[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Anyone who's not a silly impatient git whose unwilling to work with a PC for five minutes would never touch one. They're riddled with bugs, not anywhere near 100% backwards compatible (with no plans to ever be 100% or even close. We addressed this in RTfM.), basically all PC ports for money you could have spent on making your PC at least on par with the 360 (more likely better). I like how Ian says it takes him an hour to tweak a game. Odd, it takes me the whole of 2 minutes.[/quote]
The compatability as it stands now, and as it continues, will very likely be good enough for the vast majority of users out there.

And yes, often it can take an hour for me. Because you know what? Not everyone has their RAM maxed out. Not everyone has their processors overclocked. Not everyone has the latest and greatest graphics card on the bloody market. And not everyone has the time, or gives a **** about updating drivers all the damn time.

So when you factor in the time it takes to install, and then account for all the extra little crap someone like me might have to do to make something run slightly above average, yes. It can take an hour. Do I do it all at once? Hell no. I spread it out over a few days. But that hour still remains.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Basically, no games for it are going to be exclusive except a very select few (99 nights, Rare games, Hexic, PGR, Halo), [/quote]
Congrats on stating the exact reason people like Zloc and I want one.

Exclusive titles don't really concern me. Neither do ports. The over all selection (past and future) DOES. I got an Xbox because it elminated the hassle of dealing with alot of PC crap, while still allowing me to play PC ported titles. And you know what? The Xbox just so happened to also trump the GameCube and PS2 in graphical ability, which made it the better choice for what I wanted.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]and the PS3 is going to stomp it with titles and power when it comes out.[/quote]
That's nice. Explain to me why I should care. At this point in time, the 360 for me isn't about the power anymore. It's about the title selection, as I said. And as I also said, original exclusive titles really don't sway me too much. And before you even START... Halo HARDLY influenced my decision to buy an Xbox. A factor? Maybe. But not the overall deciding one.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Don't buy one--you have no reasoning to back up your purchase, and as a 13 year old with a pocket full of 400 bucks to drop on one, I'd suggest waiting and spending your money on something more important. Or hell, just saving your money in general.[/QUOTE]
He's THIRTEEN. He has 400 dollars of disposable income in his hands. He doesn't have to worry about supporting anyone, gas, rent, or anything else. In my eyes, he has every right to drop that 400 bucks on whatever the hell he wants. He has little better to do with it.

I've had my 360 Since 8 AM on launch day.

I love it.

I've been hanging around some 360 boards a lot lately, where polls have been posted for people to post whether they've had problems or not. Every one that I have seen have been heavily weighted towards the "no problems" option.

The most common problem I've heard of are scratched discs. Most of which have been a user error, in this case, switching the 360 from vertical to horizontal (or vice-versa) while a disc was in and playing.

I've heard of a few freezes, nothing bad, 90% of the time it's just a "restart the system, and never a problem again" situation.

Overheating has also been a problem, but I haven't heard much of it lately. Mostly just from the first day.

As for those with problems: MS Has been incredibly helpful. They overnight you a box to send them your 360 in, you send it. They fix/replace it, and ship it back off right away. I've only heard of ONE (yes ONE) situation where the total turn-around time (starting from when the person actually sent their 360) was a week, give or take a day or two.

As for any problems I've had:

While playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted, the game froze on me once. Restarted, never had a freeze again.

and

During some DVDs (and usually only during either the feature film, or the special features, but never both (so far)) there is a very slight stutter. This finally annoyed me enough to e-mail microsoft, and see what they may have to say about it.

Beyond that... I couldn't be happier with the 360.

I've heard numerous people say that MS has planned on getting as many games backward compatible as possible (haven't really researched it, so I can't say first hand, so please, I'd appreciate it if you don't take this as a fact).

Wired controllers can be used in both the 360 and a PC, just have to download drivers. I've heard that you can do the same with the wireless controller if you have a play-and-charge kit, but I'm not sure, but they do sell wireless 360 controllers for the computer.

I've yet to have any framerate issues, except Need for Speed: Most Want, which has some common, but incredibly minor, and usually never noticeable when you start playing for more than 10 minutes.

The arcade games idea is great. I have Hexic, and the pool game (can't remember the name)

One quirk I've had with the 360 is that you can only have 3 wired controllers hooked up to it, but I don't care because I will not use a wired controller for it after having used the wireless. But this problem stems from the fact that there are only 3 USB ports for the controllers to plug into, 2 on the front, and one on the back.

I think I've said enough.

oh... except:

If you're still worried about issues: The 360 does come with a form you can fill out to get an extended service plan for 60 dollars. It lasts 2 years, and covers parts and labor. After these 2 years, you can renew for another 2 years. This can be repeated for the life of the system.

(If you're in the US) I have heard rumors that the second shipment is starting to go out, and that CostCos have been getting a number of systems in (Someone who works at a Southern Californian CostCo said they're warehouse received nearly 2000 360s for distribution to it's covered stores, he included a warehouse number, and item number so skeptics can ask store clerks to check it, if possible). And I've heard Best Buy intends to have a number of them on the 18th (of December), apparently a minimum of 20, just like launch. (A number of people are considering the 18th to be another launch day.)

Note:
Again, please don't take any of these things I've said to be a true representation of actual statistics or numbers. Just things I have seen or heard from a message board, and felt to be trustworthy.

you mean one couldn't make use of a usb hub?

I'm not entirely sure. I haven't heard of anyone trying it. I really don't know why it wouldn't work.

[Edit]
Found someone whose done it, and that it works:
http://llamma.com/xbox360/news/usb-hub-confirmed-working-on-xbox-360.htm
[/edit]

Also:

I have heard of a number of CostCo stores getting as many as 150 360s in over the past few days.

And I can't find the link right now, but December 18 is supposedly confirmed date for best buy to be selling them. (Source: a leaked memo to the stores). It's supposed to be in their ad tomorrow.

[Edit]
http://www.360maniac.com/
[/Edit]

I've heard the stores have been receiving shipments for a while, but have been strictly instructed not to sell them until December 18.

Yoshi's machine isn't "maxed out", most games now will even auto configure. Of course they don't always turn up the games as high as your machine can handle it...

Thanks. I'm not even going to bother responding to the rest, because Ian likes to contradict himself. Yay contradictions!

I have yet to see an auto configure that's actually any good.

cod2's was good

At most I change resolution, and maybe texture detail. Lighting details only if it lags.

OK, well, thinking into a new PC. Save up my money for around 6 months or so , get around $700 (roughly) with my $150 my mom said she'd throw in for my Xbox 360, and go ask the guys in town if they'll build me a computer. Maybe make a list of parts I'd like, take it in there. I dunno, not quite sure right now.

Yoshi: Bite me. Not everyone is a total PC fanboy like, say, you. I just prefer consoles to PC because I PERSONALLY (ZOMG ZLOC HAS AN OPINION) find console gaming easier to mess with and such.

Meh, I dunno what I'll do. Maybe I'll see if we can't format my compy, sell my mom's and buy me a gaming computer or something. That'd be cool...we'll see.

But please, go on with your arguing. It's interesting.

1) Sounds like a good plan, except I'd get someone you KNOW to do it--places usually charge upwards of 200 dollars, if not MORE to build comps. That's a lot at that price point.

2) Bite you? PC fanboy? I love PCs, yeah, but I hate people who think PCs are so damn hard to mess with when they either just 1: don't know what they're doing or 2: use only prefab PCs and become frustrated with them. It's not a matter of being a PC fanboy (which I'm not), it's a matter of knowing what the hell you're doing or just not being wholly impatient.

3) Get over yourself.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]I told him when, and why. If you can refute my points and show that the Xbox 360 in its current form and hell anytime in the foreseeable future would be a good buy, then I would gladly say "Go for it." As is, though, I can't reccommend it, and I felt he needed to know why.[/QUOTE]

That's like someone coming up to you and saying, "My Ford broke down on the other side of the road, can you tell me where the nearest phone booth is?"

And you retorting, "Why are you driving a Ford anyway? American cars suck - its your own fault for driving one anyway. Also, you shouldn't use a phone booth. They're dirty and outdated. Get a cell phone. I personally recommend Cingular for its service area and affordability."

These all may be valid points.... but have nothing to do with what he's really asking and aren't helping him any.

But they do. It's not quite the same thing--hell he ended up taking my advice anyways. The 360s have a rather high failure rate--5 to 10% so I hear. That doesn't SOUND like a lot, but think about it--that's only 1 in 20 to 1 in 10. That's one in every TWENTY people that have failing 360s. I told him of alternatives, very doable alternatives. Hell, if he'd get 500 bucks he could have a computer worthy of gaming for the next couple-few years, and at the 900 dollar price point he's talking about we're looking at a computer that's EASILY comparable if not better than the 360.

Did anyone mention mods? I love the PC because of mods. HL2 on the PC is so much fun when you can get a RPG that shoots babies.

Are they doing something on the 360 that lets you get mods?

Ok. I agree with your reasoning on the 360 as well. I am not a diehard fan of console gaming. I prefer PCs for graphical quality, smoothness, and versatility of operation beyond gaming.

However: I value consoles for the more intimate social level they add to gaming. I like to be able to trash talk the people sitting around me, have a room full of anxious spectators, and be able to thwack an opponent upside the head for doing something silly.

I'm probably going to get the 360 eventually because I want to play Condemned: Criminal Intent and Oblivion on it, not because I couldn't play those or similar games on the PC, but because I want the feel of a real controller in my hands and the TV-screen experience (giant HDTV cinema-feel), which I feel puts me more into the game than the detatched, surgical feeling I get from pointing and clicking with a mouse while hitting keys on my keyboard to walk around.

I never liked Nintendo's modern games/consoles because I always considered most things popular and Japanese to be too wacky for my tastes. The toylike GameCube only confirmed these misgivings. PS2 seemed kind of cool, but I hated the controller, didn't like the types of games for the system, and once again, many of them had that same Japanese problem and you could only plug two controllers in it if I'm not mistaken. The XBox has TRIGGERS and the old school controller is a big, manly sort of thing you can wrap your paws around to dish out domination.

All this aside, though, my main beef with you previous statement had not been about WHAT you were saying contentwise, but that you were answering a question other than the one that Zloc had posed, despite his declaration that he didn't want this.

Zloc: You can decide whatever you want. If you do decide to get the 360 now, you do run a small risk of getting a defective unit. BUT, people who have got defective units have returned them and got them back in a few days in perfect condition. If it were up to me, I'd wait till January/February to make sure I'm getting a good unit. Of course I don't plan on getting one anytime soon. I'm waiting to see how Rev and PS3 turn out. (Of course there is also the 360 contest I signed up for so I'll have to see if I win it or not, I doubt I will win one of the 10 packages though.)

The other question I have for you is if you do decide to what games are you looking at? If Gears of War, DOA4, Halo series, Oblivion, PDZ appeal to you, then go for it. For me, I'm more the MGS, Tekken fan, although Halo is one of my favorite games on the Xbox.

Yoshi: There will be a lot ports to PC, but it all depends on if the majority of games you are looking at on exclusivity, such as DOA, Gears of War, Halo, Ninja Gaiden 2, etc. The other thing that is the defective rate as of now. That will change in a couple months and the rate could be much lower. Sure the consoles will get outdated in a year or so but like I said, it all depends on what games you are looking at and if they will be on the PC. Plus certain games I feel will have better controls on a controller rather than a keyboard/mouse.

Gris: IMO, I thought the Xbox controller was bulky compared to the PS2's, fortunatley they fixed the size of it and it felt a lot better.

Gears of War isn't exclusive. It's coming out on the PC too :p That COULD change in a couple of months--but just remember the PS2's. They released and had horrible defects for up to 6 months, same with Xbox and the harddrives/disc drives.

Well, I'm really looking forward to PDZ (loved PD on N64) and the Halo games...but we'll see. I'm starting to lean even more towards a new computer, but with price being and issue most likely, we'll see.

Erm... no.

He hasn't already bought the 360 and it broken on him. If someone was ASKING about buying a Ford, and we told him not to get them at all because they break, then it would be the same, and good advice.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Gears of War isn't exclusive. It's coming out on the PC too :p That COULD change in a couple of months--but just remember the PS2's. They released and had horrible defects for up to 6 months, same with Xbox and the harddrives/disc drives.[/QUOTE]

Oops didn't know that. But still all the other games I mentioned were exclusive to the 360.