I have a friend who is considering getting a Xbox 360, he has about $300 and doesnt know what to spend it on. Should I recommend it or not?

It depends.... if he is just gonna play the games, and not download anything, i'll say go for it.

well, doesnt it only have 512 MB of space? I remember playing Gears of War on an arcade on base and I tried to save my game, but somehow I had to start over...which pissed me off because I was an hour in

The arcade unit sounds like a good deal to me. $200 is a good price and many retail stores pack games with the system. If he does not mind waiting a little while wait until the holiday bundles come out, or black Friday.

200$ for a console with a huge library of quality games? No it is not a rip off. But if he likes to play online games lit him get a pro or elite.

The only thing I think is a rip off of X360 is the 80$ I have to pay to play online for one year.

$80? o_0 Over here we only have to pay $40.

Ok...listen carefully...here is what he should do.

Get the arcade - $199
Buy a used hard drive 20gig - $40 tops
Buy this to get xbox live membership for 13 months and headset and a keyboard pad(doesnt come with the arcade model)

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox360-12month-Messenger-GoldPak-Xbox-360/dp/B001EKTF60/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1223438158&sr=1-8

Sell his memory card and pgr4 if he doesnt like it - ~ gets 30-40 bucks back

All he needs is an hdmi cable or composite cables if he has an hd tv...

That all should be less than 300 bucks

It's a great deal, most games can save to the 512mb card it comes with and it's a lot easier to spend an extra $100 on an hard drive later. Plus it means he could buy a couple used games at still stay around $300.

Whatta nice guy you are. You made an extra $40 donation to MS for no reason.

Well the cards cost around 59 Euro here for a year.