XBox 360 Price Announced: $299 Standard/ $399 Premium (1 Viewer)

[BrianB]

The bundles aren't designed to offer the consumer savings. The bundles are designed to ensure the retailer makes a profit from your purchase - there is near zero margin on the hardware itself.

 

[Andrew Grall]

I will almost definitely be picking up an XBox360 whether at lauch or a little later... But I do think Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot by even offering an option without a hard drive. As suggested, that makes things harder for the developers.

Of course, the developers could take matters into their own hands and just REQUIRE the hard drive for their games...

 

[Ken Chui]

 

[Mike Fassler]

dont forget that a 360 with a hdd means you get backwards compatibility on the original xbox games too. something I read in this months game informer.

 

[BrianB]

On "top selling" titles of course And without access to your original saves.

 

[Ken Chui]

Wal-Mart is now offering bundles, starting from $579.06 (Premium bundles start at $619.32).

Good: consumers decide which title(s) they want in their bundle
Bad: it's Wal-Mart

 

[chad k]

I just played the 360 for two days

People complaining about the 59.99 for the games... I paid 50.00 for ATARI and NES games back in the day, Im actually suprise they haven't went up before this, and i dont mind it by the way they look.

I just got back from my yearly vendor show and had the chance to play Call of Duty 2, Full auto, Kameo and Gun. they all looked amazing. Call of duty 3 looked stunning and side by side looked as good ir better than the PC version which was running on a 4k machine. And i am not a fan of the call of duty series on consoles as it always looked like crap and the #2 looks like crap as well on the current systems, but it looked amazing on the 360. Full auto looked good as well. I wasnt real pumped on the system as i had just replaced my Pc video card a few months back but after the vendor show the 360 looked amazing and most weren't finsihed yet and a few were a little on the frame rate. but all in all i am pumped now and cant wait for NOV to roll around.

The controller is awesome and feels really good.

Any other questions let me know.

 

[Blu]

Where can you pre-order the system without having to get one of the really expensive bundles ala Gamestop?

 

[chad k]

My store (eb) didnt require the bundles this year, check with them, u might not make the first shipment but hopefully it wont be to long after the initial shipment.

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

Only select "high profile" titles such as Halo. There is very little definitive on backwards compatibility at this point. Don't expect your whole Xbox library to work (which is why you won't be selling your original console ).

I'm going to have a hard time fighting back an early purchase on this one.

 

[BrianB]

The one definitive thing from Microsoft is that they are not going to have a way to transfer saves from a Xbox to a 360.

 

[Ken Chui]

The bundle to end all bundles: OMEGA with DELL Plasma TV

You may want to consider a smaller viewing panel if the Oculas is your primary gaming habitat.

 

[Marshall W. Carter]

I remember paying $69.99 for Final Fantasy III & $72.99 for Street Fighter II on the SNES, so $59.99 isn't that bad. I won't like it much, but I'm not going to act like games have never been this expensive before (heh, I've paid $120+ for certain individual games before, import PCE, Neo Geo home carts and homebrew Jaguar carts a la Battle Sphere...which now sells for $300+ on eBay).

If you don't want to pay that much (and I've decided I don't, no matter how cool the built-in NEON lightsynth from Jeff Minter is going to be), just wait a year or so, until the price of the console goes down, and there are "platinum hits"-type titles to buy.

 

[BrettGallman]

Remember when Virtual Racing was a cool $100 on the Genesis? That was weird. Even the local rental store (this was before the Blockbuster mega-chain era) jacked up the price for it.

I usually rent most games anyway, so if the prices are a little more, it won't affect me too much.

 

[Scott_lb]

I also agree that the increase in the price of most games (to $59.99) isn't that big of a deal. I find that after a console cycle gets moving, I usually don't buy many games when they first come out anyway because I have too many others to play through first. I do remember paying $59.99 for Tommy Lasorda Baseball (Genesis), $74.99 for Phantasy Star (Master System, worth EVERY penny), and $74.99 for Phantasy Star II (Genesis). The way I look at it is like this: I have no problem paying $59.99 for a triple-AAA game delivers.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Well, the record for me is 99.99 (CDN) for FF3 on the SNES. At that point, games were usually in the 80-100 range, and now they seem to top out at 59.99, and average somewhere around 55. Sure, the dollar has gotten stronger, but I don't think that it's THAT much of a difference.

 

[JamesED]

I think the two largest contributers to keeping games at $50 have been cheaper media and a much larger audience.

 

[Ed B]

I read that they might drop the prices of the XBOX Platinum games down to $10 when the 360 comes out.

I paid full price for my Sega Master System ($300?) w/3D glasses and light gun and I paid about $300 for my 3D0 so the cost of the 360 system doesnt bother me. As for the prices of the games I'm in the same boat with the rest of you old school gamers, I've paid my share for expensive games. I think we've been spoiled with some lower costing games thats why people are complaining about the $60 game releases.

I'd be willing to bet that they could make a util CD to put into the XBox and 360, then connect the two via lan to export saved games over to the 360. I dont think they've given it much thought though. Some game maker should make that setup they'd make a killing. I for one dont want to face those first 3 bosses in Ninja Gaiden ever again.

Ed

 

[BrianB]

They could. However Microsoft don't want to - they're trying to make the 360 as secure as possible & that would be a great way to get unknown data on the 360.

 

[Dave Mack]

Ok, question from x-360 newbie here so go easy guys!
The last console I bought was a GC but unfortunately none of the new games I now want to play are being released on GC. "The Warriors", "The Godfather" etc... I was looking at buying a used Xbox and read all kinds of ads on Craigslist for "chipped", "modded" X-boxes which confused me a bit. Question... Since the $399 360 can be backwards compatible does that mean that an x-box game would just play in a 360? I don't have any "saves" obviously as I don't own any of this. But if say, I wanted the Warriors and I bought the xbox version, would it just be able to play in a 360? Or would I have to get an actual Xbox?

Thanks for any help, guys!

d