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The 360's Towering Pricetag Explored
Last week Gamasutra had up a call for commentary on the revelations about the Xbox 360's pricing structure. This week, comments are available on the groaning pricetags gamers will have to endure if they want to jump on the next-gen bandwagon. This commentary is especially well seen, given that Gamestop has just come out with a 360 Bundle that clocks in at a whopping $1,199.83. From the article: "I don't think the prices for the $300 or the $400 bundles are unreasonable, but anyone who buys the $300 bundle is going to end up paying more on expensive accessories. $99 for a 20 gig hard disk? You can get a 250 gig hard disk for less than that! If you don't want to get the hard disk, you have to pay $39.99 to save your game."
Do I detect a CHALLENGE???
DFI nF4 Ultra-Infinity Socket 939 - $98
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice - $146
Samsung Spinpoint SP2014N 200GB ATA133 - $86
MSI NX6600GT-TD128E Geforce 6600GT 128MB - $169 (comes with XIII, so there's one game)
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) - $90
Seasonic S12-330 PSU (22a on 12v channel, 330w max) - $59
In-Win S508T case - $53 (includes okay power supply for backup)
Logitech MX510 mouse - $28
Logitech cheap keyboard - $8
NEC DVD Burner - $50.
(I'm assuming that, since the 360 doesn't come with any way to watch/listen to games, that this computer doesn't come with a monitor or speakers.)
Total cost: $787, including one game. That leaves $413 for ten games (from ebgames.com), so here we go:
Guild Wars: $50
Advent Rising: $30
Madden NFL 06: $40
Battlefield 2: $50
Doom 3: $30
HL2 - GOTY: $50
C&C Generals Deluxe: $30
Empire Earth II: $50
Rome: Total War: $50
UT2004: $30
Total cost for games: $410. Leaves you $3 for a snack while you're assembling your system. So, instead of bitching and moaning about which component doesn't work, or this and that game sucks, can you see that, in theory, it's perfectly possible to spend $1200 on a better-than-average PC system with eleven games?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
I'll be going for the $400 package and probably order one or two games (Elder Scrolls and one other shooting/blow-em-up Live enabled game).
newegg has an 80 gig notebook drive for 90-something dollars.
2 E16822149016
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
For games that were released early on in the system's life, memory cards were the only way to save. Madden 64 springs to mind; in fact, it seemed that a lot of the sports titles used it as the sole mean of saving data.
I also know that the memory card lasted until the end of the system's lifespan. The Spider-Man port required it, and Perfect Dark had an option of saving your data to the card instead of the cartridge.
It really depended on what the developers wanted to use it for, though. If the publishers were willing to pay a bit more for the battery-backed carts, the card wasn't really needed. As a general rule, the first party titles tended to use the cart saves; third party games were more likely to require the memory card.
And come to think of it? It's actually called a controller pak. Shame on you for making me forget that. :)
Goo goo g'joob.
The $400 bundle includes all that, but not if you buy the $300 version and later decide to get the $99 hard drive, which is what we're talking about.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
They are now listing a bundle for $1999 that has 20 games.
-Randy
The accessory market was pretty open (look in a store how many third party accessories are sold there for any console) before the 360. MS announced they're going with Trusted Computing in order to force accessory makers to get a license.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.