Xbox 360 Coming Soon
So after the recent $50 price drop and inclusion of the HDMI port, I finally ordered a Xbox 360 Premium from Amazon today. To be honest I never intended to get Microsoft's next generation console platform since I use the Wii for gaming and I still have my original Xbox which I hardly get a chance to play anymore. What made me want to buy it was that it makes a great media extender (in fact the only one that works with Vista Media Center). My goal was to always rip my legally owned DVD's to a hard drive and watch them in my living room. The Xbox 360 was the most cost efficient method to do this. The fact the 360 plays excellent games (like BioShock, Gears of War and Madden NFL 08) doesn't hurt either.I struggled a bit deciding if I should get the Elite or the Premium model but since the Premium now includes HDMI (it turns out I did need HDMI to have DVD's upscaled to 1080p), the only difference was the Elite has a larger 120GB hard drive and comes in black. Although the larger drive could be useful, most users claim that can't fill up their 20GB with just saved games. Also I don't really care for the black color that much since its a matte black that looks more like the charcoal gray that the old Dell Dimensions came in. Also not all the accessories like the memory cards and HD DVD drives come in black. For the $100 difference I figured I could get by with the Premium although I still have to find an optical dongle on eBay so I can connect it to my Dolby Digital receiver.
I also ordered the HD DVD accessory since Annel wanted to watch high definition movies. I was firmly in the "wait until the format war is over" camp but at a recently reduced price of $179 I said why not? Personally I wish Microsoft made a Blu-Ray add-on but that's the subject for yet another blog. Anybody up for a Heroes party when Dave and Angie visit?
posted by Marcos at August 20, 2007
2 Comments:
So you're choosing sides on the HD battlefront? I have a few questions and concerns regarding this but I'll wait until I see you in person. :)
360 though, cool! I actually like the charcoal gray of the Elite and would choose it if the cost was the same but white is fine too. I've always admired the design of it. Makes the original Xbox look clunky by comparison. You can thank a team of U.S. and Japanese designers for that.
So if the Premium comes with HDMI, why do you need an optical dongle for audio? I thought HDMI combines the two, or is it because your A/V receiver doesn't have an HDMI port?
Also, all the games you mentioned will be available for the PC as well. But as one reviewer put it, is your gaming preference moving away from the chair and over to the couch?
OK, I'm back on the 360 bandwagon again. I just re-placed my order for the Premium minus the HD DVD add on. Since I won's be using it for upconverting DVD's I don't need the HDMI cable and optical dongle just yet, I can still game at 1080p with the included component cables.
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