Thinking About An Xbox 360

[Mosch]

So with the price reduction looming near (and me thinking about Ninja Gaiden, Kameo, Gears of War and a lot more) I was thinking about buying an Xbox 360. I decided on the Premium/Standard version... the core is a joke and the elite version has stuff I don't need. As I have not kept up with the XBox scene I have several questions now..

1. What about regional locks? Since ears of War is not available in Germany and I would at least like to test it I'd need to get around the regional lockout. I know I could simply buy it from enbland, but please ignore this right now
2. I can't really find any reliable information about how to make and play backups. Can anybody help me there? Also: nudge nudge, wink wink.
3. Can I exchange the hard drive with a cheaper, non-Microsoft hard drive? The prices are pretty insane. What would I need it for anyway (except for savegames) considering that I do not plan on downloading games from XBox live? Is it possible to backup games to the hard drive?
4. How about backwards compatability?
5. DO I need an Live subscription for online gaming?
6. Anything else I should know?

By the way, I do not like the Halo series. Deal with it.

 

[sam fisher]

1. Locked like the xbox 1 was.
3. In short, not. You can somehow hook up a different drive, afaik, though but i've never bothered.
4. Not all games are BC. Though Ninja Gaiden is.
5. Yes, you must have Live! Gold to play online.

 

[Titcher]

1. You're pretty much locked out there, it's not just PAL, NTSC-M and NTSC-J anymore, they have identifiers of the areas as well.
2. To play backups you need to flash the DVD Drive of your xbox 360, you have to hook it up to a PC for this of course. As for making the backups, you can use the 360 drive or very specific PC DVD drives for that.
3. Yes, sort of...Someone made a way to use certain Western Digital drives convertable to work on the xbox 360, but you're limited to the same capacities available on the market, so you're probably better off just buying it with the xbox.
4. I hear this is pretty good, but I can't really comment.
5. Yeah, pretty much. Although some games do come with free trials, so you can try before you commit there.
6. The failure rate has been quite high, but at least now, if it does break, your warranty is for three years. And unless you plan to buy media on the xbox, the elite is not worth it, who needs HDMI, VGA works just as well.


Oh and just to mention, I don't own an xbox 360 myself, I just like to keep up to date with this stuff.

 

[Mosch]

Thank you for your answers.

So my region will pretty much stay locked, it seems? That's a shame.
Backups seem to be too much trouble as of now too... it seems I need a double layer writer which I do not have and do not plan to buy.

With these limits in mind I will think about it some more... considering that Ninja Gaiden is censored here and Gears of War is not available in Germany I relly feel liek I have lost some consumer rights or at last my options are limited.

Let's see if and when rock band will be released here.

 

[davey g]

Games are region locked if the publisher wishes, a lot of games aren't. The only regions that exist for the 360 are PAL (Europe and Australia), NTSC-U/C (United States and Canada) and NTSC-Japan. You can just buy a PAL copy of Gears of War from anywhere you want and it will work on your console. There is no hardware lockout implemented.

Here's a list of each games region compatibility. You could also buy the US version of Gears of War if you wanted as it is region free. The Xbox 1 was the same way only much fewer games were region free.

Also, Ninja Gaiden Black was released in Europe with decapitations whereas the original version had them removed. I read that it never came out in Germany but if you import a PAL version from the UK or somewhere it'll play on your 360.

 

[Mosch]

Thank you! This is both great information and also utterly confusing at first glance

 

[davey g]

Yeah it wasn't the most eloquent post. Basically a 360 you buy in Germany will be able to play all PAL games, even those such as Gears of War which weren't released in Germany, and also any games from the US and Japan that are region free.

So buy a 360 and import Gears of War and Ninja Gaiden Black (complete with decapitations) from the UK.

 

[Steve-O]

go with the Elite.. Im thinking of selling my Premium and getting the Elite as the 20gb HDD the Premium comes with is too small (you are only giving something like 12gb to use as the rest is used for system stuff..). I have 8 demos on and its almost full already...

Plus you will be guaranteed a HDMI out port on the Elite..

 

[goobers]

The 360 is a great console, I think that the interface is pretty well designed, and I like that a consistent experience has been maintained across all of the games (achievements, gamercards etc.)

I would say that a Live Gold subscription is well worth it, it extends the lifespan of some games quite a lot I find.

 

[loz_the_guru]

ive just taken the plunge myself and bought a 360 with a samsung drive, will let you know how it goes...

quick question though, after its flashed can i play backups from any region, or just from the region of the console (pal)?

 

[Mosch]

I saw a used 360 for a great price; it is still in good condition and includes all cables. However, I seem to recall that there is some kind of registration process for the console... is this wrong or is there something I have to look out for when buying a used unit?

 

[OMars]

I saw a used 360 for a great price; it is still in good condition and includes all cables. However, I seem to recall that there is some kind of registration process for the console... is this wrong or is there something I have to look out for when buying a used unit?

Registration?

I think that there is an optional hardware registration on the xbox website, but again, it's optional. I have setup my xbox and it never needed a registration or any sort (aside from signing up for xbox live). If it is a really good price, then go ahead and get it. Good luck!

 

[Mosch]

Thank you. Hopefully I'll be able to grab it next wekk.

 

[OMars]

Thank you. Hopefully I'll be able to grab it next wekk.

Your quite welcome.