It's a pretty great deal to play the best games available. You can get a 20GB HD for $20 from Microsoft so you'll be able to dl demos and extra content, some of it's free. If you don't get a HD you might want to consider subscribing to OXM since they have demos on there disks.

wait so i cant play online with the xbox arcade?

The arcade is evil. Simply evil. It's nothing more than a marketing trick. I hate it for that. I hate marketing. I hate it bad. I took a course in marketing, so I know what I'm talking about. Actually, I was forced to take two courses in marketing. I wish to god I had never heard of David Jobber.

...

Oh. You wanted to know if it's worth the money? If you have an standar definition television, do not play much, do not plan on using it to do anything else, do not care if some games do not play on it, then I think it's really worth the money.

A couple of things:

- it plays the 360 games, it's as simple as that
- if you want to play 720p video's, I can't think of a less expensive way to play them
(you can use a USB-stick to store them on)

Well it all depends on what kind off experience do you want, if you want to play some games once in a while, on standard TV then i think it's a right choice. 360 has an amazing library and Arcade is good enough to play Madden with friends and some RPG's in your own time. It's great purely for gaming

But if you planning to spent quite a lot of time doing other stuff, then i suggest to invest a bit more in Pro version.

You can play online, but it has no hard drive so you can't really download much. Afaik it only comes with a 256mb memory card.

It plays online... Wtf? You guys are smoking some REALLY nasty shit.

cant i just buy a 20gb memory after i think i need it then it will be the same as the pro?

if your an online gamer then the premium is better for you

Or....you get the Arcade, and, for a small investment MS is going to offer discounted Hard Drive, cache, ect. For those individuals looking for spending time on "The new Xbox Experience", but dont have the fundage for the larger systems, this future available option looks like a good idea....if it goes through.