Number Crunching (Thinking Aloud)

[kingandy]

It's weird, there are no deals on the 250 gigabyte XBox, but loads on the 4 gig iteration.

Considering the massive difference in HD size, you would think the 4GB would be the stripped-down, cheap-as-they-could-get-it, no-further-discounts version. But no, it turns out the 4GB version is the one with the disposable markup, and the 250GB HD makes it so expensive that the shops can't afford to give you any money off. Cheapest I've seen is Toys 'Я' Us, which is down a whopping £10 to £189.99.

(I love that the official RRP is £199.99. That 1p difference really makes it seem cheaper than £200!)

Thinking about what I use my XBox hard disk for ... I do have some ripped CDs on there, but I rarely use them and in any case can stream from my PC if I need music. I also use it for installing games to hard disk - you still need the CD to run the game, but it doesn't need to load data from it, making it quieter and faster. Potentially the noise will be less of an issue with the new model (which allegedly has less fan/disc noise in general), but the load time is still a factor for me, and your typical X360 game seems to need between 4 and 6 GB to install itself completely. On top of that, I like to download demos and similar from Xbox Live, which would be basically impossible with the 4GB model.

With that in mind, there's no real chance that I would get by with the 4GB model. What is the point of it? I guess it's better than the old "no hard disk" version - it'll store your progress and profiles and such - but really, not by much.

So, thanks to this "all or nothing" approach, I doubt I'll be upgrading any time soon. Well done, Microsoft! You have priced yourself out of the market. I'll be sticking with my 60GB middle-of-the-road package for now, thanks all the same.

Comments

[lstn-natalie.livejournal.com]

The 4gb version can be later upgraded to the 250gb version, but Microsoft don't have any of the removeable HDD units available at the moment for individual sale because the demand for the Xbox 360S 250 is too much to cope with at present.

So the 4gb version is a choice, with a view to later expansion, if you can get by with the 4gb at present. Which I can't.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

And yet for £269 you can get a 320Gb model PS3 which you can field upgrade. And it had free multi-player and can stream from DNLA servers as well as supporting LoveFilm and iPlayer. Just sayin' ;-;

[arwel.livejournal.com]

This.

[kingandy]

Funnily enough, the post originally ended "Still cheaper than the PS3, though". I took it out so as not to seem snide.

That said, if I had £269 to burn, I totally would.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

I take your point - I guess it's given the cost of the XBox Live subscription it's something I nulled out. I'm still confused as to why you want to buy a new Xbox360 when you already have one?

[kingandy]

It's smaller and quieter and has a lower power footprint and built-in wireless. But yeah, I can totally manage with my existing one. That said, owning one already would somewhat mitigate the cost of the new one as it could be sold on.

(Oddly the quietness is probably the biggest factor there, since we use it for watching DVDs and streaming movies from the PC - via DNLA, incidentally.)

The cost of XBL subscription isn't so much a factor for me, given that I don't subscribe. I don't particularly care for online multiplayer, and with free membership I can still download demos and purchase games if I so choose.