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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."
To cell phone plans.
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.
Wait a minute, pay *less* now in exchange for greater incurred expense later on? If only there a way we could do this on a much bigger scale than with just Xboxes... Like put down a small amount now to get the consumer hooked and then have them pay the rest off later. A revolutionary concept indeed...
I've heard of slow news days, but seriously, what is this shit?
Welcome to the 20th and 21st century, this is how all subscription models work.
Or didn't you realize an iPhone really costs $2,000; DVR Equipment fees are really a fleecing, a $20k car really costs $36k, and pest control really costs $240, not $20/month. Gillette razors are also not 5 dollars.
Oh and mortgages are a really bad deal. You pay like 150grand extra, why not just pay cash up front?
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.
Or buy the Xbox but not the Live part. Single player games are more fun anyway with better story vs. online with teeny boppers and a gamethat goes forever with no real point. Like FF elevn.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Paying over time on a luxury item like an Xbox is a bad idea.I rarely side with the poor, but this is just stealing from the poor and feeding on their bad spending habits. Instead of getting on this monthly plan, they should just put the money away. After only 4 or 5 months, they will have enough to buy the system outright. That is not a significant time to wait to buy an Xbox. I've waited longer for stuff I want. We must destroy the "got to have it now" mentality before it destroys the country.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
No, same reason as before –poor people have to make false economies:
At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.
Without any special rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month.
[Sir Terry Pratchett]
However I live 30 miles from my house.
Man, that must be annoying. :-)
If you're stuck playing with teeny boppers, you're playing the wrong game.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
That's divorce. The wife got the house. He got the restraining order.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Well, the PC DRM is only "from hell" if you buy games with that DRM on it. I don't touch Ubisoft for that very reason, and it was a strong reason against buying games like SC2 (and quite likely Diablo 3 as well). Buy indie titles and you really don't have that problem.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Some games require 1 to 2 hours just to get through the opening cut scenes. In the Nintendo 64 era, there were problems with The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask because its roughly 90-minute start-to-save time exceeded many households' 60-minute maximum play sessions. Games with "Dead" or "Solid" in the title can have long times between save points as well.
With everyone talking about the economics of paying up front vs paying over time via monthly fees, I think everyone is missing the real story here:
It's bundled with the Kinect. And that's because the Kinect's sales figures have gone flat. Early adopters bought the hell out of them (even set a record), but then the software failed to materialize and sales have begun to stagnate. This is not a ploy to grab an extra $75, it's a ploy to get Kinect machines in more households. The extra $75 is just tacked on to leverage the risk associated with monthly payment plans.
Why? Maybe MS hopes a larger user base will inspire more Kinect development. They might have decided the Kinect is the "universal remote" in their "Xbox as home entertainment hub" scheme. They could just be trying to move units and recoup their investment.
(probably all of the above)
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Because poor people need an xbox NOW, and can't wait a couple of months, right?
This isn't food, of a roof over their heads, it a video game console!
Which actually is something the poor need far more than the rich.
Seriously, I earn a decent living. As a result, I like to spend my weekends skydiving, and my vacations renting a house for a week at the mountains. I remember when I didn't have any money (relatively speaking, I know there are truly poor people out there who don't have a roof over their heads), and spending time glued to my TV playing video games was a reasonably cheap form of entertainment.
Entertainment is a human necessity. Food and a roof over your head keeps you physically healthy, entertainment keeps you mentally healthy.
*rolls eyes* and I gave up my TV and cut the cable a decade ago.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Because poor people need an xbox NOW, and can't wait a couple of months, right?
This isn't food, of a roof over their heads, it a video game console!
Which actually is something the poor need far more than the rich.
Seriously, I earn a decent living. As a result, I like to spend my weekends skydiving, and my vacations renting a house for a week at the mountains. I remember when I didn't have any money (relatively speaking, I know there are truly poor people out there who don't have a roof over their heads), and spending time glued to my TV playing video games was a reasonably cheap form of entertainment.
Entertainment is a human necessity. Food and a roof over your head keeps you physically healthy, entertainment keeps you mentally healthy.
The Amish seem to be doing just fine.
Preach it. I took a job in a different city and moved here soon after to start work, while my wife and kids stayed put through the end of the school year. I find myself sitting in an empty house, in a situation where it'd be dumb to buy a TV when all my furniture will be moving here within the month. The library is a lifesaver. There's a bus stop near my house, and it's cheap to ride to another part of the city and just walk around to look at stuff. If I have to have passive entertainment, I can watch shows on Netflix (and I bet 90% of households who would want to buy an XBox already have a PC and Internet connection capable of supporting it).
I grew up with video games and I love 'em, but they're hardly something you've gotta have. For the history of the world up through 30 years ago, people managed to entertain themselves without them. It's still possible, you know?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Ugh... Sick of all these knee-jerk "It's a terrible deal" articles from assholes that haven't done their research properly.
First of all, if you get your xbox this way, it's warrantied for the two years you're under contract, compared to one year for the usual retail package. The extra year's warranty retails for $50.
When you figure in the extended warranty, the price gap (using the author's Amazon sale prices) shrinks to about $25. If you use the usual retail price of things it actually works out to be $10 cheaper to take the subsidized deal.
Secondly, yes, if you get it on sale and can pay up front, it's cheaper in the long-run. Welcome to the world of finance, asshat. In the end, for everyone else, you're paying a premium of just over a $1.04 per month for the privilege of having the thing now, rather than later. Try getting anything even close to that on a credit card -- at even a relatively modest interest rate of 9%, credit works out to $422 over the course of 2 years.
Nearly every goddamn article and blog on this acts as if Microsoft if fleecing everyone, when in fact the terms are very reasonable, if not generous. Of course they're counting on re-couping the costs elsewhere (games, peripherals, continued growth of XBL), but so be it. The fact that they expect to expand their revenue in this way is not underhanded, allows them to offer a better deal than credit companies, and frankly, is a good business move.
If you have philosophical differences with entering into such contracts yourself, then fine, but that doesn't mean this offer isn't valuable for other folks.
There are many forms of entertainment that are arguably better for mental health and demonstrably less expensive than video gaming.
Your hand doesn't count.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
"A poor man can only afford low quality boots that are $10 and last for about a year. A rich man can afford good boots that cost $60 and will last him for a decade. In that decade, the poor man will have spent more money on boots, and will still have wet feet."
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The Amish, like every other culture, have a variety of things to do to pass the time and stave off boredom. I believe that the parent was trying to say people need entertainment of some for good mental health. e.g. playing ball and stick for a few hours is more healthy than staring at a blank wall.
Just as a note the Amish tend to be reasonably wealthy: virtually no costs but produce extra to sell. Check out the stories on the news sometimes about extravagant Amish kids who are experiencing their year outside the community.
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. To this date it's still running recent games just fine. The only people stuck in the upgrade rut are those that see running a game at anything other than max detail at 100fps as not being able to play the game, which is ridiculous.
Granted $800 is more than a $600 launch day PS3, but I can also use it for, well, everything I could need a computer for. I imagine someone with a lot more money could get even more ahead of the curve.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Well, you did buy a dell... and it was a laptop.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
ps. Before you slam Sony for root kits, I'd suggest you read the history. It's not related to a PlayStation at all, and is old and apologized for.
That's funny, the CDs with the rootkits and the consoles both seem to say SONY on them.
If SONY doesn't want me to conflate rootkits distributed by SONY with games consoles distributed by SONY they can just not put SONY on one of them.
Until then, SONY is the rootkit company, the end.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"