Play station or X box...I don't know what to do.....?

LovelyRita

donnajunkie wrote: »

dont do this.

I agree, don't buy a second hand Xbox360, they are quite unreliable, I'm now on my second in three years, my brother also has had a new one and also sent another one in for repair with the dreaded ring of death. The price you'd pay for a second hand one it wouldn't be that much more for a brand new one. The arcade version is about £140.00 plus a memory card as the Arcade version comes without a harddrive. Also with the Xbox you can download arcade games like sonic among many others. Personally I think that for now the Xbox has a lot more going for it than the PS3.

Marty_J

donnajunkie wrote: »

yeah, but the 360 sounds like a hoover when you have a game on and the red light problem seems to be very common. so there is more to consider when deciding which is best.
i have both by the way.

They a lot more reliable now that they have the new cooler chipsets.

And my Xbox is pretty quiet. When I install a game to the HDD, it's virtually silent.

donnajunkie wrote: »

ps can we be sure these people who do side by side comparisons arent biased? are the comparisons done on exactly the same model of tv with the settings on the tv and consoles the same.

Yes, they're done on the same equipment. Things like anti-alaising, lighting effects, texture resolution and loading times aren't really a matter of TV calibration anyway.

Crazy_Jamie

One more option that people haven't mentioned yet is that there are a lot of banned Xbox 360s floating around at the moment (i.e. ones that have been modified to play pirated games). The only issue with the banned consoles is that they cannot access Xbox Live (which you may not wish him to do anyway), can't do a few other niche things that your son likely won't be interested in, and the warranty on them is voided. But if you just want to play offline and aren't bothered about online play then they might be an ideal way to go. People are selling them constantly now on sites such as Ebay and HotUKDeals, and you can pick them up for as little as £70 delivered. As I said, they cannot go online, but for offline play they function more or less the same as a standard console. If money is an issue this could be worth a go.

On a side note, I own both consoles and prefer my PS3, but given the OPs situation and financial constraints the Xbox 360 Arcade would be the best purchase.

donnajunkie

Marty_J wrote: »

They a lot more reliable now that they have the new cooler chipsets.

And my Xbox is pretty quiet. When I install a game to the HDD, it's virtually silent.

the thing is everyone here was saying how the current 360's were more reliable at the time i got mine(12/07) and it red lighted in under 18 months. installing is a good option but i guess only viable if you own an elite console coz the hard drive would fill up quickly i expect. how much room on average does one game take up?

donnajunkie

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

One more option that people haven't mentioned yet is that there are a lot of banned Xbox 360s floating around at the moment (i.e. ones that have been modified to play pirated games). The only issue with the banned consoles is that they cannot access Xbox Live (which you may not wish him to do anyway), can't do a few other niche things that your son likely won't be interested in, and the warranty on them is voided. But if you just want to play offline and aren't bothered about online play then they might be an ideal way to go. People are selling them constantly now on sites such as Ebay and HotUKDeals, and you can pick them up for as little as £70 delivered. As I said, they cannot go online, but for offline play they function more or less the same as a standard console. If money is an issue this could be worth a go.

On a side note, I own both consoles and prefer my PS3, but given the OPs situation and financial constraints the Xbox 360 Arcade would be the best purchase.

one question that someone might need an answer to is can banned consoles still do firmware and software updates? some games wont work until an update has been downloaded. i wonder how people who dont have the internet manage.

Marty_J

donnajunkie wrote: »

the thing is everyone here was saying how the current 360's were more reliable at the time i got mine(12/07) and it red lighted in under 18 months.

The newer, cooler, more reliable chipsets only appeared towards the end of 2008.

installing is a good option but i guess only viable if you own an elite console coz the hard drive would fill up quickly i expect. how much room on average does one game take up?

It depends very much on the game. To give you an idea, Fallout 3 takes up 5.5 GB, the Half Life 2 Orange Box takes up 4.9 GB, Mass Effect and GTA IV take up 6.8 GB each, and Oblivion with the Knights of the Nine and the Shivering Isles expansion packs takes up 7.8 GB.

So for my games at least, 5 − 6 GB seems a reasonable average.

Marty_J

donnajunkie wrote: »

one question that someone might need an answer to is can banned consoles still do firmware and software updates? some games wont work until an update has been downloaded. i wonder how people who dont have the internet manage.

Some games won't work because they check if an update is available on Xbox Live. If you don't download the update, you get disconnected from Xbox Live.

I don't imagine this would be a problem if you weren't connected to Xbox Live anyway.

mluton

Marty_J wrote: »

Some games won't work because they check if an update is available on Xbox Live. If you don't download the update, you get disconnected from Xbox Live.

I don't imagine this would be a problem if you weren't connected to Xbox Live anyway.

Correct, but also the game would have the update on it needed to run, if it not present on the system.

donnajunkie

Marty_J wrote: »

Some games won't work because they check if an update is available on Xbox Live. If you don't download the update, you get disconnected from Xbox Live.

I don't imagine this would be a problem if you weren't connected to Xbox Live anyway.

once i selected no to an update and it just took me straight back to the main system menu. i could be wrong but i am fairly sure the message on screen usually says this game requires an update to work.

Marty_J

donnajunkie wrote: »

once i selected no to an update and it just took me straight back to the main system menu. i could be wrong but i am fairly sure the message on screen usually says this game requires an update to work.

If you weren't connected to Xbox Live (because you've been banned or have no internet), how would the game know there was an update available from Xbox Live?