Why You Don't Want a $99 Xbox 360

itwbennett writes "Peter Smith has done the math on Microsoft's $99 Xbox 360 — 4GB model (no hard drive) and a Kinect sensor. Here's why it's a bad deal: 'You'll be paying $99 + $359.76 in monthly fees, or $458.76 over the course of two years. Compare that with (I'm using prices from Amazon that were accurate as of May 7th, 2012) $287.70 for an Xbox 360 4GB + Kinect bundle, and two 12-month Xbox Live Gold cards at $48.41 each, a total of $384.52. So you're paying almost $75 for the privilege of laying out small cash now.' And then there's the not insignificant matter of early termination fees."

Re:This assumes I want Xbox Live Gold

[bmenglish]

You forgot the part where you're forced into the two year agreement for Xbox Live, much like a cell phone contract. You can't have it your way.

Avoid the 4 gig model in general

[RogueyWon]

The biggest problem, of course, is that you're getting the model with the 4 gig hard drive. That could be a problem even if you don't intend to use the console online. First of all, you won't have the option of hard disk installs (which can make some games much more tolerable in the loading time stakes). Worse, there are a small number of games where you won't even be able to use all the features.

Forza Motorsport 3 and 4 have both shipped on two DVDs. Because the nature of the games doesn't make disk-swapping practical (unlike in an RPG like Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey), the way Turn 10 managed this was by making the second DVD an optional "content" install. As I know myself from trying to set up a nephew's Christmas present one fraught Christmas morning, you can't actually do the full content install for the Ultimate Edition of Forza 3 or the full edition of Forza 4 on the 4 gig models. There's just not enough space for that and the various OS stuff that the console puts on there. So part of the game's content is unavailable.

The "irony" (and this isn't actually irony at all, I suspect it's fully deliberate) is that in Christmas 2010, a number of UK retailers were heavily pushing a 4 gig 360 + Forza 3 Ultimate Edition bundle (usually with Lego Harry Potter in there as well). They also had a nice stock of the 250 gig hard drives on sale. Of course, the cost of buying a 4 gig console and then the 250 gig hard drive for it was significantly greater than the cost of just buying the 250 gig console.

Sorry for the rant - that was a Christmas morning I'd rather forget. My key point - avoid the 4 gig model even for casual use. Hard drive installs are only getting more common as this generation goes on.

Re:Or...

[jellomizer]

Well it could be. $400 for a bike, gets you a decent quality bike, that should give you years of quality service. If you live close to your work, or do not have much of a need to travel more then 5 miles to any location, you are probably saving a lot of money using a bike. I would love to bike to work... However I live 30 miles from my house. The area where I work isn't a nice place to live, the nice areas near the area are too expensive. So in terms of money it is cheaper for me to have a car and not bike, even with the high gas prices.

Re:Or...

[X0563511]

If you're stuck playing with teeny boppers, you're playing the wrong game.

Re:Smartphones, Cars, Premium Cable, pest control

[netsavior]

fuel is a such a red hering. Gas needs to hit 11 dollars a gallon before you can justify buying say a hybrid over a decent mileage comperable compact car (assuming they are both new... add in the USEDvs NEW factor and there is just no math that makes sense there).

To demonstrate this point I once graphed buying a 1970s V8 Monte Carlo (horrible gas mileage) vs a Prius for a 5 year financing term. I assumed I would need to spend 150/month on repairs for the Monte Carlo, and that at the end of every year I would set the Monte Carlo on fire and buy another one. Still way cheaper for a 20 mile commute@ $5/gallon. Replace Monte Carlo with "beater civic" which gets 30mpg instead of 14 and the numbers are just a big joke.

Re:Same reason as before...

[Penguinisto]

Depends on where you live.

$7/hr in Mississippi or Arkansas is actually quite livable - I've done it.

$28/hr in New York City or San Francisco is starvation wages, in spite of being 4x larger.

Re:Same reason as before...

[Mike Buddha]

Besides, I got tired of buying a new video card every year just to keep up with the latest titles. I know for a fact that any console game will run on the console.

I'm pretty weary of that myth. Three years ago I built a computer with fairly reasonable specs, an ATI 4870 (was about $270) and a Core 2 Duo E6540 (about $150) and incidentals including memory, motherboard, etc all for about $800.

Hmm. Interesting. 4 years ago I bought a $250 Xbox 360 and it plays all the latest games today. 6 years ago I bought a Dell XPS M170 and found that I couldn't play the newest expansion for WoW on it about 3 years ago. I'm pretty sure this isn't a myth.