Soob

Politics, Foreign Policy, Current Events and Occasional Outbursts Lacking Couth


You can't see the wind in the above picture of the clear, blue sky but trust me, it's there. A brisk 18 mile per hour breeze that wouldn't stand a chance against the sheer effectiveness of the X-Box 360's paper anchoring abilities. So, if you're in the market for the best of the best in weighing down paper the 360 is for you.

If, however, you're looking to buy a piece of hardware that will allow you to play video games, I'd caution against flopping down $400 (or whatever it is now) for this unit. I'm on machine #2, the first having shat the bed a scant six months after purchase. It was replaced on warranty and, just to show how clever a boy Ma Soob raised, I flopped down an extra $40 for the "service contract" upon receipt of the replacement machine. So the good news is I'll be able to replace
the current heap. The bad news, of course, is I'm stuck with the idiot and clearly inferior platform.

My advice to any and all looking to shill out some hard earned clams for their gaming enjoyment is go with the Sony. My original PS1 is still kicking (albeit you have to flip it upside down to get it kicking, but hey the things a decade old.)

So, X-Box 360 makes an excellent paperweight (or door stop or maybe even a horribly un-aerodynamic shot put) but an unreliable gaming system.

4 comments:

G said...

ha! You are in the same predicament! My 360 hasn't worked for the last couple of months. One day, when I do send it in, it'll be the third such time that I've done so. It is beginning to be a pattern (I also miss playing Hitman: Blood money and Oblivion). If I had a bit of cash to throw around I'd fork it out on a Wii or a suped-up uber gaming rig rather than a 360.

Jay@Soob said...

Good to know I'm not alone in this bullshit endeavor. Three times?!! Christ. I think my Platform days are over. Though I'd consider a Wii. Lots of bang for the buck. The PS3 is incredible but I'd use the thing maybe once a month.

Nope, it's a Mac powerbook of yet unknown sorts for my future purchase. Goodbye Microsoft and Linux.

Dan tdaxp said...

Good advice. Thanks.

Ymarsakar said...

You can buy a computer that can play Oblivion well for under 1k and not far above Xbox's 400 and you can upgrade it piecemeal as time goes by.

The Xbox has what is called "built in obsolescence". Computer hardware goes obsolete naturally, but there is something to making it go obsolete faster.

Sony in the Playstation series has many games that the PC never had and never will have. That's probably the major incentive to get a playstation console. The two gaming markets, console and PC, are really far apart. Although may be a bit closer now with developers such as Bioware.

Microsoft wanted some exclusive games for Xbox but didn't want to affect their operating system sales so they didn't want to lock out the PC market. So many games, like Mass Effect and Oblivion, are available for the PC.

You can get a graphics card that can max out Oblivion for around 100 dollars. The Geforce 8600 or one level down from ATI's normal marketing card naming level, whatever that is. 100$ for motherboard+dual chip. 100-200$ for Ram. (1 gig DDR2 cost 30$ last time I checked, without rebate. Most motherboards only have two ram slots, making that 60 dollars for 2 gigs but 100-200 for 4+ gigs if you buy a stick of ram that has 2 gigs on it) 50 dollars for a hard drive now a days.

It's going to cost more if you want to upgrade, which you will, but it will also do different things for you.

Course, if you never had an LCD monitor, you'll going to have to pay more for the peripherals. But those peripherals last far longer than any PC.