By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
TheRealMafoo on 07 September 2008
Edit Thread
Squilliam said:
TheRealMafoo said:
You can play games on a 360 without a hard drive, but when you look at what you get for your money, who would?

the arcade is far less then a 360 with a HD. With the HD, you can cache games, download demoes, movies, tv, netflix, download games that are not available outside of XBL.

The value you get for $299, is far better then then value you get for $199. This is why the arcade does not sell well, and why it still won't sell well.

The 360's real price point, is $299.

I have an Arcade and I use it to play games, lots of games.

Value is subjective, if I just want to play games what good is a HDD to me apart for slightly shorter loading times on games that cache to the HDD?

The price of a Car model that comes with an airconditioning option would start at base cost+the cost of the option in a place like Florida where everyone wants air-con and its probably more than borderline deceptive to advertise the car without the option. However if you're selling that same car in Northern Canada where it hardly gets hot at all, you wouldn't even need to list it as an option for example. The same applies for the heated seats option, just in reverse.

The Xbox 360 Arcade is an excellent value option for people who just want to play games. Let them decide for themselves if they want to have a HDD. Microsoft actually doing something good by offering the 60gb packs for the exact same difference in price between an Arcade and a Premium. They haven't lost out by choosing the Arcade in any way if the Premium was the SKU for them all along. For that reason the price starts at $199, Microsoft is giving people an easy entry point into the console market and they should/will likely be rewarded with increased sales because of it.  

 

 

If you're just a gamer, what you can't do without a HD:

  • DL Demos (most of them anyway)
  • Take advantage of the Disk on HD thing coming this fall
  • DL XBL games, such as the classics, and XBL only games. That's right, the arcade does not play the same number of games at the other 360's.
  • DL added content for games, such as the content coming for GTA4. Most every game now has some sort of downloadable content.

Most people buy based on value (if price was the only factor, everyone would just buy a PS2.) The Arcade sits around 10% of the 360's sales, and I think it will stay that way. The Pro being $299 I think is much bigger news then the Arcade being $199.

The Pro, for most people, is just a better value.