Xbox or PS3 for 11yo/family

donnajunkie

bigmacca81625 wrote: »

Xbox online is amazing but ther is a £5 pm charge.

if they buy a 1 year subscription it will be £39.99 for the year and some retailers charge less than that.

if they do get an xbox then heres a tip. sign up for xbox live on the console and you get a 1 month free gold membership(online play) you have to have a hotmail email address already. when it gets to the page for selecting membership select silver and then it should tell you that you qualify for the 1 month free membership. now the good part is if when the month runs out you try to register again with a new gamertag and new details like another hotmail address it will give you another free month. i managed to get 3 free months before the system caught up. this was in late 2007 though and it is therefore possible that this trick doesnt work anymore. its worth a try though.

donnajunkie

chorlton wrote: »

So... it looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer for Blu-Ray

i am sure i have seen a blu ray player in richer sounds for £130, so not too expensive.

bigmacca81625

donnajunkie wrote: »

if they buy a 1 year subscription it will be £39.99 for the year and some retailers charge less than that.

if they do get an xbox then heres a tip. sign up for xbox live on the console and you get a 1 month free gold membership(online play) you have to have a hotmail email address already. when it gets to the page for selecting membership select silver and then it should tell you that you qualify for the 1 month free membership. now the good part is if when the month runs out you try to register again with a new gamertag and new details like another hotmail address it will give you another free month. i managed to get 3 free months before the system caught up. this was in late 2007 though and it is therefore possible that this trick doesnt work anymore. its worth a try though.

not a bad idea, but im not too sure people will appreciate losing all their achievements and having to add friends again to each gamer tag as you change.

chorlton

Thanks for all good advice - Connect 360 looks spot on - I can connect via wired ethernet so don't need to pay extra for wireless.

The Blu-Ray/DVD thing... well it was a luxury/futureproof factor but not a dealbreaker. (need an HDTV first!) We have a good all-in-one surround sound dvd system that plays bought dvd's great but won't play scratched rental ones

Slightly nervous about Xbox reliability but... I was already 90% decided on Xbox just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing a trick - iPlayer would be nice but is more than cancelled out by the social factor of son's friends being on Xbox... though may have to negotiate on pocket money/subscription

DCFC79

Xbox LIVE costs yes but you cna get subscriptions for £30 ish, but you can also get 3 and 6 months subscriptions and some games come with 24/48 hour subscriptions
PS3 online is free but as to whether its as good as xbox LIVE is another matter
xbox has the ability to create your own character (similar to the mii character on the wii ) except you can dress him in a way of your choice eg trousers, shoes,
if more than 1 person wanted to have theyre own gamertag on xbox live then you would need 2 subscriptions but thats only if you both wanted to play on xbox LIVE so if your son wanted to play on xbox LIVE and you didnt then you would just create a silver account gamertag but im sure you would get 1 months free xbox LIVE

donnajunkie

bigmacca81625 wrote: »

not a bad idea, but im not too sure people will appreciate losing all their achievements and having to add friends again to each gamer tag as you change.

you dont lose your achievements because you can still keep the old gamertag and use that for playing solo games which is were the achievements are. on the friends issue it depends how many friends you have on how much of a pain it is to add them again. i guess if you go up in the ranks on a game like halo 3 then you would lose that.

bigmacca81625

you would if you use a new gamer tag?? theres not much point in having achievements if you cant show them off online to your mates.

with each new account comes 0gs i know they stay on the old one, but that just seems like hassle to me lol

DCFC79

bigmacca81625 wrote: »

not a bad idea, but im not too sure people will appreciate losing all their achievements and having to add friends again to each gamer tag as you change.

or you just stick with the 1 gamertag and get the free 1 months of xbox LIVE out of it then let it go to silver and use the 24/48 hour codes you get in the games

chorlton

Been looking at this and discovered 2 significant things that I hadn't realised -

We have a SKY subscription so can get Sky Player through the Xbox which will give certain amount of catch up TV capacity.
And I have an iPhone which, now I've stumped up for the (extortionately priced!) AV cable, will play iPlayer through the TV.

With the price reduction on the Elite can either stretch to that, or maybe there will be some good deals to be had as reailers try and clear their stock of the 60GB model.

fox2319

I've tried iPlayer through the PS3 web browser and it looks good, perfectly watchable. Blu-ray is also very nice. I've seen places offering the new slim with Batman Arkham Asylum for around £250, absolutel bargain.

Only thing to be wary of is that the new slim can't stand on it's end without spending an additional £15-20 on a stand.

Personally, I've had 2 xbox's (both died within 5 months) and a PS3. PS3 is much quieter (esp disk noise) and much more versatile. Now with the price drop, you know it makes sense...