Xbox 360 Console Includes 60GB Hard Drive

I ordered this system on October 4th and received a console manufactured in June of this year. This is not the newest hardware as Amazon claims.

Well hello to everyone, I just buy my xbox 360, 60, i just received, the truth is that i believe is a super console had unfortunately already had one and had the RROD but this was not reason to buy another console already "arranged", Say what they say, do what they do not change my view that the Xbox 360 console is the best, I can only try to see if anything is true that we eliminated the problem afflicting these consoles! Sorry for my bad english im latin! Bye bye to everyone... Take care. ...AND BUY THIS CONSOLE BECAUSE IS THE MOST EXTREME...

As long as you get this one...the 60GB XBOX 360 (since it came out on july 2008), you're fine. I thought about it a lot, I read all of the reviews, and after looking at EVERY SINGLE XBOX360 on the internet, I thought this was the best one. I recommend buying this console. I have a couple of things to say:
1. About the whole thing "heating up", no worries. If you put the console vertically, you're fine. No need for extra fans or anything. I have touched after a long period of play the holes that make the air go in, and it feels very cool, so, it will keep the console cool. It does its job.
2. Amazon was great. On time, and the XBOX arrived just fine.
3. Just PLAY IT!!!! I got it like three days ago, and I haven't been able to stop playing...I am a college student...and geez it's amazing.
4. If you feel like you want a good console, with good games. Get it. Or get the Wii...that I also have, but I kinda prefer the XBOX's games.
BUY. Don't believe most of the bad stuff you read here. This is just from people who did not buy EXACTLY this console.

I bought a Xbox 360 that was made in July of 2008 just this week, and today I am returning it. I still prefer my PS3, and below is why.

Note: I have once owned both Xbox and PS3, so the comparison of the two below is just for description purpose, and not that I am purposely trying to berate the Xbox. This review all in all is just my personal opinion.

1. The size of this console is about the same as the PS3. However, it also has a huge power block that comes with it, making it a bit more difficult to arrange room on my gaming center to place it.

2. The Xbox 360 has always had RRoD problems, and much of the cause is bad air flow within the system, components overheat and they just die. I tried to figure out where it takes in air and where it exhausts. After "feeling" the air flow with my hand (not very scientific), I found out that air mostly gets sucked in from the bottom of the console (at vertical position). So you should not position it vertically to block the air vents. However, after 2 hours of game play, I still can't really "feel" the air exhausting from the back of the console, while the fans are loud and running. Compared to the PS3, which runs quietly and has a strong air flow that you can even feel with a hand, I can see why the Xbox 360 would have heat issues, and amazed at how MS didn't fix this.

3. The "inhaling" design and color of the Xbox 360 is great, other than the giant power block... But the plastic around the hard drive and DVD drive feels really cheap. The controller also has 4 bright color gummy drop buttons that makes it feel like a toy at times. Just my personal opinion. The hybrid HD cable and headset are made of cheap plastic. The console actually sounds like a PC when it's running, there is a noticeable humming noise from the fans even when the DVD is not in use. If you play games, the DVD noise is very noticeable.

4. Crapware on my Xbox 360!!!??? Yes... after unboxing my Xbox 360 and turning it on to check the harddrive contents, MS had already loaded couple hundreds of megs of commercials and trial games on my Xbox 360. It was just like unboxing a Dell PC. However a quick format of the harddrive erased all the crapware.

5. Xbox Live isn't free. On the PS3 you can play a lot of games online with voice chat and text message FOR FREE. The PS Store has some ads. On the Xbox 360, you have to pay $50 a year to get exactly the same thing.

6. The price of Xbox 360 is $300 right now. However, if you add in the wireless card, rechargeable batteries for the controller, and Xbox Live, you are paying around $500. This all comes standard on the PS3.

I guess to sum it up, for me it's just a value difference. For people that like the Xbox 360 I can totally understand, many people have friends whom they want to play with on Xbox Live, and a lot of good American games are on this system.

However, being a software engineer that works in a hardware company, I still suggest you to think twice about getting this system. Software wise, it's very MS style, the Xbox interface is cumbersome and crowded and has a lot of ads. Hardware wise, if you heard about the recent news on the failure rate (70% at launch, 15% with Falcon, sub-10% with Jasper) of this product, you should know MS released this product immaturely and they still face a lot of design problems they can't solve yet.

First I want to say that this console is a lot of fun and is absolutely a huge upgrade from the original XBOX. So far I have only played Halo 3 but XBOX live has been greatly improved as have the basic functions included in the XBOX dashboard.

I think Microsoft did something kinda sneaky. They took the power supply out of the console itself and put it on the power cord. It is about the size of a brick so if you took the external power supply and put it back in the console it would be about the same size as the XBOX original. And this power supply is LOUD--I can hear it from 2 rooms away. Just based on that I removed a star and I considered removing two except for the fact that you don't really notice the fan WHILE you're playing.

Microsoft has made much of the 360 being a media center but I don't really see that. Yes, you can play MP3s over your network and even some video but you can't add codecs to the 360 so that really limits what video it will play. You also can't stream HD (or non-HD) video from an optical drive on another computer (at least I have not figured out a way to do it). Some of this is just the inherent limitations of media center generally. I remain very unimpressed with that part of Vista.

The wireless controller is a winner. It fits my hand like a glove.

In this box you also get a cable that will let you use the component in on your TV for HD gaming.

I recommend getting the wireless headset (sold separately).