So You Think You Can Afford An Xbox 360?

The good old Xbox 360. The first of the next-gen systems, which is suppose to launch sometime this November. It's being released with two different price tags.

The core system is $300. It comes with the most basic features which include the console, an Xbox Live Silver Membership (which doesn't even allow you to play online games until you buy a memory card or hardrive AND upgrade to the $50 a year Gold Membership), one wired controller, and a standard av cable.

The premium package is $400. This includes a couple more things such as the remote, headset, and a wireless controller. There is almost no reason not to get the premium package seeing as the core system is near obsolete compared to it.

Now, let's assume that most people are going to go with the premium package for $400. A lot of money, yes? That's just the beginning...

Me and a friend (Shiek 84) recently took a look at the price of everything and anything having to do with the Xbox 360. Since one of our friends is planning on getting one we wanted to get a rough estimate as to how much money he would be shelling out to get his hardcore Xbox hands on the 360.

Say you wanted to buy 3 more controllers for some 4-player parties. Each controller is $50. You would have to pay $150 dollars just to uptain enough controllers for you and three buddies to play a game...unless they've already gotten their hands on the mighty Xbox 360. Also keep in mind that each game is predicted to be anywhere from $50-$70 (most likely will stay around $50.)

Here are some prices of different things you may or may not need for your system...

-DVD Remote: $30

-HD AV Cable: $40

-Headset: $20

-Detachable 20 GB Hard Drive: $100

-Xbox Live Gold Membership: $50 to upgrade + $50 a year

-Memory Card: $40 each

-Play and Charge Kit (controller charger): $20 each

-Rechargeable Battery Pack: $12 each

-Wireless Networking Adapter: $100

-Faceplates- $20 each

And the list goes on and on. Me and Shiek made a little prediction as to how much our friend will be spending, seeing as he is a money spending fiend...We came up with a pricetag of somewhere between $1268-1400. Better start saving up.

If I buy the $400 one how long do I get to play X-box live before I have to pay to continue it?

Wow... that is ridiculous, even for me.

That's just too expensive for anyone. I mean, come one, even the memory card price is a ripoff.

I probably lost some interest in it, especially knowing that I'll only be able to get it when hell freezes over.

Originally Posted by Lord Yoshi

If I buy the $400 one how long do I get to play X-box live before I have to pay to continue it?

The Premium Package comes with the Xbox Live Silver Membership. The sad thing is you can't even play online games until you upgrade to the Gold Membership. I believe the Silver Membership is free (but I could be wrong) and it lasts forever (I could also be wrong about this).

You can download demos, music, etc with the the Basic membership, but you lack the most important thing of all: playing online games over Xbox Live.

This is rediculous... But it's one more reason why I dislike the Xbox & am sticking solely to the Revolution. Plus all the games I care to play online I already own. Of course I'm going to have to wait a very long while before getting the Revolution... I'm expecting its price tag to be equally rediculous.

I feel pretty confidant that my boyfriend's not going to bother with the 360... being as he would have to choose between getting it or saving up for a car (& I'm sure the car would win).

I'd probably kill myself, sell my organs, then, well, I wouldn't be able to buy one anyway because I'd be dead.

How much is X-box live?

I will be buying the Premium Package and Perfect Dark Zero.

But what if I don't want to play online? I buy consoles for the unique offline experience they offer.

From what I can gather, in ENGLAND,

The 360 is going to be £209.99

(core system(NO harddrive, memory cards and controllers with cables))

The '360 will be £275.99

(PReMIUM(Hardrive, Wireless controllers ect...))

GAmes: £44.99

Wireless controller: £44.99

(Not compatable with core system??)

Who's getting the better deal? England or America?

This doesn't look good for the countries with not as strong a currency..

An easy way to avoid the price problems would be just to wait until competition between Xbox360, PS3, and Revo brings the prices down to a level that doesn't hurt your wallet. It happened with the Xbox/PS2/Gamecube consoles and it'll happen again this time (the PS2 launched at around $700 (Australian) and the Xbox's release saw that price cut in half). The best games will be released later on anyway, so you really can't lose.

Yeah. When I first saw this, I realized Xbox owners are going to have to put a lot of money into their systems. Though it will be over time, in conjunction with birthdays, holidays, and price cuts.

And the Core System is scam (pretty much the two packages thing is a scam). They tell you that you can go with a lower price now, AND SAVE!!! but in the end you'll just be spending an ungodly amount of money trying to make it the Premium package and more.

Originally Posted by Sir Chuc

This doesn't look good for the countries with not as strong a currency..

Indeed.. Not that I intended to buy one, but that price is ridiculous.

I hoped to get it at launch but, I'm too late for pre-orders. Best Buy says they never sell out on the launch days so, that's probably where I'll get it, along with a new HD. Two other brothers means 100 more dollars for the controllers. Two or three games I plan to get, over $150. Total: $650. I hope I'll get it.

The core system is a good buy if you don't have an HD. It comes with standard component cables. The premium package comes with HD cables.

X-box never catches my attention. 400 dollars is a reason why. I guess the same could be said about the ps3 when it comes out but Im sticking with that one since all the 3rd party games will be the same and it has better first party games (is that right?) in my opinion. Plus, ill just enjoy someone elses X-box 360 if they get one.

I knew that Xbox 360 would be expensive, but I've always sort of overlooked price as an important factor when purchasing a system. I always am reluctant to name price as an advantage for Nintendo, because it makes their systems seem inferior. It allows fanboys of other systems to argue, "You get what you pay for", which implies that Revolution is for poor people who can't afford a "Man's Console". So, like I said, I've strayed from mentioning price as a deciding factor on a console.

Not anymore. I had no idea how much Xbox 360 would cost. This is unbelievable. First of all, you'd have to be an idiot to buy the $300 version. It's a scam and everybody knows it. So that's $400 right off the bat. Then you have all of these other expenses before you even begin to consider games. For one thing, controllers cost $50, which I think is ridiculous. For the price of a current generation game, you get a controller. That's terrible anyway you look at it. You'll be paying $150 for three controllers. It doesn't surprise me though. Off-line multiplayer is clearly not a priority for Microsoft. Then you have all of the other features that most hardcore (and most of the Xbox fanbase is very hardcore) players are going to want.

This won't be the case for everyone, for sure, but Sizzlin and I have calculated that our soon to be Xbox 360 toutin' friend will easily pay over $1000 (with games) at, or very soon after launch. And that's only for the first year games. I find that incredible. Just imagine how much more you'd be paying if games were to see even a ten dollar increase in price. And, we just know that this particular person is going to be all over those $20 faceplates. Because, you know, according to J. Allard, Xbox 360 is "all about you". They want you to take it and make it your own (and pay them insane amounts of money to do so).

Nothing on Revolution is official as of yet. I'm going to predict, however, that even as a fairly hardcore player, I won't be spending more than $500 in the first year. I figure about 200-250 for the actual system. Online is free. No need for a headset. I won't be getting a DVD remote. I will be downloading a lot of classics, so, that could add up depending on the cost. But I can say with 100% confidence that I will not be paying even half of what my friend will be.

The Revolution will be a weaker console. Still, the graphics will be better than current systems. So, given this, I don't think the games are going to look much different than their Xbox 360 counterparts, although that remains to be seen. Most Xbox 360 games SO FAR look rather unimpressive. I'm sure they'll look absolutely stunning in a few years, but even then, graphics become unimportant after the first half hour. This is a true statement. I never have claimed that graphics don't matter, because they do. However, I think that art style, animation, framerate, effective use of color and the all around appeal are much more important than having more polygons or better textures. Furthermore, I think that having good, or at least unique visuals is important because it attracts people to the game. Once you see that game, and play it for about thirty minutes, the graphics--good or bad--wear on you, and become irrelevent. This was especially apparent with Wind Waker. Love or hate it, you stop noticing the cel-shading with time.