XBox360 examination

As mentioned Bratus Major is supposed to be getting an XBox360 for his birthday, this is due to the price difference to the PS3 and the fact that all his friends have one.

So needing a present for his birthday I held my nose and dived into XBoxland ;-)

Now the price difference was stated to be £150, as the PS3 is around £300 that means they're probably looking at the cheapest version the XBox 360 Arcade for £137 of Amazon with Sega Superstar Tennis which was mentioned as well.

Now something interesting arises here, as Major wants to be able to go online and the router is downstairs this means he needs the Wireless Adaptor for £42. If he actually wants to play against his friends he'll also need Gold membership at £40 per year. If he wants to download demos etc he's also likely to need a hard-drive and the cheapest at 20Gb will cost around £37.

So £137+£42+£40+£37=£256 still cheaper than the PS3, but with 60Gb less memory and no high-definition disc player. Hmmm if they bought the next one up which comes with a 20Gb hard drive it'll cost £147 add in the accessories to make it £229 make it the 60Gb for a total of £242 or the Elite which would total £297... wait that's about the same price as a PS3.

Hmm I think I'd better have a quick word with Bratus Pater to check which version he's going for. For a tenner more the 20Gb looks much better value than the Arcade edition despite not being bundled with the tennis game. Although looking at the XBox site the 20Gb version isn't listed suggesting it's now obsolete and using the older less reliable chipsets.