$336 with a 120GB disk
by
drinkypoo
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Which is unnecessary and/or overkill for most applications. The 8GB disk will fulfill most users' needs because their media library can be stored on their PC (A more logical place for a large expensive disk than a cheapass little piece of consumer trash - I like my Xbox a lot but I don't think I necessarily trust it.)
Make that more like $236, with no disk upgrade, which as I mentioned before is unnecessary. Actually, I think it will cost you a little MORE than that, though. It's $30 for a decent modchip, something that's updatable from a CD. You also have to pay shipping on cables to hook up USB, or you have to make cables out of Xbox extension cables and USB extension cables, which probably ain't much cheaper. Also, to get digital audio out of it you have to spend another $20. (That also gets you S-Video, though, it even comes with an S-Video cable to get you started... it's lousy but it works.)
Then again, you can get an Xbox used for $130. So maybe it's actually not so expensive. Why buy an Xbox with a warranty if you're just going to void it anyway?
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The guy's got a point. Wait till Dell runs a sale and you can score a P-4 2.x GHz machine loaded, for about $450, sans monitor. That's just over $100 more than the X-Box, and look at the difference. Of course, that would make this whole 'Hacking the X-Box' appear to be a worthless waste of time...
Wait a second...
USA TODAY "research"
by
Alpha_Nerd
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Just because there's been 150,000 copies donloaded doesn't mean 150,000 XBoxen have been modded. I'm sure there's people who have downloaded it and not installed it(I do that to software often =/)and on the flip side I'm sure there's peopel who DL it and install on multiple. I'd take a guess and say the former is more common than the latter.
And to the idiot that said XBox games look like Quake 2, well you're just that - an idiot. The XBox is the technically superior system. It also IMO has the best controler - too bad it's games suck =/
I believe all of these should fall into the "fair use" catagory. If Microsoft doesn't interfere with any of this alleged "illegal hacking" projects, they could sell those Xboxes like hot cakes. More people would buy them since they'll have more than one use. Since more people would buy an Xbox to say run Linux on them or what not, they could also use it to play games! That way games will be sold and Microsoft would make money of it since the publishers have to pay a royalts to MS.
Also, whatever you do to the Xbox should be considered fair use. When you mess with the hardware, all that MS should be able to do is deny you warrany. Car manufacturers already do this. Think of the people that modify their cars and put in turbos and superchargers. If/when their engine craps out, the dealership or whatever doesn't have to cover anything since what you did to your car has voided your warrany.
My point is MS has no right to take any legal action against any of these "illegal hacking" projects and should just leave them alone. Fair use is fair use.
-video out quality isn't as good (nvidia's video out sucks, ati's is good but not as good as xbox) -it's louder -it's bigger -it doesn't fit in with your other home entertainment stuff -no optical digital output -no rgb output -slower boot time
If you want to spend 5-600$ or so for a loaded shuttle XPC (i got the nforce one) and another 100$ for a scan converter with component output, another 100$ for swank logitech wireless keyboard and optical mouse, then you'll have something worth comparing. This is almost exactly what I have, and it's nice. My only main complaint is the noise of the fan, but I have it hidden under my home entertainment system.
But saying a cheap system will do the same is naive.
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Make that more like $236, with no disk upgrade, which as I mentioned before is unnecessary. Actually, I think it will cost you a little MORE than that, though. It's $30 for a decent modchip, something that's updatable from a CD. You also have to pay shipping on cables to hook up USB, or you have to make cables out of Xbox extension cables and USB extension cables, which probably ain't much cheaper. Also, to get digital audio out of it you have to spend another $20. (That also gets you S-Video, though, it even comes with an S-Video cable to get you started... it's lousy but it works.)
Then again, you can get an Xbox used for $130. So maybe it's actually not so expensive. Why buy an Xbox with a warranty if you're just going to void it anyway?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The guy's got a point. Wait till Dell runs a sale and you can score a P-4 2.x GHz machine loaded, for about $450, sans monitor. That's just over $100 more than the X-Box, and look at the difference. Of course, that would make this whole 'Hacking the X-Box' appear to be a worthless waste of time...
Wait a second...
Just because there's been 150,000 copies donloaded doesn't mean 150,000 XBoxen have been modded. I'm sure there's people who have downloaded it and not installed it(I do that to software often =/)and on the flip side I'm sure there's peopel who DL it and install on multiple. I'd take a guess and say the former is more common than the latter.
And to the idiot that said XBox games look like Quake 2, well you're just that - an idiot. The XBox is the technically superior system. It also IMO has the best controler - too bad it's games suck =/
Also, whatever you do to the Xbox should be considered fair use. When you mess with the hardware, all that MS should be able to do is deny you warrany. Car manufacturers already do this. Think of the people that modify their cars and put in turbos and superchargers. If/when their engine craps out, the dealership or whatever doesn't have to cover anything since what you did to your car has voided your warrany.
My point is MS has no right to take any legal action against any of these "illegal hacking" projects and should just leave them alone. Fair use is fair use.
About that cheap dell:
-video out quality isn't as good (nvidia's video out sucks, ati's is good but not as good as xbox)
-it's louder
-it's bigger
-it doesn't fit in with your other home entertainment stuff
-no optical digital output
-no rgb output
-slower boot time
If you want to spend 5-600$ or so for a loaded shuttle XPC (i got the nforce one) and another 100$ for a scan converter with component output, another 100$ for swank logitech wireless keyboard and optical mouse, then you'll have something worth comparing. This is almost exactly what I have, and it's nice. My only main complaint is the noise of the fan, but I have it hidden under my home entertainment system.
But saying a cheap system will do the same is naive.