TeamAnS

My kid wants a XBOX after playing at his friend's house. I have two or three different people offering theirsfor sale. I am not sure what is the difference between all of the types of 360s. Can someone give me a explaination as to what makes each different from the others?

chuckd21

Do not buy a used one. If you want a cheap option, go to Target this week. Their Arcade bundles are $129 and then you get a $30 gift card.

TeamAnS

Is the Arcade version the only one out there right now?

starman9000

It's the most basic model and has no hard drive or wi-fi. You don't need a hard drive or internet to play games, but eventually you may want one.

They just came out with a new slimmer model with built in wi-fi and a 250 gb hard drive, but that's $299.

chuckd21

No there are several different ones, including a brand new revamped model. But the older ones are super cheap now, and it's a good place to start.

Plus with the new model out, people are dumping their wireless adapters and hard drives, so you can pick those up relatively cheap.

Blade

Any place besides ebay to find these cheap wireless adapters?

chuckd21

Craigslist. And I'd imagine Gamestop pretty soon since they're getting a bunch in trade.

Blade

Hmm, I think we have a Gamestop here...

Thanks.

TeamAnS

I just saw an ad on craigslist for a "power brick 203w". What is that?

kiett_2000

You can always try a network adapter. The TRENDnet was on sale a few days ago for about $30. Maybe if you wait the price will drop again. Here is the link if you want to see it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833156258

hail2dking

power brick for the original 360...

Get the arcade deal at Target and grab a cheap 8-16GB thumb drive (any brand) and use it as your hard drive.

pinata242

This is the best answer. Even the $130-$30 deal at Target can connect to the internet with a wired connection. You don't technically need a wifi adapter if you can run an ethernet cable. And that's assuming you even want to connect it to the internet at all. There are a lot of great features there, though.

Blade

I'm using something like that now, but would like to free up an electrical outlet.

TeamAnS, your son is probably going to want a xbox live gold account too so he can play games with his friend online. This costs $50/year, but if you keep an eye on the deal threads in here, there are regular deals on gold memberships that make it much cheaper.

Trevor

Yep, $30 a year is really common, usually at Buy or Dell, or Amazon iirc.

Nice to "see you again" Blade. I usually don't pay attention to who's posting, but noticed you here, seems like I go years without seeing you here sometimes.

Michael Corvin

Not the lowest ever, but it's $40 right now on Amazon & Newegg.

*edit - $34.54 at Wal-Mart right now.

orangecrush

The Arcade deal from Target w/ thumb drive is definatly the cheapest way to go right now. How old is your son BTW? You sound new to gaming, so you may want to pay close attention to the types of games he or you buy if you don't want him beating on hookers.

orangecrush

Another thing not mentioned yet is that if you are going to be hooking this up to an HDTV, you may want to get an HDMI cable from a place like www.monoprice.com

TeamAnS

My son is 10. We have had a Wii for years for him and his brother, who is 6. Both boys really get into the games and play them until they beat them. They have run through almost all of the Marios and all of the Legos games.

I am not really new to gaming, just not knowledgable enough to know the difference between the Xbox 360s. The wife and I have already discussed what kind of games he would be able to get, that is why we went with the Wii originally. Lots of safe games there.

I have already decided that there would be no way he would play Grand Theft Auto, but his friend turned him onto Halo. As far as I know, Halo is fairly safe graphic wise.

Michael Corvin

Well if you are fine with all the killing as long as the blood is blue and not red, then let him play away.

edstein

Halo should be PG-13 or teen rated not "M", IMO.

Michael Corvin

I agree, but we're talking 10, not teen. That's really another conversation though. TeamAnS is on his own there.

Blade

Yeah, I cut back a lot on DVDTalk. Been here more recently due to picking up Rock Band.

I haven't played Halo myself...is it really that much beyond cartoon violence?

At age 10 I'd be more concerned about all the strangers he could be chatting with when playing if they do sign up for gold. I know there are a bunch of ways to control that but I'm not on gold right now and didn't play with others when I was, so I am not familiar with them.

orangecrush

As long as you are in the know about what he is playing, you are OK in my book. If you are OK with Halo, you have a lot of cheap games you can get him. (Halo 1 & 2, ODST and Wars if he wants to try his hand at RTS)

TeamAnS

If I would allow him to chat, I would either want to be there, or I would want to limit it to his friends.

TeamAnS

The tv with the system is in the family room and my wife or I always know what they are playing and for how long. Part of the problem is my wife is a Mario junkie herself, so all three fight for the Wii right now.