Xbox 360

[AnonymousBroccoli 0]

I'm pretty sure the system alone will upconvert DVDs over VGA or HDMI, without the HD DVD drive.

[Thoth 0]

I'm pretty sure the system alone will upconvert DVDs over VGA or HDMI, without the HD DVD drive.

 

Nope. You need the HD DVD drive to upconvert, AND it will only upconvert if your 360 is hooked up with VGA or HDMI.

[Thoth 0]

If anyone cares, Target is having a sale.

 

You know those prepaid cards, that have Xbox Live arcade download codes on them? Like, you can buy a Mortal Kombat card, or a Worms card? Well: Buy 1 @ $9.99, get 1 of equal or lesser value free.

 

I have MK and Worms now. The selection isn't great at my store, sadly... I think you have Worms, MK, Geo Wars, and one other thing.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

Radioshack has an in store sale on Project Gotham Racing 4 for $20. Good until March 15th.

[Matt Young 0]

If anyone cares, Target is having a sale.

 

You know those prepaid cards, that have Xbox Live arcade download codes on them? Like, you can buy a Mortal Kombat card, or a Worms card? Well: Buy 1 @ $9.99, get 1 of equal or lesser value free.

 

I have MK and Worms now. The selection isn't great at my store, sadly... I think you have Worms, MK, Geo Wars, and one other thing.

 

Yeah, I saw those. I was at my local Target on Saturday picking up the very last copy of The Orange Box on the last day it was on sale for $40.

[Guest tonyjaymzretro]

so I go out, get MLB 2k8 and NCAA Basketball 2k8, come home ready for hours of sports awesomeness...and I get the 3 red lights of death....son of a bitch....

[Darthtiki 0]

so I go out, get MLB 2k8 and NCAA Basketball 2k8, come home ready for hours of sports awesomeness...and I get the 3 red lights of death....son of a bitch....

 

I second that, it just fucking happened to me. I have an extended through Best Buy, what should I do as it pertains to my HD and the data stored therein?

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Everything on your hard drive will be fine, and the RROD is covered for three years. As far as good news goes with this situation, I was told it'd take a month for my 360 to be back and running again, but it took two weeks. Additionally, two buddies had theirs back in nine and five days, respectively.

[Darthtiki 0]

I called the help line and told me how to migrate my data over so I can take it to best buy to get my replacement

[The Amazing Rando 0]

I'm not trying to rip on the system, but yahoo.com had a report up about how the 360 has a failure rate of around five times that of the other consoles. That's insane.

[AnonymousBroccoli 0]

I can't find the Yahoo! article, but I think it was pretty much this:

 

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3166259

 

SquareTrade, a third-party warranty service, claims roughly 1 of 6 Xbox 360s will fail. There's the odd quote from, say, a retail manager, claiming they've experienced as high as 1 in 3. The units with the smaller, cooler Falcon CPUs are said to be a lot better, but most people think the GPU is what's creating most of the heat. And the only improvement it's received is a better heatsink.

 

Anyhoo. I'll throw this in here, since we're on the subject. A friend and I made it about a year ago.

 

[MrRant 0]

I'm not trying to rip on the system, but yahoo.com had a report up about how the 360 has a failure rate of around five times that of the other consoles. That's insane.

 

 

Well, at least the new ones are much better built. They just need to shovel through all the old ones.

 

 

[AntiLeaf33 0]

I was strongly leaning towards getting a 360 in October (once school is done for me and I have free time again), but the high failure rate is starting to make me lean towards the PS3 now.

[Black Lushus 0]

Serious question here: How long were the 360s out before the red ring phenomenon really started to pick up?

 

Next question: How long have PS3s been available to the general public?

[In Credible 0]

Mine happened about a year after I had it.

[AnonymousBroccoli 0]

I was strongly leaning towards getting a 360 in October (once school is done for me and I have free time again), but the high failure rate is starting to make me lean towards the PS3 now.

A lot can happen in 7 months. Prices could change, some crazy awesome exclusive game could come out of nowhere. 360s may have the cooler GPU in them by August, which should theoretically make them a lot more reliable.

 

Next question: How long have PS3s been available to the general public?

Since November '06 for US, Canada and Japan.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

They've pretty much fixed the problem after the RROD thing got out of control.

[death_by_burrito 0]

My 360 has red ringed twice in the last couple of days. I can still watch movies and play games on it, but the times it has done it was when my brother was playing NBA 2k8 online and then right when he turned on the system with no game inside. Each time I checked to make sure everything was plugged in right, so I know thats not the problem. This is the second 360 i've had to send back, which sucks, but oh well, I guess better now than later.

[AntiLeaf33 0]

I was strongly leaning towards getting a 360 in October (once school is done for me and I have free time again), but the high failure rate is starting to make me lean towards the PS3 now.

A lot can happen in 7 months. Prices could change, some crazy awesome exclusive game could come out of nowhere. 360s may have the cooler GPU in them by August, which should theoretically make them a lot more reliable.

 

 

Thats why I said I'm leaning towards the PS3. The final decision won't be made until I'm probably a week or so before I choose to buy the system.

[Matt Young 0]

Darth, if you're wanting to play tonight and can't get to Best Buy for the exchange, CheapyD's towel trick is really a good solution to get your system running for a few more days.

 

As for the failure rate, I really think that many more PS2 systems failed than 360s. But if you're going by a percentage of the user base, than yes, the 360 would be on "top".

[Adam 0]

I've gotta call MS this week to have the guts of mine replaced. Oh well, could be worse and be a full red ring, which apparently isn't covered.

[Darthtiki 0]

Anyone played Bully: Scholarship Edition?

[Mike wanna be 0]

I've got it. The sound is sort of choppy and the framerate isn't great, but that's only in really heavily populated areas like the carnival. I haven't had any problems with the cutscenes, and you only really notice the below-60-FPS framerate when you go into a building or store that's practically empty and it runs at a full 60.

 

EDIT: I just finished the storyline, and well. I finally saw some consistent choppyness in the framerate, and it was DURING THE CREDITS. Yes, that's right, a simple scrolling of text is choppy. It isn't huge, but for god's sake it's text, and they couldn't get that smooth?

 

All in all, an excellent, excellent game and I'm very glad I picked it up (and also glad I waited for the patch to play it).

[Damaramu 0]

Ok so I noticed something while playing Oblivion. See if this is just the game or maybe something's wrong with my TV.

 

I was playing it at home on my HDTV and when I go into a dungeon I have to get my torch out b/c the dark areas are well dark. So if I'm going through a cave and there's no light I need to produce my own light. Makes sense.

 

Well I visited my parents for a week and hooked it up to the standard TV they have in their guest room. I didn't need a torch in the dungeons. Everything was perfectly fine. All the colors were real flat and the game was kind of pale, but otherwise there were no dark areas.

 

Now is this a problem with my HD, the black levels, or maybe is it just SDTV being so crappy it can't display the black levels needed for the ambiance of the dark caves?

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

You're contrast ratio on your HDTV is most likely better than the SD tv, so it's able to produce darker blacks.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I finally bought an Xbox360 last night. I've been holding off for far too long on it, and I've been elated since I got it yesterday. Almost wish I didn't set it up yesterday since its allure is enticing and I ended up sleeping only 4 1/2 hours before work this morning. I got MLB 2k8 and Bully: Scholarship Edition, and MAN my girlfriend and I SUCK at MLB. I haven't played a baseball game in YEARS though, so even though I struck out 1, 2, 3, in the first inning, my girlfriend took the pitching controls in the 2nd and gave up 22 runs. Then, for some reason, that made me lose my house and I gave up another 18 in the 3rd. I think we stopped in the 5th or 6th or so, when the score was 42-2 (I hit a 2-run HR). It was hilariously bad.

 

Anyways, my name on there is TsunamiWveChain if anyone wants to add me. I'm planning on picking up a whole bunch of games next Monday- combination of a big paycheck from two jobs and the fact that many of the games I want, I've wanted since the system came out. I know I have Table Tennis and Call of Duty 2: GOTY edition, and we were looking at buying Eternal Sonata too, to get our RPG fix. I guess Marvel:Ultimate Alliance is a good game, too? Anyone have any further recommendations? (Oh, and I am getting back into Madden and probably NBA2k8 this summer, but I'll wait for the new one instead of buying the old one)

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

Some of My favorite games that I've played on 360 are (in no particular order):

 

Bioshock

Rock Band

Oblivion

NHL 08

Saint's Row

Condemned

 

Also...from the Live Arcade:

 

Jewel Quest

Cloning Clyde

PacMan Championship Edition

Puzzle Quest

Crystal Quest

Wik

 

Those were all fun.

 

I also had a real good time with Bully...but you've already got that...

[Matt Young 0]

Forget COD2. Call of Duty 4 is the best multiplayer game ever, period. And that's coming from a longtime Halo fanatic. I highly advise you to buy the Game of the Year edition (which includes a token for the new map pack) on April 1st.

[KingPK 0]

Yeah, I've never been a huge shooter guy, but COD4's multiplayer is too damn fun and the controls are responsive and easy. GTA4 is coming at the end of next month, but you can grab Saints Row for $30 if you want a warmup.

 

My tag is PKIsLive if anyone wants to add me as well.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

If you like single-player FPS, Bioshock is far and away the most immersive one I've played. Even tops the original Half-Life. Another recommendation for COD4--multiplayer is near-perfect, and the single-player is pretty fine as well--and definitely Mass Effect if you have any interest in action-RPGs.