Sol's Console Dilemma

[Sol]

Well hi there.

I've got some cash left over from my birthday, enough to say, buy a 360. I would rather like to play new titles like fallout, far cry, hell I haven't even had the chance to play Bioshock yet.

I can get 12.5% discount on the console as I work at John Lewis, wooo. So that takes the Arcade version to £112, and the premium (60gb - sadly they don't offer 20gb *shrug*) for £147 with no free games or anything.

...And being a giant nub, I wish to know whether there is actually a significant difference between them both, do you reaaallly use that hard drive? The household should be getting a shiny new HD tv in the next couple of months, are they both HD compatible? And i've heard something about waiting to buy one as the Jasper chipset which should be supposedly better is coming out soon? Consoles confuse mee


Or would it be better to sink that money into new pc parts? (My machine is a bit pants, and can only just about run most valve games™)

Other than that, the rest of the money is going into this, yum

[Mr. Johnson]

Or would it be better to sink that money into new pc parts?

Yes.
But i don't own any newer consoles (apart from the wii, but that hardly counts) so i don't know really.

[Dog Pants]

Personally I'd say it depended on what sort of game you wanted to play. If console games work for you then it's probably cheaper to go for the 360 option. Personally I find any console I buy just collects dust because I don't like the games, but that's just me. Upgrading your PC would be better for the sort of games you mentioned, but with only a couple of hundred quid to spend it still might not make all that much of a difference, depending on how old your PC is. And on top of that you may well find yourself having to spend the same amount of money again in a couple of years.

Basically, if you don't have the money to keep upgrading your PC and enjoy playing console games, you're probably better off with the 360.

Which reminds me, weren't we going to start pimping a console area here a bit more?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Or would it be better to sink that money into new pc parts? (My machine is a bit pants, and can only just about run most valve games™

It would be better from a 5punky gaming perspective, but given how old (I think) your machine is, you'd be looking at a full build to get a worthwhile upgrade (that is, not pissing money away)

Console would probably be the more affordable option.

[spoodie]

Considering the budget I'd say go for a 360. Many of the significant games are coming out on both PC and console platforms these days so I don't see you missing out on much.

You should definitely get one with a harddrive. It means you can download demos, XBL games, etc. Also the new update will allow you to dump the game onto your harddrive for extra speed and perhaps a little less noise. This is all assuming you're willing to pay for an XBL subscription, which I would consider essential but that's really up to you and your budget. I suppose you could get a HD and XBL when you have more money.

[buzzmong]

Other than that, the rest of the money is going into this, yum

One of the Squier Vintage models eh? They're actually meant to be rather good™

[Sol]

I'm leaning towards getting one. It'd cost a bit more than £150 to upgrade my machine to anywhere near the same standard. To tell the truth, i'm still on shitty integrated graphics. My older shuttle which was the noisy as fuck machine had a 128mb pci card of some sort in it, but it, as quite a lot of shuttles do, overheated and fucked the psu that i haven't got around to replacing...

Also, going to uni next year, so the 360 is probably more a viable choice as I'll be pinched for room and have my lappy for work needs. There's a big social aspect to be gained there as well I'm sure.

the question is, fucking about connecting it to the interbutt. My router is upstairs and the xbox is likely to be downstairs. I can't justify £60 to spend on that fucking wireless router they make, so it looks like i'm running a cable

One of the Squier Vintage models eh? They're actually meant to be rather good™

mmm, yes I tried it out at a shop and it was rather nice. Although having very little experience know what a good bass is like I could have missed the point. Switching from guitar to bass... Too many guitar players locally and no bassists.

[buzzmong]

mmm, yes I tried it out at a shop and it was rather nice. Although having very little experience know what a good bass is like I could have missed the point. Switching from guitar to bass... Too many guitar players locally and no bassists.

I do like my Squier VMJ, needs a proper setup and to get looked at, but that's my fault.

Also, I'll do a quick plug for here: http://basschat.co.uk/index.php

Decent UK based bassist forum.

And yeah, get the 360. Also make sure you get the one WITH the hdd. Apparently there are changes to Xbox Live in the pipe meaning you'll need a hdd.

[FatherJack]

I use the hard drive lots for game demos and saves from RPGs - the memory card can only hold so much. I still have the 20G drive from mine that I replaced with a 120G one, but the difference to the premium version is proably worth it as even the 20G disk fills up quick with demos.

Consoles are a good way of getting to play up-to-date games without spending massively, but it depends how far your PC is away from being good enough - 8800GTs start at around £50 and Core2Duals at £75. Still it saves all the hassle and games just run..if you don't mind the control method and multiplayer isolation from PC-playing 5punkers.

[HereComesPete]

All in all I'd say get the 360. You can use some of that student loan to build a nice pc in your second year of uni when you're in your own hovel.

Hard drive is veh useful.

Connecting the tree siddy - you can use a lappy with wifi to bridge. Or you can get a usb based 'gaming adapter' for ~1/2 the official versions price. It will need configuring on a pc instead of plugging straight in, and to make it even more awkward it's hard to configure on a mac or nix box. I don't think a cheap ass usb dongle works however, because that would be too nice of m$.

Editz - possible dongle action found here

[cashy]

The price of the wireless is a bitch, but whatchagonnadew. As for the HDD, unless you want to buy loads of games on the arcade (to be fair there are some pretty tempting games in there), then 20gig for the demo's should be fine, it's not like they delete their back catalogue.
However: As mentioned above, the 360's future update to install games on the HDD and make them look pretty may take a fair chunk of space. Don't they have a few on the ps-wee that break the 5gig barrier? This is all speculation, as ever, mind you.

[FatherJack]

However: As mentioned above, the 360's future update to install games on the HDD and make them look pretty may take a fair chunk of space. Don't they have a few on the ps-wee that break the 5gig barrier? This is all speculation, as ever, mind you.

It's to make them run faster, it'll likely always be an option as not everyone has a disk, but there is at least one game that needs more than the memory card's size to save a game, from memory a footy manager game.

Valkyria Chronicles on the PS3 is about 4.5G if you (optionally) install it to disk, and it still loads atrociously slowly.

[Sol]

Right well, err, yeah I just bought one. No hanging about, that money might burn a hole in my pocket.

Premium 60gb HDMI yadda yadda yadda version.

Bought Bioshock and Crackdown for £20 too

[spoodie]

Right well, err, yeah I just bought one. No hanging about, that money might burn a hole in my pocket.

Premium 60gb HDMI yadda yadda yadda version.

Bought Bioshock and Crackdown for £20 too

[Joose]

Right well, err, yeah I just bought one. No hanging about, that money might burn a hole in my pocket.

Premium 60gb HDMI yadda yadda yadda version.

Bought Bioshock and Crackdown for £20 too

A fine choice sir.

[HereComesPete]

I bought crackdown for the halo 3 beta and ended up playing it for almost as much time as I played halo 3. I thought it would be a shit gta clone but it's actually rather good. Bioshock is a great game, bit of a let down finish but good closing fmv, I hate games that have really short and quick outro's after all the time you put in.*





*bit annoyed right now at fallout 3 outro, too short for such an epic game.

[spoodie]

*bit annoyed right now at fallout 3 outro, too short for such an epic game.

It's all about the journey.

I don't really care what the end is like, I'm enjoying exploring the side-quests and setting up traps with mines, re-loading the game until I get it just right. I'm glad I took this week off work because this is taking a long time.

[Sol]

Being able to jump over buildings brings me much joy ...Also bioshock is fucking great, and I've only played it for a couple of hours so far

[HereComesPete]

That bit with the chick singing to a gun in a pram, that's good that bit.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

That bit with the chick singing to a gun in a pram, that's good that bit.