The '360 Arcade' Made Official 77
The Financial Times (via Gamespot) is reporting that (after having already been in stores for about a week), the Xbox 360 Arcade sku is now official. "The $279 Arcade will include a wireless controller and casual games including Pac-Man [Championship Edition], Uno and Luxor 2. Its launch has been widely rumoured but Mr Bach's comments were the first official confirmation. While Microsoft may hope to steal sales from the Wii with the Arcade, its Premium $349 Xbox 360 faces pressure from the $399 PS3, which has a bigger, 40-gigabyte hard drive, built-in wi-fi and a Blu-ray drive."
Non-reg required (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who's Gonna Buy This? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you can add an HD to it, but you'll have to buy a Microsoft one because I don't think there are any generics with the proper hookups yet. (You can later buy a generic, as the hookups are an addon... You just can't buy the hookups separately.)
With no HD, there's no backward compatibility and the ability to download games from Live would be severly hampered... The memory cards are quite expensive, especially compared to the price of a hard drive that holds a -lot- more.
Re:Micro$oft (Score:3, Informative)
We started with three consoles this generation, the Wii, the 360 and the PS3. Then Microsoft announced the Core and Premium variations, upping the consoles this generation to four. Then Sony followed suit with their 20gb and 60gb versions, five. Then Microsoft announced the Elite, six. Then Sony announced the 80gb PS3, seven. Then Sony announced the 40gb PS3, eight. Then Microsoft announced the Arcade, nine...
You can argue that they are all over-glorified, repackaged versions of the same thing, you might be right. However, the point remains that both Microsoft and Sony are needlessly complicating matters. There isn't an obvious difference between any of the systems. One 360 looks like another, one PS3 looks like another. You have a wall of systems all alike, all different.
Meanwhile, each and every Wii box is exactly the same.
If I were an uninformed parent, walking into a store because I knew Jr wanted video games and I wanted to give them to him, I'd probably run out screaming if it wasn't for the Wii. The Wii is a comforting reminder that someone understands people who don't understand video games. There are no confusing, "What's different between this one and this one?" questions. There is only a clearly marked, small, and inoffensive box marked Wii.
Yes, many parents will go into stores looking specifically for 360s and PS3s, but they aren't going to enjoy the experience. It's Russian roulette with your wallet.
Re:Demos only (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who's Gonna Buy This? (Score:2, Informative)
If you don't care about backward-compatibility (I don't too much any more. I was all excited when they made OutRun 2 work and played it loads for a fortnight, but then I went back to Forza 2) don't plan on having loads of Live games all downloaded at once (at 50Mb each you can fit several on a memory stick, and re-download ones you've already paid for before if you want to go back) and don't care too much about game demos or movies, the memory stick is fine.
This new model also has the HDMI port and seems to have the new Falcon chipset, so the lack of bundled component leads isn't a problem for most and it's ideal for people who already have 360s but want to get HDMI working.