XBOX 360: What can you do with it?

ts_aly2000

Hey hello,

I bought an Xbox 360 for my OH yesterday and am wondering what you can do with it, and what the best forums are?

Played Gears Of War yesterday for 5-hours....

Really just interested to know what can be done to the thing, and what shouldn't be done etc. etc. I have a 10-metre crossover cable back home so will pick that up at the weekend so we can go online.

pks00

Im looking at buying one soon, that or Wii.
If I go for xbox360 it would be premium edition because it comes with more stuff.
Do u have a hd ready tele? games are supposed to be awesome on that.

Have a look at this forum, you might get more info on what can/cant be done
http://www.xbox360forum.com/


Pros and Cons http://xbox360.qj.net/Xbox-360-pros-and-cons/pg/49/aid/74063

BillScarab

Another good forum here

http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=206

Well I hope it is as I don't have an Xbox 360, but the Nintendo forums there are very good.

Idiophreak

A couple of things you can do that might not be immediately obvious:

Chat to people on MSN (best to plug a USB keyboard in...the "virtual keyboard" is really slow to chat on) - or send them messages/voice messages. (edit: sorry, that doesn't read right..just to clarify....I mean you can send "people" messages/voice messages...not "people on MSN"....if you follow)

Voice chat, video chat (with "live vision" camera)

Stream music from MP3 player/Ipod/USB HDD/flash drive (so the 20gb HDD isn't too much of an issue, really)

Use the 360 as a Media Centre extender - to take control of a Media Centre PC elsewhere in the house...Can only watch a couple of types of video by default, but can find workarounds on the net to let you watch divX and the like.

Download extra content/videos/game demos/full Xbox Live Arcade games via Live Marketplace.

(btw, sorry if this is patronising, I thought I'd mention it though - you'll have to buy an Xbox Live Gold subscription to play against people online - this is something like £35 for the year)

Feel free to PM me if you have any more Qs, I'm quite new to it (had it about 2 months), but know most stuff I think

edit: Also worthy of note, can play HD-DVDs with the drive attachment (costs about £100 on play), can also rip CDs to the 360s hard disk...

JonnyThunder

Here's a thing. Never EVER move it while it's switched on with a disk inside. Most consoles can handle this, but the 360 can total your laser by doing this.

If you're really brave, you can modify the DVD drive firmware to be able to run standard DVD+/-R media - which enables you to run emulators and other media playing homebrew on your 360. It's not a difficult process, but if the firmware flash is done wrong you can brick your 360 completely. You will of course, also invalidate your warranty the moment you open the 360 up.

Second thoughts, probably not a good idea! You can though, use it to stream media from your PC (Media center edition XP and Vista Ultimate). There are also other tools to allow any version of windows to stream, but I didn't like them much.

philnicandamy

JonnyThunder wrote: »

Here's a thing. Never EVER move it while it's switched on with a disk inside. Most consoles can handle this, but the 360 can total your laser by doing this.

If you're really brave, you can modify the DVD drive firmware to be able to run standard DVD+/-R media - which enables you to run emulators and other media playing homebrew on your 360. It's not a difficult process, but if the firmware flash is done wrong you can brick your 360 completely. You will of course, also invalidate your warranty the moment you open the 360 up.

Second thoughts, probably not a good idea! I agree microsoft are starting to recoginise modified 360's resulting in your console being baned from x-box live

Idiophreak

philnicandamy wrote: »

I agree microsoft are starting to recoginise modified 360's resulting in your console being baned from x-box live

Yeah, what he said...really not smart to mod since they started banning people a couple of weeks back...

JonnyThunder

I only said it was an option - AND that I didnt recommend it!

Although I find that really sad, because independent developers have put out a lot of good material on the xbox which is free. Emulators for everything from the old Amiga systems up to spectrums! For Microsoft to do this to consoles is a bit sad if you ask me. My box still works happily on xbox live - but then I don't use the upgraded firmware for pirate games. And at any rate, this is a console which they have locked down so tightly - that you can't use it for anything else. People would go mental if Microsoft only allowed Windows to play games which Microsoft have allowed - but when it's a console (which i've paid good money for) it's sneered at. Total rubbish.

And TBH, xbox live is crap anyway. I bought a years subscription and used it for a couple of months. After that, I wasn't interested. Unless you enjoy the inane rantings of adolescent americans whilst in game, save yourself the cash!

Furthermore, I owned three of the old style xboxes. I modded all of these, simply because it's the only way you could get it to play all media types - which it did really well. I used each box as a media center type device. If Microsoft don't want people doing this to their consoles, then open up a little and allow independent development to take place - because the stronger their grasp, the more people will try to riggle free.

/endrant

weemee

Hi all,

Anyone with a console, Wii, 360 or PS3 might like to download tversity from https://www.tversity.com. It's a fantastic media transcoder which allows you to watch almost any type of video file (you will need to download the suggested codec pack)! It also allows photos, web URLs (Youtube etc) and music to be streamed directly to the box. It's just been updated to support the Spring dashboard update.

Best of all, it is free!!!! Give yourself a good 15 mins to read through the install process and install the software. Once that is done your away!

You do need a reasonable specification machine to transcode on the go, if you havent got this you may need to pause the stream when it starts to avoid 'catching up'. Works flawlessly on the 360.

Anyway hope someone enjoys it.

Cheers

Weemee

C_Ronaldo

You can play games on it, watch dvds, play music cds, you can play games over XBOX LIVE(im a user myself), download game demos, trailers, you can chat to other LIVE users on it, use msn messanger on it but you need a wireless keyboard or the M$ one thats out in teh summer or the autumn, ive got about 1 GB left on my hard drive,

jt2k6

Play Games!

thats what it does best!

IMHO too noisy to use as a DVD player (besides most people will have DVD players, and attached surround sound)

If you have a PC, do you need it to stream media etc? if you do there are better options at less money,

like the OP said get GOW, GRAW, TDU and wait for HALO 3, sit back and chill, (and despite what one poster said I love it on Live when you frag some kid from the states and they lose it! LOL)