaired 6 times but still HDMI-less) 360 over component no problem. (Both on my projector and LCD TV) The ANA chip upscales all the games beautifully over component, it is just my HD DVDs which are restricted to 1080i only over component. Then again there is very little content that is 1080p native on the 360.

All SKUs of the 360 now include HDMI. (Arcade, Premium, and Elite)

kuntasensei

07-15-2008, 08:59 AM

I'm running 1080p over component to my Sanyo PLV-Z2000 projector with no problems. Playing 1080p videos from my PC across the network works nicely with this setup.

mutelight

07-15-2008, 07:50 PM

I won't say what you're stating is neccesarily completely false, as there is some truth to it concerning the methods of the music streaming function. I will say however that a bit ago it was remedied and going to be even further with a nice update (not the Spring update that came and went).

Streaming to the PS3 imo is just as if not in some cases worse than the Xbox 360 concerning the different enviroments you get with the music. It's also highly dependent on the formats the source are in.

What I am saying is regardless of what supported format your music is in, if you play it back on a 5.1 setup with DD5.1 enabled the console will transcode and put the file in that container. i.e. an unnecessary transcode degrading the audio fidelity

The PS3 will take the source material and output it directly via PCM.

djlogix

07-16-2008, 02:16 AM

What I am saying is regardless of what supported format your music is in, if you play it back on a 5.1 setup with DD5.1 enabled the console will transcode and put the file in that container. i.e. an unnecessary transcode degrading the audio fidelity

The PS3 will take the source material and output it directly via PCM.

I thought I had responded earlier, brief power outtage at E3. I won't say you're completely wrong, but I can't say you're completely right either. Again, there are reasons the audio quality varies on streams. The biggest of all being an early stack used in the Dashboard's core. It has since been remedied and will further be remedied this fall (E3 announcement). I know you're only guaging from personal experiences or outlets near or around you. I'm giving you what I can from mine and more often then not, the quality is the same on each concerning streaming. The difference between consoles is that the 360's quality completely depends on the network and hardware used, while the PS3's doesn't take anything into account and more often then not will botch a stream instead of lowering the quality to keep it consistent.

Again, one of the best steps taken was the integration of HDMI in F2, Jasper and future revisions.

mutelight

07-16-2008, 03:46 AM

I thought I had responded earlier, brief power outtage at E3. I won't say you're completely wrong, but I can't say you're completely right either. Again, there are reasons the audio quality varies on streams. The biggest of all being an early stack used in the Dashboard's core. It has since been remedied and will further be remedied this fall (E3 announcement). I know you're only guaging from personal experiences or outlets near or around you. I'm giving you what I can from mine and more often then not, the quality is the same on each concerning streaming. The difference between consoles is that the 360's quality completely depends on the network and hardware used, while the PS3's doesn't take anything into account and more often then not will botch a stream instead of lowering the quality to keep it consistent.

Again, one of the best steps taken was the integration of HDMI in F2, Jasper and future revisions.

Alright, but what I am saying is, no matter what, if you are running 5.1 out of the console, whether it be via HDMI or TOSLINK, your audio is being transcoded into an AC3 container. That is a superfluous transcode being done before it hits your AVR. Whether the audio quality is subjectively better or worse, on paper that is one more conversion your music goes through before it hits your system on the 360.

kuntasensei

07-16-2008, 01:31 PM

Mute's right. Stereo audio from music files is encoded to the left and right channels of the AC3 bitstream via hardware mixing to maintain compatibility with the 360's custom soundtracks and allow for mixing of system and game sounds on top of this. The quality has clearly improved with updates, 'cause the launch systems made music sound very tinny, but either way the sound is being sent out via AC3. Even if you're running stereo only, via digital or analog, you face this with the 360 because it's running through the hardware mixer so it can overlay system/game audio.

And though the PS3 passes 7.1 channel PCM via HDMI, music is still passed through its mixer first. It's not just passing through wholly unaltered PCM. Now that they've added custom soundtracks in-game, that's especially true.

Regardless, if you're expecting audiophile grade anything from streaming media on either system, you're kinda' kidding yourself. Both consoles work well for general music listening, but take critical listening to another source.