5punk

Shocking I know, but seeing as the only game I ever play at the moment on the PC is TF2, rather than upgrade my PC which will cost me hundreds of pounds, and not be future proof, I am considering buying a cheap Xbox 360.

You can pick them up for about £150 with a wired controller if you look around enough.

I am seriously considering doing this, and having it replace my PC for games in the office (plugged into my 24" Widescreen Dell monitor), and then buying a dirt cheap small form factor PC for Internet/Downloads/Burning.

This will be a sad day if I do make the decision to move across to the dark side, but I wondered if any of you can come up with pluses or negatives on this decision.

How many of you have played the Orange Box on 360, and how does it fare in comparison to the PC?
Does the control scheme of a console hinder the experience enough to make it less enjoyable?
How many of you play online with the 360, as I'd be very sad to not play against you guys again (even though you never seem to be playing Teef at all).

Anyway, just wanting some 5punkers to question my sanity before I go out and make a rash decision that I regret later on.

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:buying a cheap Xbox 360

...if you're not planning to play online that is.

You can get a brand new 360 Arcade for £150 if you shop around a bit. That has a wireless controller, an HDMI port and is based on the new Falcon chipset. No hard disk or HDMI cable though. (But I have a 20G disk I've just replaced)

I've only played the demo of OB on 360 - which is the first section of Ep 2, but like most shooty games it's not as good as a mouse, but you do get used to it.

It's certainly an affordable way to get access to gaming - assuming that no-one else is wanting to use the TV - but could never replace my PC games.

Baliame wrote:
...if you're not planning to play online that is.

Work out what you need before hand, it will be allot cheaper in some sort of package (some sort of HDD if you want to download game trailers and demos).

Personally I've grown quite used to the 360 controller, it works pretty well for most games (other than RTS games anyway). Will be interesting to see how its popularity holds out with the dropping of HD-deevd though. Although, it is easy just to sweep a film and stream it over now (avi/divx support works a dream now).

(Brackets ftw)

If your gaming is becoming more intermittent then I can see why this might appeal. However, I'd rue the loss of flexibility that you get with PC games, such as being able to sweep the latest fad and play that for 2 weeks before moving on. Also, I have come to think of gaming as being a more social activity than just pure gaming now, since I'm usually playing whatever the game is with at least a couple of 5punkers, if not a server-full. I doubt my interest in gaming would have survived so long if I weren't able to play them with other friendly bummers and had to take my chances on a new server each time.

However, since your gaming time is now much more limited and you rarely play with us now anyway, it may not make a huge difference to you, sad as the case may be. What's your current PC setup, and what actually needs upgrading? Have you played COD4, or is that beyond your computer's ability?

I'd find just console gaming to be somewhat restricting, both in terms of the games I'd have available, and the people I could play them with. As I've said before I think they're ace for things like Fifa where you get a few mates over, but for multiplayer FPSs I've never been able to play anything other than Goldeneye and Timesplitters on consoles, and even then they were still with mates in the same room rather than over the intertubes. Not sure why it makes a difference to me, but I've just found that it does.

This may be a fairly useless post, but it's what came to mind for me!

I tried playing Teef on the 360 and wasn't that impressed. It's perfectly playable but when put up against a good PC setup with the same game it's not going to win. I imagine the other games in the bundle are the same. They all look very nice and as far as the controls go it depends what you're used to. If you've never played and FPS on a console it may take some time before you get comfortable.

Me and my brother (Duke of Ted) have both ordered copies of Frontlines for the 360 and will be playing that together. We also play Halo 3 sometimes.

If you do go for a 360 I'd strongly recommend you look at the HD and online options as well, they can add a lot to your experience. There's some great stuff in the Live Arcade, but that cost money as well.

If you plan on getting XBL and buying games, for the love of god get a Hard drive. To me, the Xbox is severely handicapped without one.

I never play on my Xbox though, if only for not having a HDD and wireless. I refuse to pay £69.99 for 20 gigs and £50+ for a wireless adapter.

Make sure you take everything into account, price wise.

£150 + £30 for Xbox Live + £69.99 for the hard drive = £250 already and that's before you've bought any games and not including wireless if you plan on getting it.

In my experience, I've never had trouble playing with people online on my PS3 however, I do only play Burnout and Motorstorm online, not FPS'.

The only trouble I did have trouble playing an older version WWE Smackdown on the PS2, if someone was about to lose a match they'd rip the cable out/disconnect themselves to avoid tarnishing their oh-so-valuable win-lose record and I'd often have trouble fighting some people, as they would exploit the game bugs or use an Action Replay to make themselves invincible.

You will get annoying people more often then not from what I've heard in FPS' but on you can however add people you liked playing with and try and follow them into a game. I've got several people I don't know on my friends list who often invite me to play the same game when I'm online.

I also have about 3 or 4 people I know personally with a PS3 and a couple of 5punkers so that's a plus side too.

In short, if everything goes tits up and you have a mic, give them some (Kitchen) Hell!

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:rather than upgrade my PC which will cost me hundreds of pounds, and not be future proof, I am considering buying a cheap Xbox 360.

No console is futureproof either, unless you're FatherJack. PC upgrades and consoles are a lot closer in price too now (my last upgrade has lasted me several years now).

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:Anyway, just wanting some 5punkers to question my sanity before I go out and make a rash decision that I regret later on.

There's nothing stopping you getting a decent PC later on if you change your mind in a few years. It's not like you'll be losing money.

Yeah no console is future proof and I think Microsoft are planning on releasing a new console by the end of 2009.

Dog Pants wrote:No console is futureproof either, unless you're FatherJack.

I just bought the 120G disk and slotted it in where my 20G one was (it just clips on the end), although I did take the 360 and Wii completely to bits to fit new cases.

I meant I have a spare 20G disk now, which is no use to me at all (won't even work as a USB disk) - so that's up for grabs if you get a diskless version.

The wireless Tezz mentioned is wireless networking, not the controllers - so you only need that if you can't connect an ethernet cable to the back of it.

You need a hard disk to download game demos, play old XBox games, some 360 titles like the footy manager ones that have big saves, and if you are foolish enough to buy the HDDVD add-on.

The Gold Live membership is required to play online games, not (I think) for the arcade games (about 90 new and classic titles) or demos. It's £35 a year. Some of the cost of this goes to the game-makers, so very few have additional subscription costs. You still have to buy each arcade game, but they all have free demo versions.

As someone who regularly plays both on the 360 and the PC, heres my opinion:

If you are getting the 360 and want to play online at all, get the version with the hard drive. That being said, don't worry about getting the big one unless you are likely to download *a lot* of stuff. Ive got the 20gig, and until I got it connected, the save games didnt even make a dent. Since its been connected, ive downloaded a bunch of arcade games, demos, extra content and such, and ive still got half my hard drive free. Basically, I think unless you are going to take advantage of the HD film thing, or download a bunch of "x box originals" games, I dont think the big-uns worth it.

My advice would be to get a second hand deal from somewhere like Game. It wont be noticeably more expensive than getting it from somewhere else, they frequently have deals on for extra gubbins, and if you suffer the dreaded Ring o Death, its just a case of taking it back, saying "its fucked" and they replace it then and there. I know this from experience. I bought a second hand 360 from them (the pre-hdmi output version) and it died. Took it back to the shop, they tested it to see that it was, indeed, fucked. Then, as they didn't have any second hand 360's in at the time, they replaced it with a brand new one. Fucking win!

Consoles aren't future proof but they're much cheaper to maintain than a PC. A console can last 2-3 years at least, with little or no money spent on hardware. You can't say the same for PCs unless you spend ludicrous money initially or aren't bothered about being the one with the rubbish graphics on your PC.

spoodie wrote:Consoles aren't future proof but they're much cheaper to maintain than a PC. A console can last 2-3 years at least, with little or no money spent on hardware. You can't say the same for PCs unless you spend ludicrous money initially or aren't bothered about being the one with the rubbish graphics on your PC.

I spent about £400 on my last upgrade, which was nearly two years ago now. Compared to the price of a PS3 that's not a lot of difference. I don't actually have to upgrade now either - I reckon I could easily last another 6 months to a year - but I've got the money soon so I will.

Dog Pants wrote:I spent about £400 on my last upgrade, which was nearly two years ago now. Compared to the price of a PS3 that's not a lot of difference. I don't actually have to upgrade now either - I reckon I could easily last another 6 months to a year - but I've got the money soon so I will.

Of course, the other thing with PCs is that you can sell/reuse bits in future builds, so while you are upgrading (every however long, say 18-24 months) you'll usually get at least £200 back*, often more. making PCs (to me, anyway) a far more appealing option.

Unlike with consoles, where after 2 years or so, you'll get £30 for them, with all your games.


*in your case, the agp graphics card would sell for a fair price, the rest of the harware would probably get a decent sum as it's a dually capable WS rig.

And it's not console whore. it's consoletard. did you not learn from zero punctuation?

I can't be arsed to argue the point, but it's generally considered to be cheaper to run console hardware than PC hardware and I agree. It's obviously all dependant on what hardware you buy for your PC, reselling, second-hand, whatever. However I'm sure I've spent much more on PC hardware than console hardware over the years. And I've owned lots of consoles. My monitors alone would buy me both a 360 and a PS3.

Although games are generally more expensive on a console.

I agree, consoles are cheaper (unless you buy a lot of games)

But, the sensible PC buying strategy is quite viable, even if you have no money. Especially now all the good PC releases for 18 months have already come out

spoodie wrote:Although games are generally more expensive on a console.

Indeed, generally you have to buy them - which is not always true of PC games, but the second-hand market is much richer.

Not least because the second-hand market for PC games which require an online key is obviously non-existent, but also because of the propensity of people who buy whatever is new that week on a console only to complete/get bored of them and sell them a couple of weeks later in order to sub-finance their next purchase.

I'd still take a PC if I had to choose, even one that could only play older games, if I had to choose only one console it would be the PS2 with it's massive library of varied games.

I only use consoles for games I can't get elsewhere and there are some delightful titles out there, but paying up to £50 for utter turds is the risk you take.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote: I agree, consoles are cheaper (unless you buy a lot of games)

But, the sensible PC buying strategy is quite viable, even if you have no money. Especially now all the good PC releases for 18 months have already come out

Even though I'm not totally hung up on the idea of it, you missed Spore. Don't worry, I won't tell Grimmie

FatherJack wrote: I only use consoles for games I can't get elsewhere and there are some delightful titles out there, but paying up to £50 for utter turds is the risk you take.

^This. however, demos are a huge help and with the newer consoles, about 2 or 3 demos are release a week for download which helps loads. I wouldn't of taken a second look at Burnout in a shop but upon playing the demo, I found it one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a long long time.

A few days ago I took 8 of my shittest 360 games up to game, got £61 cold hard cash. Not a bad haul considering most of them were pre-owned to begin with and rarely got played or were played to death anyway.

Also having pleanty of friends with the same console helps on costs.