Be Excellent To Each Other

1.) I heard stuff about the elite getting a price drop, but I fear this has only been announced for America. Is this true?

2.)Are all Elites the decent ones which dont break? Because Im tempted by a pre-ownded one from gamstation or something.

Not all Elites have improved durability and indeed many of the original 'improved' ones have been superseded by a smaller chip, now in all new 360s. £200 as they sometimes go for is a very good value package, you'll not want for cables, peripherals to get started or storage space. Indeed with the current surge of content on NXE, the 120 is the default for me.

Then get chatpad and play/charge kit. Camera isn't worth it, the other two are handy and occasionally essential.

Mainly though, get points. Check Savygamer for the cheap point offers and snaffle them then. There'll be plenty to stick on your drive.

1) Nope, no price drop. In fact, they're taking things out of the UK box too (such as the HDMI cable).

2) They're all as likely or unlikely to break as each other these days.

Oh I've ready got an xbox, except its broken and out of warranty, Im going to give myself one more try of fixing it tomorrow, if not I need a new one, one thats reliable and has a bigger hard drive as mine has only got 1gb left or something.

Are you sure about the second question I thought the improved chipset reduced the chance of over-heating.

While it's true the Elite did get revisions earliest, they've all got the same motherboard now, except the Arcade has 512MB of flash soldered on.

It might not overheat, but that won't prevent the DVD drive knackering (when mine RROD'd they replaced that too as it was making nasty grindy noises... and now it's making them again)

Yeah they replaced my DVD drive when mine RRoD'd the first time. Be honest though it hadnt caused any problems at all, no noises or sscratches on disks or anything.

Same here DVD and MOBO I think. Although mine first failed because of the DVD drive not reading disks. Second was RROD!!!!!

WAIT.

So far, NOTHING has been announced by Microsoft with regards to getting rid of the Premium console (although this seems likely looking at new SKUs without the Premium thing on the side), upping the price of the Arcade or dropping the price of the Elite. It's all just rumour. However, I'm pretty certain MS are due to make a proper announcement within the next week or so. They apparently had something to announce in Cologne, but pulled it last minute, presumably to re-think their strategy after Sony announced the Slim PS3.

Basically, don't buy a 360 yet.

edit: As for RROD and that, fuck knows.

My 'Jasper' has been great since I bought it. (Red RE5 ltd ed)

Since having the bigger HD I rip my games to the HD so my DVD drive is used about 90% less than before. The fan is quieter too, but far from silent.

What's this now?

Yes. Since NXE I don't think I've run any games from the DVD drive anymore. As it was replaced when my Xbox RRoD'd, it'll probably last the next ten years now.

Longer than your marriage. Statistically speaking.

So what the fuck am I meant to do, Play on the PS3? Dont you know I share (I say share we've had it over a year and I've had it for barely two months.) that with my nephew and its school holidays?

For some time now, the Arcade units have an "internal memory card" which looks to the Xbox OS exactly like a memory unit plugged into the front. They were 256Mb for a while, now they are 512Mb. My one has it. It's very useful as a place to back save games up to.

Ah well, bite the bullet! I'd always buy one new, though, because you'll get the full extent of the three year warranty.

Like Gaywood said. They started doing it because the NXE doesn't fit in the original OS flash - for existing boxes they had to give away free memory units.

At some point recently they quietly started putting 512MB on instead, my theory being cost efficiencies (demand for the smaller chips being near zero, so Samsung or whoever wanting to stop making them as the bigger ones were effectively cheaper to make).

Now, though, I'm wondering if they figure the pennies more chip cost will be outweighed by extra earnings from eejits paying a quid a go for avatar t-shirts and hats.

You don't get much midget porn in 512Mb, although obviously it's more space efficient than regular porn. I'm told.

Right my xbox is proper borked. Thinks its overheated when I try it. So Im guessing I fried it somehow.

Anyway whos the cheapest retail for elites at the moment. Do you think gamestation will let me buy the most recent pre-owned elite?
Also if I do go pre-owned whats on the back of the label to say its the latest chipset?
Also does the elite come with a data transfer cable?
If not will some lovely person let me lend theres?

Who needs porn? Just go and chat up a Morrison's cashier.

That number will say 12.1A on a Jasper chipset. 14.somthing or 16.something indicate older chipsets.

This is the barcode panel on the back of the 360, above the AV port; it can also be seen through the box (as this picture shows).

I think only Mr Dave, Dimrill, you and I will get that.

"Oh, and one more thing, I'd like to pay by cheque."

cheers, im tempted to buy brand new mind.

I see. Handy, but fairly pointless because everyone has an HD anyway?



That's good value. Fruit of the Loom?

People who buy Arcades don't. Unless they then buy one. Which would be daft, unless there's a significant saving-up period in between.

Urgh VG247 really reckon theres a price-drop on the way and potentially happening this week. The bloody cretins.

Keep us updated on that then because I am aiming to buy a second Xbox before MW2 comes out. Any noise about what the price might drop to?

No idea but they said the price of arcade's would rise due to the weak pound, that bloody pound. So why the elite would get a price drop is beyond me.

Hm. I quite fancy them doing an F<N> set of SKUs - they do love adding SKUs - where N is the number of gigabytes of flash they solder on instead of 512MB. The hard work is already done - basically, make it an Elite but leave the hard disk out of the box - so it's an easy decision. "Xbox 360 F16" has a neat-ish, pseudo-techy feel to it, too.

Hey, it works for Apple.

And me. That makes it one of the more widespread in-jokes on the forum, surely?

I forgot about you. Out of sight, out of mind.

According to a report over on MCV, Microsoft will reveal its intentions for the Xbox 360 tomorrow.

The announcement is expected to include the discontinuation of the Pro and a price drop for the Elite as well as the changes rumored for the Arcade.

Microsoft has yet to confirm or deny reports relating to the new pricing for its SKUs, but it looks like tomorrow is D-day.

You can be so cruel sometimes.

All I remember is wanting the ground to open up and swallow me. (And Dimrill mentally undressing her)

Xbox Elite is going down to 200 quid on friday.

Apparently gamestation are going to have a bundle of an Elite, COD4 and Fight Night Round 4.

Which I might get, bit gutted that fight night is already ont he way from goosey though.

Also one VG247 comment reckons theres a rumour that the elite will start coming with wifi alledged on the fact the new dev kits have it.

About time. Stupid that it was left out in the first place.

Quite frankly, that means nothing. Dev kits are quite different from production machines.

They really should just stop selling the Arcade if they're going to place it £40 under the Elite, unless there's more margin for retailers to discard.

Not if it meant a cheaper console.

Indeed. Imagine if the console were £60 more but had wifi built in. At least they've been giving people the choice - not everyone needs it.

Except that the incremental cost of building WiFi into the 360 would have been well under £5. It's not like chipsets or antennas are expensive.

The cost of them doing it !!==\==//=\==\=!! how much extra they'd sell it for.

That's my new symbol for 'does not equal', btw.

I like how it has more characters in it than 'does not equal' does.

It took less time to type out though, as I just mashed the keyboard.

I don't use WiFi for any of my consoles - cables all the way! (Apart from the Wii.)

Making the 360 £50 more expensive (design was 2004 remember, you can't use the price now) for a feature that at the very least a good proportion of people don't need or want would have been the stupid choice.

USB WiFi adaptors were well under £30 in 2004, and they were packaged and sold seperately. The incremental cost of adding WiFi to the 360 in 2004 as a built-in accessory would have been much less.