casual gamers= arcade
hardcore= elite.
poor hardcore gamers= pro (me)

Strategyking92@

The problem is the following:

casual gamers = Wii
hardcore = elite
poor hardcore gamers = pro

Unless you only want a 360 for local play only or limited online and core games (maybe Halo 3 but surely you'd want HDD for new maps, etc) there is not point buying an Arcade. And the sales show where the so called 'casual' vote goes... and its not to Arcade 360s.

I still believe Arcade is a failed attempt to compete with Wii, and if MS think the only barrier now is price I think they just fail to understand the attraction of the Wii period.

Even if Arcade was cheaper than Wii I doubt it would so much as put a small dent in Wii sales.

MS has a core demographic built around FPS / Online / Live and for that demographic the Arcade is a redundant choice as they will quickly buy the very extras that turn it into a pro or an elite.

Doesn't anyone know that the Arcade/Core was designed NOT to go on the intenet, hence why it doesn't feature a HDD, or other net-friendly components?

That's the whole point of the Arcade/Core. MS knew there were a select number of prospective X360 owners that didn't *need* the extra $100 Hard Drive, and other components on launch day, and further.

Arcades/Cores are alot cheaper for MS to produce too, if you didn't know. Those stupid 20GB HDDs are not easy/cheap to produce, and they have a minimum price to produce, merely from components (which is why I don't understand why MS hasn't upped the 20gb to a 40 or 60gb yet).

I STILL remember the impact the Core had on the X360 on Launch day. I knew on the net it was dubbed 'the 'tard pack' - but when inline with about 40 people on 11/22/05, there were *gasp* people that didn't buy the Premium first! . About 4-5 people, mainly moms, had the chance to buy the Prem, but instead chose to buy the Core for whatever reasons.

And the fact is, if all your doing is casual offline gaming, the Arcade is going to be every bit as good as the Premium.

The 3 tiers work like this:

Arcade: Entirely offline, casual gameplay with no DLC
Premium: Some online, hardcore gameplay with some DLC
Elite: Lots of online, hardcore gameplay, with massive DLC


See, weather you know it or not, the Premium is a tard pack too - have you ever seen the DLC space requirements for some games? I have *maybe* 5gb left on a good day for downloads - even without demos - due to the amount of DLC I have. Shivering Isles was 1gb alone. Movies are insanely large, Rockband DLC is usually around 30mb a song (which can fill up very, very fast), and then you have free DLC for Ace Combat 6, Crackdown, and many other games - if you own any of those games, it can fill up the 20gb fast.


I don't mind the various SKUs - and who wouldn't? MS clearly states what one is good for what. If your confused, its your own fault: no HDD, 20gb HDD, 120gb HDD. Your choice.

 

And for poor Core sales justification(s): in the beginning, it was what MS put it at due to supply constraints (25-30%), then lowere to 10%. However, when the Arcade launched, it was 20% or more....Enough to cause about 1 month of supply constraints. The elite is the same way - it's not 20% of the market...It's lower. The different SKUs are meant to warrant sales to consumers that wouldn't buy the X360 at <insert price of Premium> or need a bigger HDD.

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.

ChronotriggerJM said: elnino334 said: ChronotriggerJM said: @Elmino, of course people can read the boxes, but as we've seen with the PS3 40g lacking of backwards compatibility, thats not always the case ;) It's the same deal here. And all I said was that it's confusing >_>; which it is... I'm not going to bring a pencil and notepad to the store to write down what each console does or doesn't do, and talking to a sales rep can be a mixed bag of usefulness as most of us here know :/ I guess all in all, if I question the arcade, and someone says it's a gimpy version of the premium, I know which one I'm NOT going to buy. Your last sentence is the key! If the sales person tells you it is a gimpier version which by all practical purposes it is though it explains the cheaper price tag then you can decide to buy it or not. I am sorry but I just don't see what is so confusing. I mean quite literally the difference in the sku's is the hard drive as in one has it, another has one with 20 gigs and finally the third one has a 120 gig. The rest like the 5 free games from the arcade or the black finish of the elite is just preference. In the end which ever system you get for the most part you will be able to play about 95% of the games with the prospect of just picking up that hard drive if you wanted to get that other 5% or all the other bells and whistles. I mean in time the pro might seem like a gimp version once we start filling it up and those people will *gasp* buy the 120 gig hard drive if they so desire. Hey I am not saying is the best deal or value but those are the options available and quite frankly don't think is that hard to follow.   Fair enough I suppose ^^ I'm just not down for having to buy add-ons to do certain things. So the only difference between all these models is Hard drive? Or is there more? Also do you need a hard-drive to play online?

There are different accessories, cables, and games included but the only functional difference is the HDD in the current versions of the 3 SKU's. You can get online and play multiplayer games without a harddrive.

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.

mrstickball said: Doesn't anyone know that the Arcade/Core was designed NOT to go on the intenet, hence why it doesn't feature a HDD, or other net-friendly components? That's the whole point of the Arcade/Core. MS knew there were a select number of prospective X360 owners that didn't *need* the extra $100 Hard Drive, and other components on launch day, and further. Arcades/Cores are alot cheaper for MS to produce too, if you didn't know. Those stupid 20GB HDDs are not easy/cheap to produce, and they have a minimum price to produce, merely from components (which is why I don't understand why MS hasn't upped the 20gb to a 40 or 60gb yet). I STILL remember the impact the Core had on the X360 on Launch day. I knew on the net it was dubbed 'the 'tard pack' - but when inline with about 40 people on 11/22/05, there were *gasp* people that didn't buy the Premium first! About 4-5 people, mainly moms, had the chance to buy the Prem, but instead chose to buy the Core for whatever reasons. And the fact is, if all your doing is casual offline gaming, the Arcade is going to be every bit as good as the Premium. The 3 tiers work like this: Arcade: Entirely offline, casual gameplay with no DLC Premium: Some online, hardcore gameplay with some DLC Elite: Lots of online, hardcore gameplay, with massive DLC See, weather you know it or not, the Premium is a tard pack too - have you ever seen the DLC space requirements for some games? I have *maybe* 5gb left on a good day for downloads - even without demos - due to the amount of DLC I have. Shivering Isles was 1gb alone. Movies are insanely large, Rockband DLC is usually around 30mb a song (which can fill up very, very fast), and then you have free DLC for Ace Combat 6, Crackdown, and many other games - if you own any of those games, it can fill up the 20gb fast. I don't mind the various SKUs - and who wouldn't? MS clearly states what one is good for what. If your confused, its your own fault: no HDD, 20gb HDD, 120gb HDD. Your choice. And for poor Core sales justification(s): in the beginning, it was what MS put it at due to supply constraints (25-30%), then lowere to 10%. However, when the Arcade launched, it was 20% or more....Enough to cause about 1 month of supply constraints. The elite is the same way - it's not 20% of the market...It's lower. The different SKUs are meant to warrant sales to consumers that wouldn't buy the X360 at or need a bigger HDD.

Are you seriously saying that those stupid proprietary HDDs cost more than $100 to manufacture? because I don't believe it.  If that's true, MS was fucking retarded to do that in the first place because I guarantee you that the PS3's HDD cage assembly doesn't cost anywhere near that.

If the HDD unit costs less than $100 to produce, MS ate more money on the Core than they did on the Premium.

Arcade?  Maybe, unless you play games that like to give you in-game videos of stuff you did.  That'll probably eat up space pretty quick.  And even some game save files can get pretty big.  My Forza Motorsport 2 save file is over 30MB.  I rented the game once.  Eternal Sonata is at 22MB, I think.  If I'd bought a Core and the 64MB memory card, I'd have run out of memory a while ago on save files alone.

I don't have as big a problem with the Arcade, as it actually comes with a damn memory card, and the memory card is of a decent size.  But the Core was just a Trojan Horse and it gets me mad when people deny it.  I wonder how many of the moms from your anecdote ended up being forced to buy an HDD and therefore be OUT the money for the memory card?

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.