Yup. With many games you will get a 24 hour gold trial, but you have to pay to play with your friends online

Oh okay, that kinda sucks. Atleast its not that much money. But ill probably just get multiplat titles with little to no replay value for this unit.

I want this unit to preview games mostly. If it has a strong online experience, ill probably buy it for whichever console i have most active friends on. Madden 10 being PS3 and Fifa 10 Xbox etc. But with that said, i dont want to limit myself by purchasing some crappy tech. I want to get the most out of my tech and preferbly be able to connect it to the rest of my everyday use of technology (ipod, soundsystem, pc, laptops etc).. cus i dont want to spend 299 on a unit to only play single player games.

The 360 connects to your sounds system either via HDMI or optical (obviously you could use RCA components as well).  You can stream music from any pc on your network, though I don't think it supports MKV files (could be wrong).  You could also use Windows Media Center, if you were so inclined.

I'm not a big fan of WiFi for on-line play, but the last I checked, the MS Wireless Adapter did NOT support the "n" protocol.

I don't know if you can find the same deal in Europe, but I haven't spent more than $35 on Live, the last two years.

Finally, is kind of funny, but I'm the exact opposite; I would buy mostly everything for my 360 and only the few exclusives for my PS3.  To each his own - enjoy your new 360!

... sigh... which is normal since it is the only console who has Blu-Ray...

Note : DTS-Master only goes via PCM (so you need a damn good amplifier to decode it from the PS3).

@ kowenicki, it doesn't have a separate optical out, certainly not my 20GB one

Do looks count to you? Because the black case on the elite is sweet! Otherwise I think arcade + harddrive is the way to go.

Oh sweet! Do you know if there's any 3rd party media servers out there for the 360? I have something called PS3 Media Server (kinda like tversity, but better - atleast for the PS3) for my PS3 which converts mkv files to Avi on the fly with minimal loss of quality. Can WMC do anything of the sort for the xbox?

Yeah the PS3 dosent support "n" either.. which i found out a tad too late :(

Yeah Live costs isnt a big deal, its not like it will hurt my wallet much. Im just not sure i will buy that many games for online play to my xbox for it to be worth it. Like i said, it will first and foremost be used to preview games that one might not feel like buying, but that still might be worth a playthrough on a rainy day, like The force unleashed, Assassins Creed 2, Fallout 3, Skate, Prototype, Lego games, Brothers in Arms etc..

Since we dont have any proper rental service here, most people just hack the unit and download games that they feel might not be worth a day one and/or full price purchase. And we only have one store that buys back games, and they give you a shitty deal.

I've always thought of buying one for this reason. Like with the recent release of the Madden 10 Demo, it made me wanna check it out first before i go out and buy it for 1/5 of the price the actual console cost me. I wasnt sure i liked the new slow down style they've added, and the demo didnt really give a proper feel to the game since it lacked alot of audio and such. So if i'd had an xbox, i could easily just download it, try it out further. And if i like it, i can just buy it to experience the full online experience the game brings.

@Crashdown77 - yeah i'd prefer a black one, but if the Arcade only comes in gray, no problem. Still not sure though what the difference is between Arcade and Elite, besides the colour and the HDD?

@ kowenicki, wiki says it does not, but I'll try and find another source later:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360

^Obviously - The router to xbox will still give you WiFi, but it wont let you enjoy the capabillities of N. Much like the PS3. The G is limited to what? 50-100? And N can reach 300? If im not mistaken.