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XBox (Games)

The '360 Arcade' Made Official 77

Posted by Zonk from the after-it's-been-in-stores-fora-while dept.
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."
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The '360 Arcade' Made Official More

The '360 Arcade' Made Official

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  • PAC MAN? (Score:5, Funny)

    by y86 ( 111726 ) on Thursday October 18, 2007 @04:49PM (#21031379)
    Wow, 10 years ago when I was playing Super Mario Bros. I never thought PAC MAN would be relevant again. I was wrong, DEAD WRONG.
    • You're not wrong. Pac Man is still not relevant. The games provided with the Arcade are all crap.
      • some of my family enjoy luxor quite a bit, and the new pac man is different in a good way for those who enjoyed the original, though I will say that coming with a measly 3 games is pretty pathetic.

        I think they should have given the buyers of those units say 5 choices from the full catalog of xbox live arcade titles. There are some pretty decent ones up there, such as Small Arms (think super smash bros), Geometry wars (most excellent), Doom, Castlevania, and Assault Heroes just to name a few. Oh and why do

  • An arcade controller? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tacarat ( 696339 ) on Thursday October 18, 2007 @04:53PM (#21031435) Journal
    I know it's not likely for the price point, but a joystick being included is what would make that "arcade" for me.

    ... and a spot for my quarters.

    • I know it's not likely for the price point, but a joystick being included is what would make that "arcade" for me. ... and a spot for my quarters.
      Yeah, I was thinking it'd be nice if that joystick also came with a big wooden cabinet to help keep it steady, and keep the XBox and monitor nicely contained...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by tacarat ( 696339 )
        Come to think of it, what about trackball games? Hmm... this could get expensive.

        • Come to think of it, what about trackball games? Hmm... this could get expensive.
          And they're bundling Pac-Man - that means they ought to include a 4-way stick in addition to the usual 8-way...

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by tacarat ( 696339 )
            I can live with an 8 way mimicking a 4 way. If they added a feature to randomly simulate a broken button or stick, though, I'd say it's a bit too realistic.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by donaldm ( 919619 )
          Well if you can connect a trackball mouse (they are not that expensive) to the Xbox360 (you can with a PS2 and PS3) via USB then providing the game supports the peripheral then it would work. Still if the mouse does not work on the game you want to play you could always use it on your PC :-)

  • Who's Gonna Buy This? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Thursday October 18, 2007 @04:55PM (#21031481) Homepage Journal
    I'm not really sure who's going to buy this though. The casual market it may be aimed at would likely still go for a Wii for $30 less and a pack in game that all of their friends are already playing. The hardcore gamers would balk at a system without a hard drive and are probably starting to eye the PS3 a little more now as the price drops. So I'm not sure where this fits in. I can only guess, that like the core system before it, it sits there to give a lower price point on the books in time for Christmas, when you can bet Wii's will be scarce.
    • I dunno, I might, but I don't know enough about it? Does it only work with Live? The HD is optional; does that mean I can install one myself?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Aladrin ( 926209 )
        No, it's a regular XBox 360 with a few arcade games on a disc. There's no requirement for Live.

        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, especiall

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by iainl ( 136759 )
          Yes, but unlike the old Core model that this replaces, it comes with a memory stick to get you started.

          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

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by j235 ( 734628 )
          About the "have to buy a Microsoft" hard drive, you don't HAVE to. If you're technically inclined, you can use hddhackr to turn a standard 2.5" Western Digital Scorpio BEVS drive into a drive for the 360. I've done this on two 120gb drives with no problems.
    • Parent's who don't know any better. Just like the Wii and the cheap PS3. It's going to be parents who go out and say "@#$! Joey Jr wants an Xbox to play with his friends, crap it's $400. Wait! There's one for $280 and it comes with a wireless controller and online games! SOLD!"

      It won't be till lil joey opens it up that he sees he's not getting his HD with it and mommy has to trundle back to the store to buy something to hold the games on.

      Ignorance is how 90% of these consoles get bought out anyway by the pa

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ozphx ( 1061292 )
        Funniest shit happened here down-under right at the peak of Wii-hype. There were these little stalls in all the major malls selling really crap 'consoles' with motion sensitive controllers. I could just feel the disappointment when little Johnny gets told that his parents got "that motion video game thingo you wanted" and unveil one of these $80 pieces of shit.

        Gave me lulz every time.

  • Non-reg required (Score:3, Informative)

    by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Thursday October 18, 2007 @04:56PM (#21031509) Homepage Journal
    story [1up.com] that actually tells you all that comes with it(256 meg memory card, but no hd, to store games on)

  • Is this a joke? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Arcturax ( 454188 )
    $280 to play Pacman and Uno? You are better off getting a IIe or Commodore 64 emulator and a deck of Uno cards if you are going to play stuff that old.

    Ballmer must be mad.
  • That's how I break this down. This makes it very attractive to afford a second Xbox 360 for the bedroom to serve as a front-end for TVersity. From everything I've read, D-link's DSM 520 networked media player falls a little short on performance, but my Xbox 360 in the living room is really responsive to playing vids over the network. Transcoding (albeit on the fly) non-WMV/MP4 files sucks and takes a second or two, but the overall experience is great.

  • Fixed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Satanboy ( 253169 ) on Thursday October 18, 2007 @05:04PM (#21031647)
    "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, a Blu-ray drive, and a substantial lack of games."
    • Gotta wonder if the dearth of games would have been quite as bad had Sony just thrown subsidy money around like Microsoft has? $599 was a retarded launch price, they should have launched $399 for the 60gb version.

      Presumably the botched launch caused game makers to put the (already hard-to-code) PS3 ports and projects on the back burner, and with Wii going gangbusters moving stuff back up front may take even longer.
    • Agreed. This was one of the reasons I decided to buy a 360 instead of a PS3. Yes, the PS3 may be able to get better graphics, but what use is that when the games with good graphics suck? I finally see some games starting to push through that seem to be good, Folklore for example, and eventually Final Fantasy XIII. Maybe sometime in the future I'll consider a PS3 once they've built up a decent library, but for now the only reason I'd buy it is to get a Blu-ray player (which I can live without).
  • My GameCube has Pac-Man Vs.

    Take that Pac-Man Championship!

  • 360 Pro and 40 GB PS3 now the same price in Canada (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hamster Lover ( 558288 ) * on Thursday October 18, 2007 @05:17PM (#21031843) Journal
    Another challenge for Microsoft is thanks to the high value of the Canadian dollar the 40 GB PS3 will be released in Canada at $399.99, the same price as in the United States (Sony also dropped the price of the 80 GB model here in Canada by an additional $60 above the already $100 price drop to reach parity). With the current price of the 360 Pro package sitting at $399.99 Canadian, the PS3 is finally the value leader between the two systems. With a larger hard drive, included wireless controller battery kit, a Blue-Ray drive and WI-FI functionality built in, the 360 Pro kit -- even with two games -- just doesn't have the value.

    As retailers receive new bundles from Microsoft in the ramp up towards Christmas there is no excuse for the $50 price premium to remain in place, especially in light of Sony's move.
    • I don't know about you guys, but I used my wireless adapter for the 360 for a week before getting fed up with packet losses and lag. 100 bucks down the drain. Does anyone really get satisfactory online play over their wireless network?

      I really wonder how much use the wireless functionality is getting on all these PS3s and what the cost savings would have been without it.
      • I play Resistance: Fall of Man all the time on-line and I never have a problem. Guys at work play WoW on our wireless network without issues (at least, the issues have nothing to do with our wireless network).

        I don't have a 360 myself, but I have heard friends with 360s complain that the Xbox brand wireless adapter is not particularly robust, so they moved to a wireless bridge and simply plugged it into the 360s Ethernet port. Voila! Problem solved. You can pick up a wireless bridge for about $29, if I am n
      • I picked up a used wireless adapter for about half price. At first I had a couple issues, but I overcame them when I flashed dd-wrt onto my linksys router, and boosted the transmit power a bit. It's been rather good since then.
    • The PS3 can play high def videos and has wireless built in but the 360 will require $200 + $100 = $300 extra for that functionality. Just saying.
      • The PS3 can play blu-ray discs. The xbox 360 can play hi-def videos via digital distribution through xbox live (free silver account necessary).
  • Am I the only one thinking this is a slightly stupid product with a stupid name?

    The first 2-3 articles I saw about it didn't do anything to dispel the first impression that the name gave me, that this was an xbox 360 mounted in an arcade cabinet....
    • Thats what I was hoping for when I saw the title as well. Or even better, a mass market arcade box in a cabinet from a company I actually like.

      What this machine has to do with arcade gaming, beyond giving you a copy of one game from the 80s, is beyond me. At least I never saw Uno in the arcade before ...
    • If you're targeting non-gamers using a term which is universally recognized is a good thing.
  • Nobody creates a product without a customer better than Microsoft. This is very poorly targeted at that price point, although I'm glad they dropped the wired controller crap.

    Although ... I do want another 360 so I can do system link between rooms ... and I could pretend that it's a present for my wife (who loves the Live Arcade games) ... hmm ...
  • Damn Microsoft and their cursed "editions". Who would buy an Xbox without a HD? Being that it's the cheapest Xbox my mom would have, that's who. There are going to be some mad kids on Xmas morning this year and some surly customer service reps the next morning when all the moms come returning.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Toonol ( 1057698 )
      Who has more editions, Microsoft's 360 or Sony's PS3? And I'm not asking sarcastically, I've really and truly lost track. They both have far too many. Two is probably too many.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by MeanderingMind ( 884641 ) *
        I'm just as confused as you are.

        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

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Stalin ( 13415 )
      I probably will. I have a 360 with a hard drive but no HDMI port. The price is low enough that I am considering buying the "Arcade" package, swapping it for my current base unit, and selling the old one. I figure I can get at least $100 for a brand new wireless controller, 256MB memory card, and old main unit.
  • This is a weird announcement considering some of the retailers had already gotten this unit in to sell about 2 weeks ago. I saw this come in at work but it didn't have a set spot on the self yet. Guess they wanted retailers to get the unit before they announced it. It seems like an ok setup/unit to me but I would want the hard drive add on to be able to easily download more arcade/casual games if I were going to purchase it.
  • The price looks good but one thing alone is stopping me for picking up a 360 and that's the huge overpricing MS puts on the hard drive add ons.
    I don't believe I'm the only one who will pick up a 360 the day we can plug in a USB hard drive rather than being forced to pay the same price for 1/10th the storage.

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