What the freak?

[Uzumaki]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/18/XBOX.TMP&type=tech

All right, so there are 2 different types of XBoxes coming out: one with no hard drive for $299, and one with a built-in 20 GB one at $399.

Does anyone else find this completely outrageous? You can still plunk down $300 bucks for a "no frills" XBox, but you can't save your game unless you drop another $40 and you can't play Halo on it? I guess the extra $100 price jump for the HD version is supposed to deter as much modding, but I just think it sounds like Microsoft is trying to gouge comsumers again. Then again, it could just be a knee jerk repsonse of mine to most Microsoft junk, as my XBox ceased to function correctly right after my warranty expired.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, they aren't trying to gouge consumers - either way, they probably lose money on each console they sell. This way they are trying to lose less.

But still, I think it's a bad move. Generally speaking, splitting your user base is not a good thing. While I think most people will opt for a hard drive, developers have to choose which they want to support or try to do both. In the first case, they limit their market size, in the latter, they increase the development (and testing) time.

 

[Graf]

I imagine this would be a coding nightmare....

But as a consumer I think it's brilliant. The biggest problem with consoles has always been the one-size-fits-all way they are constructed.

It -will- create a weird financially based class-system among players but I don't know that that is terrible. (OK. I'm wrong, it -is- terrible. But it is interesting as well.)

 

[trancejeremy]

Here's the official page on it, and what you get in each box

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/xbox360console.htm

I wish you could get the hard drive separately, cheaper than having to buy the "premium" console. Because I don't have broadband or a HD TV, I can't use most of the stuff in the "premium" version of the 360, and in fact, I would much prefer having a wired controller (like in the base system) than wireless. (I'm never more than 9 feet away from my game console, I don't like having to recharge/change batteries, and I like force feedback).

If I could buy the core 360, plus a hard drive for its true price, around $50-60, then I would be happy. But then again, I was never really planning on getting one at launch, but waiting until the prices drops to $250 or so and when Forza 2 comes out.

 

[Psionicist]

20GB hard drive for $100? Jesus that's a rip-off, given that you can get a 160 GB external hard drive for regular computers for the same price.

I'd probably get the $299 version and wait for a taiwanese company to create an adapter of some sort.

 

[Taren Nighteyes]

It's not splitting the base

No significant additional testing was probably needed to create the hard driveless version of the XBOX 360. It's removable, so both units are capable of the same darn thing. Also, this allows the possibility of creating bigger drives later on, which will, of course, be sold to make more money.

I'm looking forward to it I think XBOX 360 may give Microsoft a definite boost in market share.

Taren Nighteyes

 

[KenM]

Its not just the extra HD for the premium package. You get the media remote, headset, faceplate, ethernet cable, and component HD cable. I heard the wireless control can be pluged in if you want. I think most people will be getting those things anyway. Microsoft will probably make those this for sale seperatly as well.

 

[Stormfalcon]

I see the split as a bad thing precisely because of past experiences with the PS2 HDD, as well as what happened with the Sega CD and the Sega 32x. When you make something optional, support for it is going to be abysmal at best when it comes to consoles. With the PS2 HDD, there was only one app that required it, a handful of games at most (if even that) that actually supported it, and it ended up tanking and actually written out of the current PS2 designs. Why? Because developers, unsure as to whether a sizeable number of people are buying the thing opted not to write in support for it.

Likewise, the hard drive for the 360 is now optional, meaning not everyone is going to buy it. It even has a shakier app that requires it than the PS2 HDD ever did: backwards compatiblity that may not even support a lot of games. Why plunk down the extra $100 when your perfectly-working Xbox does the job, and does it much better? With that poor an incentive to buy it, why would the consumer do so (the fanboys might, even though there's no reason for it)? When the consumers don't buy it, why should developers support it?

Furthermore, performance in certain games are going to take a big hit without the drive. Halo and Halo 2, among other games, relied on the HD for level caching due to the higher access speeds it offered. Without that being there (and all games being developed to assume no drive being in place on the 360), then Halo 3 and other games that would benefit from the HD being there for data caching will suffer quite a bit.

Microsoft, thy name is now Sega

 

[Psionicist]

When you say it Stormfalcon I realize this is a typical Microsoft strategy. They did the same thing with the new Windows (Longhorn/Vista). They talked about really cool new technologies such as a new filesystem and a new shell/command line to hype the product... Then they removed it, or put it in the more expansive server release. In the end, Windows Vista is just Windows XP with more eyecandy and lots of Digital Rights Management.

I will not buy this console, or the operating system.

 

[trancejeremy]

Its not just the extra HD for the premium package. You get the media remote, headset, faceplate, ethernet cable, and component HD cable. I heard the wireless control can be pluged in if you want. I think most people will be getting those things anyway. Microsoft will probably make those this for sale seperatly as well.

Well, like I said, since I don't have broadband or a HD TV set (and neither does a good chunk of the US), I can't use any of that. (And I would never use a console as a DVD player, since that's asking for a worn out drive, which is silly when stand alone DVD players are $30).

Which is why I wish for people like me, there was an option to just buy the cheap version of the 360, plus the hard drive, for about $50 less than the price of the "premium" version, and minus all the (for me) useless stuff