So my loser friends bought me some 360 games for my birthday. They're trying to get me to buy a 360 and play online. I've decided to cave in. So where's the best deal and what do I need?

 

I would wait, they are releasing one with a HD-DVD player soon.

 

You should get the premium setup with remote controllers and hard drive. Costco is a good place to buy the 360. Also, get the gold Live card setup bundle which gives you a year subscription to live and some other benefits like a $20 off coupon and free points you can use in xbox marketplace to buy games. Also, includes a billiards game.
Xbox will be coming out with a small HD dvd player add on but I wouldn't buy it. Wait for a year and get a player that will play both HD formats. Also, the players are glitchy right now and are really a pain to use so it will be a awhile before it is worth owning anyway.

 

The toshiba HD DVD player is AMAZING. The Blu-Ray players out there suck right now. I would wait atleast to find out if the players in PS3 and Xbox360 are any good.

 

Isn't that just a HD-DVD accessorie connecting to the USB port? A "add-on"?

 

So what's a good price for the premium and how much for the live subscription?

 

live is $50 a year I think. if you get the card at target / fry's / etc I think they throw in an extra month for free. Live is great, espcially if you have friends to play with. It's a lot of fun to play with people online, although if you have to play with random people finding a good group to play with is pretty hit or miss with a lot more misses than hits (a lot of people play online to get status or ranking or something and they basically cheat the whole time)

costco has the premium with an extra controller, headset, rechargable battery and a game (project gotham racing 3) for $484 or some random number I think.

if you don't have your house cat-5 wired, you can get an apple express and hook it up to your wireless network pretty easy. Then you can use the same express to play music from itunes on your main computer. (or of course you can get their wireless adapter thing which is about the same price)

 

scott, thanks. my house is not wired, but i do have wireless access. damn, this is going to get expensive.

 

yeah, it's not cheap. it is fun though. my GF plays my 360 more than I do.

There's a guy on AZ selling a 360, you could give that a shot.
http://audizine.com/forum/showthread...hreadid=113463

 

sent that guy a pm. i would take the xbox and tv for $1000. we'll see.

 

it is expensive, but very fun. it is a great place to practice talking smack. I highly recommend Ghost recon and Battlefield something or other (two different games). a lot of fun putting a bullet through your buddy's head without going to jail!

 

Ghost Recon is sooooo hard!!!

I prefer NFS MW - where you get to drive like mad and runaway from cops without going to jail

 

I love sniping people on Ghost Recon. At Rocky Cove one time, I sniped 28 people and didn't get killed once.

 

360 is awesome, I just picked up Madden 07 last nite. The DVD player is supposed to be an add-on USB accessory priced somewhere in the 200-300 dollar range near Christmas. Price seems quite low for an HD-DVD player, but I guess we'll see.

 

i may have to hold off on the xbox. i stopped by the camera store yesterday to window shop - bad idea. post to come in the off-topic section.