Xbox 360 Price Drop

[Racer]

I'm not sure it's been posted yet, but the Xbox 360 dropped in price to $300 today. I'm not sure how much Microsoft is going to accomplish by only dropping the 360's price by $50.

[SackAttack]

The answer is "not much."

The reason is, "this is a clearance price for the 20 GB SKU."

Remember what happened with the 60 GB PS3? Reduced in price so that the 80 GB could slot in at the old price, and once the 60 was gone, all that was left was the 80 GB at $599 until the 40 got introduced at $399 and the 80 got a $100 price cut?

Same idea in that when the 60 GB 360 makes its debut in August, it will be $349. The 20 is simply being flushed from the retail channel.

[JonInMiddleGA]

So ... what fits on a 20 GB model? I mean, how many saved games does that actually amount to?

(thinking about the stuff my son plays, mostly sports games, wrestling game, a few of the better known FPS's)

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

So ... what fits on a 20 GB model? I mean, how many saved games does that actually amount to?

(thinking about the stuff my son plays, mostly sports games, wrestling game, a few of the better known FPS's)

Depends!

If you're just playing games, 20 GB is more than you're ever in a million years going to use, unless MS goes the route of the PlayStation 3 and starts having mandatory installs.

If you're downloading additional content, things like TV shows, movies or demos, that's going to fill you up much faster than "just games" ever would.

Seriously. If all you're doing is playing games and saving your progress, 20 GB might as well be a googolplex for all the space crunch you're actually going to experience.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Seriously. If all you're doing is playing games and saving your progress, 20 GB might as well be a googolplex for all the space crunch you're actually going to experience.

Thanks SA. I really can't picture my 10 year old (at this point at least) using it for anything other than gaming.

I'm basically thinking it's time to finally give in & upgrade him to either 360 or PS3, mostly because of stuff like downloadable content for the GH/RB games.

Question then, of course, becomes what it always is: which one would better suit him ... and that's probably a debate for a different thread. But at least this answers the biggest question I had about the size differential.

[MizzouRah]

I play many games on my 360 and have like 12 GB still left.

[cartman]

I play games, but also do quite a bit of downloading. I usually have between 2 and 5GB free. The good thing is that you can always re-download things, so you don't have to keep them local all the time. But it is mainly demos I download that take up the most space and get deleted the most often.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Thanks SA. I really can't picture my 10 year old (at this point at least) using it for anything other than gaming.

I'm basically thinking it's time to finally give in & upgrade him to either 360 or PS3, mostly because of stuff like downloadable content for the GH/RB games.

Question then, of course, becomes what it always is: which one would better suit him ... and that's probably a debate for a different thread. But at least this answers the biggest question I had about the size differential.

Well, the size differential is going to be a bigger deal on the PS3 than on the 360 right now, for two reasons:

1) mandatory installs on PS3. I just picked up Metal Gear Solid 4, for example, which has a 5 GB install. Devil May Cry 4, same thing. Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds has a slightly smaller one. Because the games are on Blu-ray Disc, we're seeing that on the PS3 where we haven't yet seen it on 360.

2) More easily upgradeable hard drive on the PS3. It's designed such that any 2.5" SATA drive can be used with it. Thus, you can easily upgrade to 500 GB, say, and Sony has designed the machine with such user upgrades in mind. The 360 uses proprietary enclosures for its hard drives.

Now, as to which would better suit him, that depends on where you're at right now. For example, you used the word 'upgrade.' What system did you have before? If a PS2, what's your budget for upgrading to a new system? PS3 is still $400 for the system that lacks backwards compatibility, or $500 for the other, which is mostly backwards compatible.

Question two, you talk about DLC for Rock Band/Guitar Hero. Pricing and availability will be roughly equal between the two, other than the PS3 getting its songs 2-3 days later than the Xbox 360. Are you okay with having separate instruments for the two games? There is no cross-compatibility between the guitars at all on PlayStation 3. Xbox 360, the GH guitars will work on Rock Band, but the reverse isn't true.

After that...it's really a matter of what he wants to play, what you want to let him play, what kind of overlap there is between the two on each system and whether or not Blu-ray playback as a feature is important to you at all.

[Logan]

I have 9.9 GBs free of the 20. I have a few demos downloaded and I'm pretty sure that's what the space is being used on.

[Flasch186]

Jon it depends on how often you want to ship the system you bought back for repairs. To that end I bought a PS3 (i should say got as a present) two christmas' ago (I think) and have never had 1 problem with it, not one in any regard. I hear XBOX 360's have some problems on occasion

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

Jon it depends on how often you want to ship the system you bought back for repairs. To that end I bought a PS3 (i should say got as a present) two christmas' ago (I think) and have never had 1 problem with it, not one in any regard. I hear XBOX 360's have some problems on occasion

:eyeroll:

[gstelmack]

I play lots of games, download lots of content, and the only time I've come close to filling the drive was a 5GB movie download that was only good for 24 hours anyway.