Xbox 360 Price Drop

[BusyBadger]

Get them just in time for halo: ODST & Forza 3! http://money.cnn.com/news/news...5.htm

[MinisterofDOOM]

I paid $479 for my Elite.

The nice thing about this for those of us who already own 360s is that if ours take a dump now it's much cheaper to replace them.

[BusyBadger]

I'm right there with you on the initial investment bit! I finally upgraded to the 120 gig drive last weekend in preparation for ODST & Forza 3. Had I waited a week I might have just picked a new Elite instead.

And I'll agree with the relpacement cost too. Mine has already had the RRoD fix so I should be good. Not a single hiccup since. But if it goes Tango Uniform on me I'll just pick up an arcade and put the hard drive on and I'm good to go. And with a Jasper chipset too.

[positron1]

Maybe I'll get a 360 instead of a Playstation first.

[snwbrdr435]

My HD on my 360 is almost full and seeing as it is going back to Microsoft i think i might be time for an upgrade.

[marlin29311]

I'm happy I have the 120GB HDD - I have several games installed, as well as content for them...nice that they're fianlly bringing the price down though.....the Elite was way to overpriced compared to the other ones...

[bmike818]

I paid $399 for my first 360, another $399 for my Halo 360.

I can't believe I will be able to buy a new Elite for $299, I can finally retire my Halo 360

Can you say 360>PS3....j/k we have a thread for that

[snwbrdr435]

So the elite, it just comes with an hdmi/ black/ bigger hard drive correct

[bmike818]

it also comes with a HDMI optical adpator that dioesn't come with the Pro. this enables you to use your HDMI w/ optical sound.

...this pissed me off when I bought my Halo 360 for $399 when I could have had the ELite for $449 with the adaptor. (i know its not the Halo360) i paid $49.99 for this

[eds13]

how do you use that opitcal sound thing?

[RCA]

Yay for thin PS3 and why would you want to turn an HDMI port into an optical sound port and two RCA ports? HDMI does sound, pretty well might I add.

EDIT:LMAO you paid $50!!!This was even available on PS2s

Also does any one have any idea how I can put in an after market HDD into my Xbox's HDD enclosure (not the hardware part of it just the formatting/copying data etc)? Also what would be the implications of this? I know if you mod the dvd drive they don't let you play online. I have seen people on Ebay selling 250gb Xbox's so I know it can be done and I would rater have something larger then 120gb.

how do you use that opitcal sound thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF

[marlin29311]

Yay for thin PS3 and why would you want to turn an HDMI port into an optical sound port and two RCA ports? HDMI does sound, pretty well might I add.

Because optical is A) better and B) more available...not all receivers have HDMI inputs yet, and optical is more widely used at this point. When I got my Elite, I had a TV with HDMI, but my sound was still routed through Optical in my receiver...only thing I did was switch my video.

[MinisterofDOOM]

EDIT:LMAO you paid $50!!!This was even available on PS2s

Just another example of the different approaches. MS left out a lot of non-criticals that they sell on the side (wireless network adapter, optical audio cables). It's part of the reason the 360 has been cheaper than the PS3. Those who don't need that stuff don't care about it, which keeps things cheap for most people. Those who do need that stuff pay too much for it, though. So there's an upside and a downside to both ways.

[RCA]

I understand that.

But this was available on a PS2. Xbox and PS2 sold for the same price am I right? So if they could manage to sell a PS2 and Xbox for the same price doesn't that tell you that having optical tech on your gaming console doesn't increase the price that much.

That is like buying a new PC and only having one USB. But if you want the manufacturer sells a 4 USB adapter for $50 if you want more USBs. At some point things should just be standard.

Because optical is A) better and B) more available...

I wasn't aware that optical was better then HDMI when it comes to sound. I agree that when it comes to using a receiver, optical makes sence.

[MinisterofDOOM]

/But this was available on a PS2. Xbox and PS2 sold for the same price am I right? So if they could manage to sell a PS2 and Xbox for the same price doesn't that tell you that having optical tech on your gaming console doesn't increase the price that much.

That is like buying a new PC and only having one USB. But if you want the manufacturer sells a 4 USB adapter for $50 if you want more USBs. At some point things should just be standard.

Those comparisons aren't really equivalent, though. EVERYONE uses USB. Most people DO NOT use optical audio. It's more like getting a PC with no bluetooth and being able to buy a bluetooth adapter if you want one.

And the Xbox/PS2 comparison isn't valid because those are entirely different consoles. But if you want to look at it that way: the PS2 lacked a built in network adapter AND a hard drive while the Xbox had both. So just more difference in choice of options.

[bmike818]

If you plan to purchase an Elite, make sure you look for the one with two free games. I saw one today @ Gamestop. It came w/ Halo and Fable 2

[BusyBadger]

If you plan to purchase an Elite, make sure you look for the one with two free games. I saw one today @ Gamestop. It came w/ Halo and Fable 2

Good advice!

Even if you've already got both games you can always trade them in for store credit at GS. And with a lot of the bonus trade deals they frequently offer you could get pretty close to paying off a new game by trading both of those titles.

[RCA]

And the Xbox/PS2 comparison isn't valid because those are entirely different consoles. But if you want to look at it that way: the PS2 lacked a built in network adapter AND a hard drive while the Xbox had both. So just more difference in choice of options.

Yeah the USB was a more extreme example but a better one would be a VGA output on a laptop. How many people really use them? But they are industry standard. Not expensive to have either.

[snwbrdr435]

Well i picked up an elite where the f*** do i get the transfer kit to get all my old s*** on the bigger hard drive

[MinisterofDOOM]

I'm not sure. There used to be a form to fill out on the Xbox website, but that was a while ago. There are a bunch on ebay for cheap, though.

[snwbrdr435]

I found the form then i realized i was on the xbox uk site when i went to find it on the US site i couldnt i sent them an email and called a bunch of times but hasnt been a use

[bmike818]

I spent 30 mins looking for the US order form, so far all the links I found were dead. Goodluck!

[Loki]

Guys, I got my old one laying around from when I bought my Elite. Pay for postage and it's yours (<$5 most likely). You really only need it once so we can just keep passing it around to any NICOnaut in need First one to email me gets it first!

[MinisterofDOOM]

Did they come with elites? If so I might have one, too.

EDIT:Nevermind, I misunderstood. I thought you meant you still had an order form, not the actual hardware.

[marlin29311]

Well i picked up an elite where the f*** do i get the transfer kit to get all my old s*** on the bigger hard drive

Yea, i think there aren't any more ones coming from MSFT...

Though there was a rumor a while ago about the hardware only working once too....not sure if there is any truth to that...

[snwbrdr435]

Email Sent!

[MinisterofDOOM]

it also comes with a HDMI optical adpator that dioesn't come with the Pro. this enables you to use your HDMI w/ optical sound.

...this pissed me off when I bought my Halo 360 for $399 when I could have had the ELite for $449 with the adaptor. (i know its not the Halo360) i paid $49.99 for this

I was reminded of this thread when I was connecting my Elite to my new HDTV.

I ditched my VGA connector for HDMI and that there little audio dongle. Well, the annoying thing is that with that dealy, you now need a set of basic male-male RCA audio cables. Why didn't it come with those as well? Even my $40 DVD player came with composite AND component RCA cables...but my $470 Elite did not?! The Elite even included an HDMI cable...but no RCAs for audio...WTF?

Anyway, being the electronics nerd I am, of course I have spare cables of every shape and size including some I'm fairly confident that I've never actually had the appropriate components to make use of before...so I just hauled out some of the better looking RCA cables in my impossibly tangled pile of wires and that was that. But I still couldn't believe the cables didn't come with the xbox.

[marlin29311]

Would you like an optical cable with that too?

I think the main concept of having the HDMI cable negates the need for having the audio connector - HDMI handles the audio, and most people don't have killer setups with 5.1 and what not, so you already have your audio bundled in with your shiny new HDMI cable too. I actually think the RCA connectors are a waste and it should just be an optical out, seeing as you could just use the Audio Out on the TV to do the same thing and have the audio feed sent via HDMI...

[MinisterofDOOM]

.........

I don't know why that never dawned on me. I mean I always knew HDMI took care of audio, too (actually, my DVD player can even control my TV through the HDMI connection). But...wow...yeah.

I guess I can put the dongle back in the box and tangle my RCA cable back up where it came from.

[marlin29311]

Lol - sorry for sounding harsh...I'm not having a good morning.

But yea, honestly it would have been better if it was just an optical out - HDMI does the audio better than the RCA, and you don't need any more cable clutter to do it. It's good stuff