ADVICE ON BUYING A XBOX 360

[TSTtiger]

any idea which should i get if i want to play games and xbox live??. fair difference in price between them all. cheers

[BornCaley]

3 letters - PS3

I believe Xbox live is subscription based, but the PS3 network is free to use

also maybe wikipedia " red ring of death" on potential problems

[Jay_7]

There are pro's and con's to both the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

I own one of the 20GB Xbox 360's from it's early days and have yet to experience a red ring of death. The range of games available also swing favourably for the Xbox.

Xbox live subscription is not compulsary. You are still able to purchase Xbox Live Arcade games, download demo's, movies, songs etc without paying a penny. Xbox Live Gold membership costs around ?40 for a year and allows you to play games online with other gold members. The overall online experience offered by the Xbox is far superior to the PS3. Sony simply can't compete.

Getting technical, although the PS3 has a superior processor, the overall performance and graphics award goes to the Xbox once again proving that a super duper processor isn't everything as Sony would have you believe.

The only feature really that Xbox hasn't got a answer for is the PS3's native Blu-Ray support, the Xbox requires an expensive add-on to be able to play HD-DVD's (I'm not even sure if it's still available to buy)

Getting back on topic, I'd recommend purchasing the Elite if you can afford it. The 120GB hard disk and HDMI outputs are huge advantages over the rest of the Xbox 360 range. If my ageing Xbox packs in, in the near future, it will be an Elite I replace it with.

[RiG]

I believe Xbox live is subscription based, but the PS3 network is free to use

Free it may be the XBox Live is much more reliable. The PS3 online network is poor by comparison.

Jamie - I am pretty certain Microsoft have given up on the HD DVD add on when HD lost the battle with Blue Ray.

[CaleyD]

Brother had just sent his XBox 360 back for a "Ring of Death" repair, but it's really not all that common and he's had his for just under a year and it's played by him, me, nieces and nephews for about 8 hours every day. Microsoft have increased the warranty for this problem to 3 years, so even if your buying a second hand unit then you have little to worry about should the worst happen. Other than this one blip I can't recall any time it has ever frozen on me or crashed or anything like that.

Same comments as RiG on the XBox Live thing in terms of reliability over other online systems. I even play Guitar Hero online, where timing and fast fingers are everything, and have never had any lag which impacts on the game.

You then have the fact that the Xbox is networked with other PC's in the house and you can therefore listen to and/or watch music and videos from any of them.

I can't really comment on range of games as I pretty much only play Tiger Woods and Guitar Hero, but my brother is into games where you just go around blowing chit up and the nephew is hooked on the lego series of games....seems to be ample variety to suit everyone.

We have the Elite with the 120GB Hard Drive and my brother has paid for and downloaded games online a few times because it was cheaper and less hassle than going out to the shop for it.

My brother did own a PS3 for a short while, and got rid of it because he never used it, preferring the XBox on almost every front, including the controller which he thinks is better than that used by the PS3.

[TSTtiger]

nice 1 cheers all.think i'll probably go for the elite version then.looking forward to going nuts on call of duty