you can play mp3s off a thumb drive too. Put the drive in a USB slot, go to the 'music' pane on the dashboard, press *X* (i think) where it says to 'select source' and you can tell the xbox that its on an 'external device' or whatever. then you play all songs in a folder or something, then put in your game and the music will follow you into the game and play in place of the game music.

If you set your computer up you can also stream mp3s from your PC on the same network as your 360.

Just imagine if the thread title was "Should I get a PS3, 360, or a Wii?". This thread was all over the place, but throw a Wii into the mix and yoi!!

Don't get me wrong, the thread was fine and helpful. I just left the internet for a couple days and was like 2 big pages behind

Pjsig, congrats on your purchase. You couldn't go wrong with either system.

Heads up though, Target has GTA4: Collector's Edition on clearance for $45. Not only is that $15 off the $60 price of the game, but it is a $90 set that has a bunch of swag in it. Since you are new to this, if you are mildly interested in it, don't waste time getting over there, Target clearances tend to go pretty quick on the good games. Also get acquainted with CheapAssGamer, they will either save you a ton of money or work against you in that you will end up buying more because you find such great deals.

Oh, and you can also plug in an ipod and stream your music as well, but it requires an update from the marketplace.

I would also recommend the extended warranty for the 360 with Microsoft. Should be a brochure in the box.

This is correct.

I imagine most "normal" people (i.e. not us) only buy, at most, 2-3 games per year. Maybe they'll pick up a few more on sales or whatever. But most people aren't buying 1 game per month.

Honestly, the only console that has one decent-to-great game coming out per month is the Xbox 360. If you're ravenous about great games and can have only one console, the 360 is the one to get.

However, if you're an adult and have adult responsibilities and can't be playing every new game that comes down the pike to completion, you're probably just as well off with the PS3 and the 360, considering the overlap on a lot of games.

So while the 360 might be the better choice, the PS3 is not a "wrong" choice.

s/recommend/require

360 is better

I gotta ask you to clarify this.

How many decent to great exclusives have come out in the past 6 months for example? The biggest titles I can think of are all cross-platform.

I can't speak for what he was meaning but i can see a nicer progression of titles. Viva Piñata 2 and Infinite Undiscovery both dropped at times there is normally a little bit of a drought in gaming. Castle Crashers was another example.

Then there are minor things like RB2 dropping almost a full month earlier which moved it out of the beginning stages of the holiday crush.

That is how i interpreted his comment.

That's fair. RB2 was pretty big IMO. Then again the majority of people were already playing RB on 360 so the question is, did they convert anyone?

I *almost* got rid of my RB1 stuff for PS3, but I had enough DLC that I didn't want to have to rebuy it for 360. As it worked out, my basement flooded the day the RB2 came out for 360 and I haven't been able to play much of anything since as we are remodeling, so the delay until this month was not a big deal. The bonus of having the instruments work with other games and vice versa also helped me stay with PS3.

In all this debating and the recent cheap 20GB olive branch from Microsoft I have bought my first 360. All my friends are already bugging me to get RB on 360, but I also have all my DLC on the PS3 and my guitar. I'm probably going to keep the PS3 as my main gaming console, but at least now I can get all the exclusives especially on Live Arcade. I'm not a console shooter person, but 360 has several exclusive RPGs that will definitely get my interest.

Well i honestly don't see anyone who already owns one system scrapping it for the other at this point. The PS3 seems to be coming into its own w/games now. I think the whole intellectual exercise was for new buyers.

Welcome to the dark side, darkside.

I was thinking more along the lines of, wow, 190 posts and he wasn't even debating from a neutral stand point. That puts things in perspective.

Although, I must say the Pro/Premium unit is still seems like a better deal, even with this 'olive branch.' $260 Pro gets you 20GB drive, HD cables, headset and an ethernet cord vs. $200 for the Arcade(256 mem card + some arcade games) + $30 for the HDD. The extras in the Pro are easily worth the extra $30.

I'm curious how this HDD requirement will leave future bundles. Will Arcade units now come with a 20GB drive? Phase it out altogether and opt for just the 60GB and 120GB systems on shelves?

Define neutral. Everyone I know has a 360 and I have played a ton on them. It isn't a console I am unfamiliar with. I also recommended to the original poster to get the 360 I just personally prefered the PS3 for my needs.

As far as the bundle choices it was easy for me. Don't need an HD cable since the Arcade has HDMI and I have several of those cables, don't need a headset because I wouldn't use the one that comes with the Pro, don't need an ethernet cord because I will use my old Xbox wireless adapter and don't run cables to the living room. I did, however, want a memory card to back up saves and definitely wanted most of the free Arcade games. The $30 HDD is also cheap enough to not really bother me and I can try out Live Gold for awhile though I doubt I pay beyond that. Oh, also I wanted to use a $100 credit I had with Dell and I don't think they offered the 20GB Pro though I may have missed it. Their website kind of sucks. I'd rather pay $30 less than the pro, get a few free games and memory card and not get some other stuff I don't need.

Plus, I'm kind of hoping these Holiday bundle units are built on the newest motherboard that hopefully won't RROD on me in a few months. Not so sure about the Pro units still around.

I would pick up an Arcade bundle myself and get the cheap 20gb HDD for my bedroom if and only if I knew there was a BD attachment coming.

I'd love to kill 2 birds with one stone that way.

Makes sense. Everyone is different.

With the Flash 9 news if Hulu does indeed work, then that trumps Netflix for me. I watch far more TV shows than movies, plus all the 'view now' movies in my queue are mostly filler and/or crap.

I daresay Hulu almost negates my need for a DVR and cable service entirely.

I can't believe this thread is 8 pages long!!

Get them both and enjoy gaming goodness on the 360 and video goodness on the PS3.

Sure, I'll clarify. Just take a look at last fall. Did you play through Mass Effect, COD4, Halo 3, Orange Box, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, skate, PGR4, Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon, and Rock Band?

That's easily 200+ hours of gameplay, and that's not counting the fall's sports games (Madden + NBA + NHL).

That's not even counting the other system's games. I still haven't played Galaxy, or Uncharted, etc. And I'm still working through GTAIV.

And of course, there were times (specifically, oh, summer 2006 through summer 2007) were there weren't really a ton of AAA titles.

My point is that for the average person, one console is enough. Growing up, I didn't know anyone that had more than one current gen console. Why? Because you got, what, a couple of games at Christmas and one or two on your birthday?

Twelve great games are enough to last the average person a year, if not an entire console generation. If my 360 only came with Oblivion, COD4, Halo 3, Burnout, and Rock Band (and some XBLA games), it would've been more than worth the investment.

I'm not saying that anyone that plays more than twelve games has too much free time. Not at all. I'm just saying for the average person, having one or two consoles is probably more than enough.

I definitely think we are "above" average in terms of focus on gaming (or other home entertainments). However, I have heard that the attach rate for this gen's consoles is higher than previous gens; that might at least in part be because many of the current purchasers grew up with games so it's much easier for them to buy a game than their parents 15, 20 years ago.
I do agree that at least on the 360, you could pick 6 games and have 6+ months of great gaming.
One difference, however, is that many of these games can be "beat" and then traded/resold. Many can be beat in 10-40 hours, which could easily be done in a month (of course, that supports your 12 games a year figure as well). Older games like PacMan and Defender never ended, so they had unlimited gameplay. The online component can definitely add longevity, but it's still a little bit of apples and oranges.

I think multiconsole owners are that way for one of three reasons: console availability (IE, whatever they can find); different demographics (playing the Wii with kids, the 360 with buddies); and features/functionality additional to gaming (BD, HD, Media Center, voice/video chat, etc.

I remember getting Defender for the 2600 for my birthday (from my grandmother). That was my first all nighter. And I didn't have a lot of games at that time. Then toward the end of the 7800's lifecycle, I found a bunch of games at Big Lots and bought 20 for Christmas gifts for my brother (he'd share, of course.)

I absolutely fall into the "adult" and "normal" person category. There is no way I am buying more than 2-3 games a year...I barely have enough time as it is. When it came down to it, I liked the XBOX controller better, the possibility of using XBOX Live and the PS3 was more expensive and had a Blu-Ray player I wouldn't use....so that sealed the deal. Plus I have a few old XBOX games that I can play on my 360.

Did you check the master list to make sure, or are you just assuming they'll work? I only mention it because backwards compatibility only works with certain titles and isn't even close to 100%.