Xbox 360 Arcade/Core Hate

[Final-Fan]

elnino334 said:

billsalias said:
I bought an Arcade as a second system for when my wife is on the main TV. It has worked great for me in that role. I just pop the HDD off my elite and put it on the arcade if I need too, though I do not need to do that half the time. So I was very happy to be able to save $70 and get just what I needed. So there is at least one scenario where it is the exact right system.

You would also have to be ignorant or deliberately difficult to claim that there are no gamers that could be happy with a system with specs of the Arcade. Yes the 360 Arcade is getting trounced by the Wii, but that is not because of a lack of features relative to the Pro/Elite but because Wii did a better job with games and accessibility(control scheme) for the market both systems are targeted at.

I think a lot of the hate is left over from the Core days. The Core really was a bad value because it did not come with a memory card and the 64mb ones were like $40. No matter how casual a gamer you are you do not want to start games over every time. But now that the arcade comes with the a memory card, 256mb at that, and the 5 free games as a bonus it actually is a complete system that may meet some peoples needs.

I think a second reason for the hate is the existence of the Arcade model has diluted the quality of games on the 360 in general because developers are afraid to require a HDD. If the Arcade did not exist developers would be able to optimize their games to take advantage of the HDD for things such as faster load times, expanded game size, etc and not worry how to make the game still work without it.

But even considering all this the hate is way out of line with reality. I personally think it is just an excuse some people who already hate the 360 use to justify it.

Danm that is a great summary of what I was trying to say. By the way I am buying an arcade for my fiancee so she can play ddr or rock band when I am busy playing cod4 online or some other games. As mentioned not everyone needs all the fancy stuff or have the extra cash to get the more expensive 360. By the way currently the difference between the arcade and pro is not as big as it is made out to be. Arcade= $280 5 free games lets say $5 a piece and 250 meg memory card lets say $25 so about $50 in extras not available on the PRO so lets say the Arcade is $230. Add in a $100 Hard drive and it is cheaper or you can save more money and get the used Hard drive for $60. Of course you don't want the games or the memory then is a mute point though having the memory card is handy when going to visit friends etc. Again the point is that it is not a huge difference as it is often portrayed and works great for a certain demographic.

If you agree with the above poster that Arcade is OK for people who will never need DLC but the Core was horrible, then we are a lot closer to agreement than I had thought. 

But the Arcade deal isn't quite as good as you're making it out to be.  Let's start with a good thing:  the 64MB card is currently $25 and the 512MB one $40 so let's up your memory card value to $30.  But those 5 games are all locked in place:  Pac-Man Championship, Uno, Luxor 2, Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy.  Personally, I'd only be interested in 2 or 3 of these games. 

Most importantly, though, you can't just subtract the damn price of that stuff.  A package deal is a package deal.  You pay for all of it.  I can't say "well I'll never play Feeding Frenzy so I guess I'll only pay $275 for it" -- well, I guess I can but I won't give good odds of the guy at Target going along with it. 

I guess if you get the used HDD you still save money over the new Premium, but as long as you're going that route why not get a used 360?  It's an odd assumption you're making, to me. 

But I agree that the Arcade is probably suffering from the hatred people used to feel for the Core.  I'm probably guilty of that.