Microsoft Announces New 360 Bundle Packs

Starting at the end of this month, you'll be able to get a little more for your dollar when buying a new Xbox 360. Gamasutra is reporting that Micrsoft has unveiled bundle pack versions of the Elite and standard consoles. The $449.99 Xbox 360 Elite and the standard $349.99 Xbox will now both come with packed-in game titles: Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. "Microsoft says both bundles will be available by the end of October and throughout the holidays. The retail packaging bears the company's new model-specific slogans, with the Elite tagged 'Go Big', and the standard 'Go Pro'. On October 3rd, various now-deleted online retail listings showed the existence of a third pack, the $279.99 'Arcade' bundle, which bore all similar markings as the new models, and was tagged 'Go Play' ... As yet, Microsoft has not officially announced the bundle, but all signs point to its imminent arrival."

Comments

Baffled

[wizzard2k]

I'm still baffled why the 360 Halo Edition does not come bundled with the game.

Re:Baffled

[LordNimon]

It's because there are three different versions of Halo 3, and so by not bundling the game, the customer can choose which version of Halo 3 he wants.

Re:Baffled

[LordNimon]

I don't think it sounds silly at all. Stores that sell the Xbox 360 also sell Halo 3. There's no reason why a person can't pick up both at the same time, and at that time you can choose which version of Halo 3 you want.

Did they fix their console yet?

[SignupRequired]

Seriously, it has a known, fatal design flaw. Why doesn't anybody but me see how awful this is? You fix that, and give me some way to guarantee that I will receive a fixed version of the console, and maybe I'll consider buying. Until then, it'd be pretty fucking stupid to spend hundreds of dollars on something that might become a paperweight after a month. I just don't get why MS didn't jump all over this and fix it immediately and issue a big press release about how awesome they were and so on.

Re:Did they fix their console yet?

[jtroutman]

Seriously, it has a known, fatal design flaw.

Well, there are two things here. First, "fatal design flaws" rarely seem to stop people from purchasing electronics. As an example, see the iPhone. Secondly, what is the known, fatal design flaw anyway? I know my brother's 360 locked up a couple of days after he bought it, but he got it the first day they came out and they shipped him a replacement immediately. Mine has never so much as hiccuped, maybe I'm just lucky.

Re:Did they fix their console yet?

[jtroutman]

Just my opinion, but I'd say code that's executable from the stack and internal code addresses that aren't randomized at boot time qualify, especially since those can't be fixed through patches. That's what lead to the first hack and could spell more problems.

Re:Did they fix their console yet?

[Osty]

Secondly, what is the known, fatal design flaw anyway? I know my brother's 360 locked up a couple of days after he bought it, but he got it the first day they came out and they shipped him a replacement immediately. Mine has never so much as hiccuped, maybe I'm just lucky.

It depends on when you bought your console, and when it failed.

• There was a bad batch of power supplies with the launch consoles, which is most likely what caused your brother's to fail. In those cases they should've just sent along a new power supply, though it wouldn't surprise me if they just did a straight console replacement instead.
• More consoles suffered from heat-related issues, especially with the GPU. Over a fair amount of time and use, the console would get hot enough and cycle enough that the solder holding down the GPU (or sometimes the memory chips) would lift. The infamous towel trick works on such consoles, because intentionally overheating the console may cause the solder joints to expand enough to make a connection. This problem was addressed earlier this summer with a more efficient heatsink for the GPU, and when coupled with the new 65nm process CPUs (GPUs are still 90nm) overheating leading to solder lift should be a thing of the past.
• There has been some amount of "random" failures. For example, when my first console died from the GPU solder lift fault, it was replaced with a unit that had a bad DVD drive. After about a week with the new console after replacement, the DVD drive simply refused to spin disks (insert a disk, notice the orientation, close the drive, get an error that the console can't read the disk, open the tray and notice that the orientation of the disk has not changed). That was just a fluke, and truly falls into the standard ~1-3% acceptable failure rate for consumer electronics.
• Finally, there's been plenty of user error pawned off as system faults. For example, the notorious DVD-eating nature of the Xbox 360 is due in most part to idiots tilting the console while a disk is spinning. Yes, I know it's fun to watch the ring of light re-orient itself on the fly, but is it worth risking the wrath of physics of a spinning disk?

With price cuts, 65nm CPUs, and updated GPU heatsinks in consoles for sale now, the Xbox 360 has never been a better buy. When you include the 3-year warranty for Red Ring of Death issues (any failure that would cause a "three red lights" error, which would not include DVD-ROM failure), I wouldn't worry at all about buying a 360 right now. It's those of us who purchased at launch time that got screwed (I'm on my 2nd replacement console, and bought a backup Core system so that I could play Forza 2 at launch while my main console was in the process of being replaced the second time).

Re:Did they fix their console yet?

[AbRASiON]

The overheating issues are occuring on far far far more than 3% of units, I've seen results from several sources at least 5 forum polls at different sites, EB store employees tallying up a sold / return ratio, journolists (sp?) reporting how many have failed at their offices etc.

The chaps at UPS actually know what the Xbox is when returning it bwefore you return it, based on the box you bring it in with..... the failure rate is rumoured to be as high as 30% - I'd be very comfortable believing 15% for sure.

The 3 year warranty for the RROD is absoloutely FUCKING useless as far as I and several console gamers are concerned.
A>I don't want to be without my console for 2-6 weeks multiple times over the course of 3 years.
B>Secondly due to DRM you have to sign in to Xbox live to be able to play your downloaded Xbox games because they are signed to the hardware of your DEAD console see : http://brokenxblm.blogspot.com/
C>Why should I support a company releasing shit hardware, can't they get their act together, it's been 2 fucking years!
and finally and I believe by far most importantly,..
D>3 Years? big fucking deal, there's still gamers playing 5 year old PS2's, 8 year old PS1's, 10 year old N64's and older, sure some old hardware breaks down, I won't deny that but at least you have a chance,...... why should I or anyone else purchase a product which is actually LIKELY to break down, forcing me to have to buy a new one in 3.01 years time or 4 years etc?
No! I'm enjoying cheap Xbox 1 and PS2 games and I plan to keep enjoying them, I'd like to do the same with a 360, maybe pull it out in 4 or 5 years to play Gears of war etc,.....so in that case, I can't see waiting for a more reliable edition being a bad thing.

Also there's rumours there's a fixed model out, the die appears to be approximately 15% smaller, which doesn't correlate with 90nm to 65nm but no one knows for sure, so we're waiting for more info - but either way the thing is still bloody noisy.

Nope, I'm waiting for confirmation on forums like Xbox-scene.com that there's a more reliable one out there in the wild.

Go buy your second or third, today!

[Seumas]

Go buy one or two spare 360s today, so you'll have a system around when the other one bricks! Remember, they're disposable!

Re:HALO 3

[EasyT]

I bet if they packed Halo 3 in with it (and of course charged a slightly higher price) they'd unload a pile of systems at a decent enough profit.

While I share your opinion that their currently bundled games themselves aren't very compelling, but I doubt we'll see a Halo 3 pack-in because I suspect Microsoft isn't terribly worried about moving systems this Christmas season. Wii's are still seeing supply fall short of demand and PS3 systems have fewer games at a higher price. And Halo 3 (and Mass Effect and other soon-to-be-released titles) will move plenty of systems even being sold separately. The system is starting to move under its own momentum.

By NOT packing in Halo 3, they'll still sell lots of units and they'll additionally rake in tons of cash by selling Halo 3 separately. And making loads of cash and perhaps finally showing that Microsoft's game division is profitable sounds like a pretty good strategy.

Just my uninformed 2 cents.

Re:HALO 3

[This_Is_My_Happening]

Why would you want a backup 360 in case yours fails? RROD problems are covered for 3 years now. Even if you bought a launch console in 2005 you would still be protected for another year at least.

Re:HALO 3

[twistedsymphony]

I don't know where you're getting your figures but I haven't seen any stats regarding console sales sales figures post Halo 3 with the exception of Australia... which saw a 55% increase in hardware sales for the week it went on sale and September saw a 158% increase in sales over august in the same region http://www.itwire.com/content/view/14759/532/

So I'd say that both the price drop AND Halo 3 are quite a substantial catalyst for the 360. taking it a step further and bundling two games with the already reduced price hardware (and I should note that Forza 2 is still a full priced game, and a AAA 1st party franchise no less) will probably push sales even further for them.

Re:HALO 3

[twistedsymphony]

except that Forza 2 isn't a bargain bin game... it's on of the 360's top sellers and still fetches full price at retail. http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Forza-Motorsport-2/dp/B000FRVCAA/?qid=1191942433