Alright, I am going to try to keep this simple and not go into all of the details that you will most likely find boring. By now I am sure that everybody knows that the Xbox 360 Arcade is going to be dropping to $200 with the Premium at $300 and nobody cares about the Elite.
What this does is finally push an entry level Xbox 360 down to a price that is cheaper that a Wii. You might argue that you shouldn’t get the Arcade because of the lack of hard drive but I will disagree with you. Let me break it down for everybody. Assuming that the actual Arcade SKU remains the same (there are rumors of motion control and all that) you will get all of these things:
1. Xbox 360
2. 256MB Memory Card
3. Wireless Controller
4. 5 Free XBLA games ($50 value right there)
What these four things enable you to do is play every single Xbox 360 game on the market and be able to save. You will also be able to purchase Xbox Live Gold and play online. What you will not be able to do is download game demos or any of the other DLC for that matter.
Consider this as well. If you bought the Arcade SKU you can pick up a used 20 GB hard drive at your local GameStop for $60 and you will have all the functionality of the Premium SKU for about $40 less and you will have 5 games on top of that. Sure you won’t have the 60GB storage that the Premium’s are coming with now but who cares, it is really easy to delete game demos that you are never going to play again. So if any of you don’t have an Xbox 360 yet and are looking to buy one, I would suggest going with the Arcade and picking up the used hard drive to go with it.
On top of all that, the Arcade SKU will be cheaper than the Wii, as mentioned previously. This is a big deal. Nintendo claims that they are in their own market and aren’t competing with Xbox 360 or PS3 but we all know that isn’t true. Nintendo has been able to make mad profits selling the Wii at $250 for almost two years now. Where MS and Sony take losses on hardware and make up for it in software sales, Nintendo is making profit on both ends.
What Microsoft has done will now put pressure on Nintendo to drop the price of the Wii, especially if the rumors about the motion controller for the 360 are true. The holiday season is coming up and Microsoft knows how to advertise. Microsoft also has the whole new dashboard update coming with those avatars and you know they are going to push those like crazy.
If Microsoft can pit their Arcade SKU against the Wii properly they are going to have a great holiday season. I just wonder how long it is going to take Nintendo to drop the price of the Wii down to $200 to match the 360. All I know is that the next 4 months are going to be very interesting.
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I want to make sweet sweet love to you my antlered lover.
Your enchanting ability to spot a deal makes me percolate like coffee pot.
Microsoft are still going to have their work cut out for them if they are going to suck up some of Nintendo's target audience. A lot of the 'casual' people that buy the Wii and a game or two still see the 360 and PS3 (and the library) as things they just aren't interested in. They aren't going to get the Wii Fit/Wii Sports crowd interested in Gears of War 2 any time soon.
While I cringe at the thought of a 360 without a hard drive, I have to agree that this will slow down the Wii's lead.
It makes the choice between the two a no-brainer.
eeenteresting. This hastens my purchase of a 360 even more...
I thought the XBLA games that come with the Arcade bundle were just trials. I could be wrong.
I got one of these for 200 euro half a year ago for all the online stuff. It's well worth it for the XBLA stuff alone, although I wish there was a 250 euro/dollar PS3 available too :)
The disc you get with it has Pacman CE/Uno/Boom Boom Rocket/Feeding Frenzy and Luxor 2 fully on it, although you need to have the disc in the 360 to play them as full games. The rest on the disc is demo/trial/movie.
Oh, and over here they have a new Wireless Expansion Pack, which is a 60GB hdd + wireless controller + 3 months of live (I think). That would mean you're better off getting an Arcade and then the exp pack than getting a Pro console for the same price.
If you want to play online and lack a ethernet port for your 360 that's another $100 making it cost $300 follars
Eternalplayer, every 360 has an Ethernet port. You just need to buy a $10 Cat-5 cable.
imo, it will need to come w/ Newton to compete w/ Wii. casual gamers want to buy it & just have it work. they don't want to go in search of accessories.
casual gamers also wont know the HDD price at gamestop, or even want to go to gamestop for that matter. If you look at the percentage of Wii sales i'd be willing to bet less than 2% are sold through GS. Most would be sold on the net, at Wal-mart, Target, best buy, circuit city, etc.. Stores people go for non-gaming related items and just notice it through the corner of their eye. The reason the Wii sells so well is because it's an impulse buy w/ buzz seeping into non-gaming culture.
MS has to create this sort of pervasive buzz in order to compete w/ the Wii on it's level. It will take a killer app in the order of Wii Sports plus a preview of at least a couple more, combined w/ a large advertising campaign to approach the type of buzz the Wii enjoys.
But the real question is, "Will your 360 fail in a 3 month period?".
There is also a market that people seem to completely forget about here. There are over 100 million PS2 owners worldwide. When you look at the total sales of 360, PS3, and Wii together it is significantly less that the number of PS2 sales.
This basically means that there are a shit ton of people that haven't yet gotten a new system yet and they are probably wanting to upgrade but can't afford a system yet. Microsoft can advertise to those people.
I mean, if anybody asks me if they should buy a PS3 or 360, i will tell them to get the 360, straight up. Unless you really want to play the few mediocre PS3 exclusives, the 360 is the system to go with to play games on.
Current PS2 owners with be able to make their entry into the current generation with the 360 Arcade at $200 where the PS3 is still stuck at around $400-500.
Its a big deal because of the holiday seasons. Cheap parents want the best deal, not the best console. Two hundred dollar xbox compared to a two hundred fifty dollar wii could make a difference.
Also cocks could make a difference.
Also, the Wii being sold out could make a huge difference as well where Microsoft will over manufacture the 360 so it will be much easier to find one.
It's a good deal only if you don't play much XBLA gamesand don't play online. Yes you can play online with it but almost all games have patches you need to download. The 256MB memory card is not much. But for kids or causal gamers that only what to play madden and halo it's a really good deal.
It's really to late to compete with the Wii, even with an alternative arcade sku parents and others alike that don't know the difference are gonna keep their eye on the prize and go for the wii since that's what "everyone" wants. And real gamers already know the difference and have decided if they want a wii or not, 360 cheapness or not.
shit id probably jump on purchasing this, and just buy a used xbox 360 hd on ebay or some shit or hell just fork out the $300 for the regular 360 why not. Buuuutt I really want a ps3 for some strange reason XD
The ONLY reason you need big hard drive is to rip games and play them off the hard drive, which I will be doing as the warranty for my optical drive just expired. If you need/want to do that, 20gb is MORE than enough.
An educated gamer will not let price be the determining factor, and will be willing to save an extra $50 dollars for a console with HD graphics, a useful hard drive, and easy friends list management.
A dedicated gamer given the choice of only one console, will choose a Playstation 3. This is due to the fact that if they can only afford one console, they'll want the one that doesn't break 33% of the time.
The only people that are going to be comparing the 360 arcade bundle and the Wii are the people who don't know any better, and they're going to go for a Wii, because it's "totally radical", and all of their friends at the office/retirement home/school will be jealous.
A sick, depraved vidya game junkie (like myself) will get all three because they're all beautiful in their own way!
*If you DON'T need/want
@Lightthrower @DynamicSheep
MS has changed the internals three times so far.
first the larger heatsinks. Then the move to 65nm CPU & 80nm GPU. Then the rearrangement of capacitors to distribute heat better. Theyve changed the DVD drive a few times as well.
if rumors are true, this $199 arcade will be the Jasper model which will have 65nm CPU & GPU as well as previous improvements. The models which failed at a very high rate were the launch models. The Falcons decreased that amount dramatically from what i've heard. The Jasper should lower it to that of PS3 at least.
Supposedly Jaspers should start appearing in Sept. & this price cut is supposed to start the second week of Sept. So they may coincide. It's not a definite, & it would probably be safer to wait until Oct where more of the older stock is cleared out if you want to be sure. But RRoD should be a problem of the past w/ this iteration. I say should because nothing is definite; but I would think it could only make it more reliable w/ less heat & better distribution of said heat along w/ more reliable BGA solders.
@DynamicSheep, you contradict yourself. You say that the price of the system should be a determining factor for a dedicated gamer when buying a system but then you say that if you can only afford one you would get the PS3.
The fact is that price DOES matter. Price is a very important part of choosing a system. When the PS3 hits $200 I am going to buy one, because it is worth $200, just not $400. A lot of people have that same thought process. If you are looking at the PS3 or the 360 and you can't afford a $400 system, you should get the 360 and enjoy that for now until the PS3 becomes affordable.
ilu ted. this was beautiful.
I feel bad when i agree with ted. but I always respect him in the morning.
I'm still wondering how many games could be played online with a 256 memory card.