Am I the only one that doesn't think the Arcade is a waste of time?


Xbox 360 Arcade  

149 members have voted

  1. 1. The 360 arcade is....

    • ...a waste of time
      16
    • ...a scam for the uninformed
      28
    • ...an alternative
      105


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Yeah and I'm saying the Arcade doesn't really factor into it. You're still seeing it as a "segmented market", when really it's just a slightly smaller market. When a developer is considering a game, before they go to the publisher and ask them for money, they project potential sales from the potential market and face that off against what it'll cost to develop the game. If sales are bigger, then the game should (in theory) be profitable and thus can be made. For arguments sake, lets assume that all live-enabled consoles have a hard drive and all non-live enabled consoles do not. When a developer wants to make a regular 360 game (i.e., no HDD specific features), their potential market is about 25million consoles. When they want to make a game that absolutely requires the hard drive, their market is a bit less, say 15million.

That might sound pretty harsh, but the exact same limitation applies to a developer who wants to make an online-based game - only live-enabled consoles will be the potential market, so it's the same sort of ordeal. XBLA games are the same, only consoles connected to Live can really qualify.

What I'm trying to say is that a lack of a hard drive isn't the only thing that could "segment" a market, so why is it such a big deal for the Arcade? Why don't people complain that the console didn't come with an internal 3G modem or something?

People do complain about the lack of WiFi in the 360 as well.

Doing anything that segments your market is going to bring up complaints, but all of the decisions usually have pro's and cons.

I've already said I agree the pro's to having an arcade outweigh the cons, but to think there isn't any cons is silly, of course there is. There's always some sort of compromise... It's small with the arcade, but in my eyes comes in the flavour of you having to buy a 1st party hard drive addon, and not so much affecting me but worth noting is any developers that comment on it - Which is all we've done above.

I think you're starting to look a bit too deep into the whole thing Kushan :p

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The lack of a HDD in every unit is, was, and always will be a huge failure of the 360. Why in the hell they went from one in every unit to these multiple SKUs still baffles me considering that it was a cornerstone of the original Xbox. Microsoft has a huge obsession with digital distribution so it's even more confusing to me in that regard. The entire 360 story is one botched cost-cutting disaster after another...to the tune of 1 billion dollars in fact.

Once you've made peace with that you'll realize that there's only one SKU that's ever really developed for = the lowest common denominator. Sure there are games which actually require the HDD but most play from the disc because that's how the base SKU functions. Microsoft screwed the pooch on that decision but they also happen to be the market leader right now. (the Wii no longer factors in...Nintendo disrupted the entire industry and carved out their own niche which renders Microsoft and Sony pretty much irrelevant to them at this point)

Games are clearly being made for the 360 first and then ported to the PS3. There are exceptions but there are plenty of games which run like butter on the 360 but on the PS3 they have hiccups despite that machine's really powerful hardware. A lot of that is because of the jumpstart MS had this gen and the wide usage of the Unreal 3 engine which was all but designed for the 360 and then made to work better on the PS3 only after an update from Epic.

In terms of potential the skies the limit with both systems. Developers are smart and they'll work around all kinds of limitations to get their babies to you the best they can so don't worry about that. But not having a HDD could easily come as a detriment if some developer started really cranking up the kinds of things that just don't stream well off a disc or rather need to be written to storage. That being said, for all of the really cool and gorgeous games that this new console gen has brought there really haven't been that many great strides forward in terms of AI, physics, interfaces, or hell even tutorials and controls.

I think that when we look back on this gen we'll realize that it was just a minor evolution in console gaming. We had online and hard drives before the 360 and PS3 and we had people making leaps towards things like "every footprint you make will remain for the entire game" but not much has really panned out and I'm just now starting to get my "Toy Story 2 like graphics".

This gen has been a refinement of the graphics and another step towards realism in that regard. But as far as the characters in my games actually feeling and acting like real people? Not even close. (and there are some really good shots at it too) We have a long way to go yet and I don't think that the lack of a HDD is going to really hurt anyone until the next gen. If one of these companies releases their next unit without some type of mass storage I'll be amazed. It would pretty much be suicide in the days of digital distribution and I promise you that MS and even Nintendo are kicking themselves for not forcing every person to have a huge HDD that they can fill with DLC and milk with micro-transactions.

Sony has a fantastic system this gen but I fear that they are going to get caught in the gap that Microsoft started with the launch lead and Nintendo widened with the total disruption of the industry. The PS3 will now be the system that's inbetween the 360 and the next Xbox with Nintendo doing something off the wall like they always do. How do you even advise Sony at this point? Should they stick to their guns or try and respond? They pretty much lose either way. I do know one thing for certain about Sony though: letting Phil Harrison go was a monumental mistake because that guy gets it. (I'll say the same for the changing of the guard from Xbox to Xbox 360...there was some serious magic lost there)

All of em are doing super intelligent and extremely boneheaded things all at once. Free online meet backwards compatibility. Achievements meet red rings. Motion controls meet new motion controls. It seems like if we could just get them all in one room we could sort them all in an afternoon but nope there'll be yet another idiotic step coming your way soon from whichever company you think is best.

The funny part is you get to a point as a gamer where it all melts away, you buy them all, and you love at least something on each system every time there's another gen made. F*ck this hardware stuff because at the end of the day I just wanna play rad games and I'll jump through any hoop and purchase any useless peripheral you toss at me if it gets me playing some game that I've been drooling over for 2 years.

I've been playing games now for nearly 25 years and hardware wars are so silly to me at this point. Maybe when it was my NES against your Atari and we were both 5....yeah we can bloody some noses...but now I'm too old for this sh*t. I just want to eat some Radroach meat, get that next star in the latest Mario platformer, and see what ever became of that crazy Solid Snake dude from that game I had as a kid and hated because I never understood that it was a stealth-action game.

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The arcade is a perfectly valid version, I find the Elite a complete waste of time though.

The reason the Arcade is a good alternative is the interoperability with the more expensive verisons. If you only have

the cash to buy an Arcade, then you always have the option to get the rest later on.

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The arcade was basically for those who had no clue, i.e. soccer moms, parents, anyone who didnt know what they were buying but wanted it for there kid or nephew or etc.

I have sold over 30+ arcades in these last 3 weeks. Its been insane. Our shipment consisted of arcade and nothing but arcades if they were xboxs.

Also, offtopic, but if no one knows yet, which I just found out, the Arcade comes with INTERNAL memory now...

When the fudge did that happen? I never read anything about microsoft ditching the memory card and adding internal memory.

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The arcade was basically for those who had no clue, i.e. soccer moms, parents, anyone who didnt know what they were buying but wanted it for there kid or nephew or etc.

I have sold over 30+ arcades in these last 3 weeks. Its been insane. Our shipment consisted of arcade and nothing but arcades if they were xboxs.

Also, offtopic, but if no one knows yet, which I just found out, the Arcade comes with INTERNAL memory now...

When the fudge did that happen? I never read anything about microsoft ditching the memory card and adding internal memory.

internal memory = jaspers as far as ive read on other sites

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Well even though the Arcade segments the market, if soooo many people think it's a waste of time, surely there will be a small share of 360 owners that have no HDD. And so developers needn't be so worried about that small segment not buying their game because it requires HDD.

Didn't Halo 3 require a HDD for online?

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edit: reading back I think Audioboxer has covered the bellow already. Sorry for the repetition.

Yeah and how many of those games exist on the PS3 or the original Xbox? Not a large amount, with LBP being the only one that's really had major acclaim lately.
LBP is a recent example of such a game and having the HDD at least would open that up as a development avenue. I realise that no older games really went down this avenue but games centered around content creation is certainly one that can be further explored. Theres plenty of titles the original xbox didn't have, thats not to say such a game wouldn't be appealing to developers now especially seeing LBP work.
Plus, your argument is somewhat flawed because we've seen thousands of instances where things have been released that REQUIRE a hard drive. Nearly every piece of DLC out there requires one due to sheer size, XBLA games are not a bad example either, even the ones with a 150Mb limit are "risky" because chances are anyone with a memory card isn't going to be able to spare the space for one. Then you get games like SSF2THDR that definitely need a hard drive, yet they sell just fine.
My arguement was that things such as addons are not the core component of the game. They are addons which you don't need to play the original game and thus you don't need a HDD to play those games. They're optional to extending the gameplay experience as opposed to titles that could potentially require large storage volumes for the game to even be worthwhile developing.

My other reason has always been the potential financial benefit. As I mentioned on page 2, if a user has a HDD they are likely far more likely to try something out like the video market place. They may not buy the console with that in mind but since it's there should they ever get an itchy finger they are 30seconds away from buying something from the store. Not having a HDD takes away MS's ability to push heat of the moment sales on many users.

I'm not hugely against the arcade really. The idea of a low cost alternative is not a bad one but I don't think the HDD is the sort of component I would have dropped, especially since HDD's are one piece of hardware whose costs drop pretty quickly in the computer world. I also am glad the 360 doesn't have mandatory installs but that and hardware costs are only two issues of many more that revolve around the issue of the HDD being there or not. I do think alot of users look at what games are out now but and say "well I have no need for a HDD" without considering that perhaps, just maybe, had the HDD been there then there would have been other killer apps that would use it to good effect that we won't see this xbox generation. We can only guess really but whether it would have been used in such a manner or if developers would use it as an excuse to get a bit lazy with their optimizations.

Edited by Smigit
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edit: reading back I think Audioboxer has covered the bellow already. Sorry for the repetition.

LBP is a recent example of such a game and having the HDD at least would open that up as a development avenue. I realise that no older games really went down this avenue but games centered around content creation is certainly one that can be further explored. Theres plenty of titles the original xbox didn't have, thats not to say such a game wouldn't be appealing to developers now especially seeing LBP work.

My arguement was that things such as addons are not the core component of the game. They are addons which you don't need to play the original game and thus you don't need a HDD to play those games. They're optional to extending the gameplay experience as opposed to titles that could potentially require large storage volumes for the game to even be worthwhile developing.

My other reason has always been the potential financial benefit. As I mentioned on page 2, if a user has a HDD they are likely far more likely to try something out like the video market place. They may not buy the console with that in mind but since it's there should they ever get an itchy finger they are 30seconds away from buying something from the store. Not having a HDD takes away MS's ability to push heat of the moment sales on many users.

I'm not hugely against the arcade really. The idea of a low cost alternative is not a bad one but I don't think the HDD is the sort of component I would have dropped, especially since HDD's are one piece of hardware whose costs drop pretty quickly in the computer world. I also am glad the 360 doesn't have mandatory installs but that and hardware costs are only two issues of many more that revolve around the issue of the HDD being there or not. I do think alot of users look at what games are out now but and say "well I have no need for a HDD" without considering that perhaps, just maybe, had the HDD been there then there would have been other killer apps that would use it to good effect that we won't see this xbox generation. We can only guess really but whether it would have been used in such a manner or if developers would use it as an excuse to get a bit lazy with their optimizations.

I think both you and Audio have overstated the use of the Hard Drive when it comes to developers. 99% of games that use the hard drive only use it to decrease loading times (Halo is a good example of this), but as we've seen from the NXE, even when you install a game completely to the hard drive, the difference in loading times isn't particularly large, it's like 10% at the most and even then, it's games like GTA4 that have a really long initial loading screen. I'm sure this is why Microsoft decided to put in a noisy 12x DVD drive than a quieter, slower (and probably cheaper) one.

The remaining 1% of games that could/would use the HDD for something else are also not really affected, it's just their potential market is smaller. As I pointed out before, there's probably more HDD-equipped 360's out there than PS3's, especially when development of LBP began, so I doubt that the HDD was the only reason the PS3 was selected as the exclusive platform for it. Developers can still make those games, nothing at all is stopping them, they're just not going to be able to market them towards Arcade users.

It's logical to state that if the Arcade didn't exist and the premium model was the "base" model, then a lot less people would own 360's. That's not just bad for Microsoft, that's bad for developers who need more consoles in homes to have more potential sales, for that 1% of games that could have used the HDD, the other 99% still benefit.

Don't think Microsoft are stupid for removing the HDD, I'm sure they of all people realised how useful they can be for their games, but the problem with Hard Drives is that a lot of their cost never really decreases. Everything except the platters pretty much costs the same now as it did when the first Xbox was released, so as the rest of the console becomes cheaper and cheaper to produce, the Hard Drive doesn't get much cheaper at all. This is one of the reasons why Microsoft changed to 60Gb HDDs, because the prices of 20Gb HDDs wont have been much different these days. I think someone once said that by the end of the original Xbox's life, literally half the cost was on the HDD alone and that was only like 7GB or something.

One thing is certain, though: This will change. Solid State Memory will have the same cost-reduction-over-time as any other electronics, so there's no reason not to include it as standard on a new console.

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Actually I don't know why they've kept it around for so long, it seems like it's a waste of a sku, but I think it attracts people to the really low price point, and then perhaps when they get to the store to buy the console, they can be persuaded to buy the Pro.

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internal memory = jaspers as far as ive read on other sites

Yeah, internal memory (256mb) are indeed jasper arcade models. I've been doing tome research of the Jasper models and have brainwashed myself on how to recognise one. Found one store in Ipswich that sells them so I'm buying it today/tomorrow :p

@Kushan - Thanks for posting the stats, helps me learn new stuff, hehe.

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The remaining 1% of games that could/would use the HDD for something else are also not really affected, it's just their potential market is smaller. As I pointed out before, there's probably more HDD-equipped 360's out there than PS3's, especially when development of LBP began, so I doubt that the HDD was the only reason the PS3 was selected as the exclusive platform for it. Developers can still make those games, nothing at all is stopping them, they're just not going to be able to market them towards Arcade users.

Yeah I'm well aware most developers do and would only use it as a means to be lazy and not optimise the storage on the DVD ect. That said, other developers ARE effected because as you mentioned in the very same sentence, their possible market share is smaller. Outside of that I don't think you me or anyone here is in a position to say what the level of impact is because none of us would likely have a very good idea as to how many arcades are out there relative to other SKU's and even if you had those numbers they wouldn't tell the full story without also including things such as the demographic and purchasing habits of those same SKU owners.

So yeah, as before I can see why they don't have the HDD, but I still personally think it was a bad move. I don't have statistics to back it up so it's purely opinion but I do think it could be an issue for a publisher looking to maximise revenue, especially since the content creation titles like LBP would possibly be seen as more risky than just another FPS or something before you even bring in the HDD issues. I would not go to say they are unaffected...from a business point of view there is definitely repercussions. That doesn't mean such a game still wouldn't be worthwhile, but I'm sure people would be sitting down to debate that before going ahead with a HDD only title.

edit: and solid state HDD's will have the EXACT same issue as HDD's do now anyway in regards to cost related issues. I''m sure the next console will have mass storage and MS will just have to take the cost of that on the chin. Whether it's solid state or a hard disk it doesn't really matter, the cost is still there.

Edited by Smigit
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My view has to do with how it's marketed -- alongside games like Rock Band 2 and GH:WT, games that pretty much nearly require a hard drive for DLC. Not only that, but many games that really would appeal to that (soccer mom/family) market appear on XBLA as downloadable titles, which again, require a hard drive. Lastly, iirc you can't take advantage of NXE without a hard drive, which, again, is something that would appeal to the casual market, especially for games that utilize it like Scene It!

I found that last gen, a hard drive in every console was an advantage for the XBox and I was happy when Sony included one in the PS3.

That is my semi-uninformed Sony guy opinion.

I only read a few of the replies, but whoever mentioned modding in your own hard drive: really? How many people who are in the Arcade niche have any idea how to mod a hard drive?

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The 360 has been bundled with a MU for over a year now. Plus with the Jasper model it includes 256mb internally, which means they can all install the NXE.

You can teach yourself quite a lot if you have the motivation behind it also, so you can't count out all Arcade owners wouldn't be able to mod a HDD ;)

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Another point, what games on the PS3 make good use of the Hard Drive for anything other than something to compensate the Blu-Ray drive's slow reading speed? In all the cases where games have installed onto the hard drive, we find that their load times are about the same as the 360's anyway, so it really is those games that just need a lot of storage space, which as I said before, are few and far between.

Rock Band/Rock Band 2

Guitar Hero III/World Tour

Bioshock

Little Big Planet

Mirror's Edge

Burnout Paradise

Midnight Club: LA

Dead Space

Buzz! Quiz TV

Every PSN title created

The 360 has been bundled with a MU for over a year now. Plus with the Jasper model it includes 256mb internally, which means they can all install the NXE.

You can teach yourself quite a lot if you have the motivation behind it also, so you can't count out all Arcade owners wouldn't be able to mod a HDD ;)

Not all, but let's look at who it's aimed towards: the same people that would buy the Best Buy video game console installation. Im not saying that's all that would buy an Arcade, I'm saying that's the market for it -- casual gamer.

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I dunno man, I don't think it's quite as clean cut as you make it. The amount of friends I have that have modded PS2's and they aren't even "tech-savvy" generally, nevermind in the gaming realm.

Word gets around when just one friend in a group mods something, next they all want to do it. Either themselves or someone does it for them.

Btw, regarding your quote to Kushan, I don't think he's talking about DLC. Just the bare bones of the game needing a HDD.

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What does wallet size have to do with anything lol?
Not all, but let's look at who it's aimed towards: the same people that would buy the Best Buy video game console installation. Im not saying that's all that would buy an Arcade, I'm saying that's the market for it -- casual gamer.

That's what my post was aimed at

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giving people the option for a lower price is a bad thing. every system should be $500.

we shouldn't have economy cars. we should all drive BMW's.

everyone should fly first class. there should be no coach.

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I think its a scam. Most people who buy a Xbox 360 intend to play online, afterall that is the most luring thing about that console is it not?

Surprisingly, after buying the $199 console, your pretty much forced into buying a $99 Wifi adapter, and not to mention that Xbox Live costs $60-70/year. It's unfortunate to see families who purchase these Xbox's for their kids on Xmas only to return a week later to find out how their son can play online. Whats the point of releasing such a cheap unit, when you have to purchase a bunch of accessories to use atleast half of its capabilities.

That's the one thing I commend Sony on. No matter what console you purchase today, you get the complete package, well with the exception of a HDMI cable and a optical cable, but that's really for those savvy customers. You may have to pay a few hundred bucks more for a Playstation 3, but I really think your getting a much better package for the price.

You can persuade me as much as you want that the XBL experience is much better than the PSN experience, but at 70 bucks a year, as long as the PSN works, I'm extremely happy.

That said, I've had a Xbox 360 in the past, but I sold it.

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I think its a scam. Most people who buy a Xbox 360 intend to play online, afterall that is the most luring thing about that console is it not?

Surprisingly, after buying the $199 console, your pretty much forced into buying a $99 Wifi adapter, and not to mention that Xbox Live costs $60-70/year. It's unfortunate to see families who purchase these Xbox's for their kids on Xmas only to return a week later to find out how their son can play online. Whats the point of releasing such a cheap unit, when you have to purchase a bunch of accessories to use atleast half of its capabilities.

That's the one thing I commend Sony on. No matter what console you purchase today, you get the complete package, well with the exception of a HDMI cable and a optical cable, but that's really for those savvy customers. You may have to pay a few hundred bucks more for a Playstation 3, but I really think your getting a much better package for the price.

You can persuade me as much as you want that the XBL experience is much better than the PSN experience, but at 70 bucks a year, as long as the PSN works, I'm extremely happy.

Why are you turning this into an argument that has nothing to do with the arcade? (PSN vs Live).

The discussion of the arcade unit is completely compromised of that of a hardware discussion, with software coming into the scene only in relation to the lack of hard drive and gaming.

No 360 has WiFi, so the arcade is no different from the other models there.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, if you were to research and study consumer buyer behaviour you'd find that having a console this cheap from a marketing outlook is deadly. People are more likely to buy due to what they see the core console costing in a store, then get "stung" with addon prices later - By that point, many just saying "oh what the hell, we have to shell out" as they already have the console purchased, unpacked and hooked up no doubt.

That's why 1st party accessories make a killing, and always will.

These are the buyers that don't do all their research beforehand, or think they have, when they haven't - And there's many of them, some to be blamed themselves for thinking they know all/being lazy, others just not expected to have the kind of knowledge we have, as they're new to gaming. Most likely situation is someone here buying an arcade, then realizing shortly down the line, the Pro would've been better for them.

I do also prefer the all in one bells and whistle package, as I don't like buying overpriced addons, but the 360 has that option with the elite (aside from WiFi). Gamers like us aren't going to be buying the arcade unless it's for replacement...

Yeah okay, the PS3 has everything packed into the console aside from a cheap $5 HDMI cable, but look at the price it's offloaded with in retail - For SOME gamers when things are weighed up, they might well end up spending near enough the cost of a PS3 on their 360 with addons, but as I said above, so many people just do not process things that way, it's what's the cheapest on the shelf, ready to take away. That's why marketing a PS3 at Christmas is ultimate fail, and why console sales cannot stand near the Wii or 360. That's for that other topic on PS3 costs though, not in here - I just wanted to further tie buyer behaviour to costs/marketing with that example.

The ideal mid-ground from day 1 for me would've been a hard drive in every console, even if the arcade was just 10GB or something to start with - It could still have been a cheaper SKU. We are where we are though, and you can certainly contribute the marketing power behind such a cheap model to have helped MS more than it's hindered - So far anyway.

Edited by Audioboxer
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I think its a scam. Most people who buy a Xbox 360 intend to play online, afterall that is the most luring thing about that console is it not?

Surprisingly, after buying the $199 console, your pretty much forced into buying a $99 Wifi adapter, and not to mention that Xbox Live costs $60-70/year. It's unfortunate to see families who purchase these Xbox's for their kids on Xmas only to return a week later to find out how their son can play online. Whats the point of releasing such a cheap unit, when you have to purchase a bunch of accessories to use atleast half of its capabilities.

That's the one thing I commend Sony on. No matter what console you purchase today, you get the complete package, well with the exception of a HDMI cable and a optical cable, but that's really for those savvy customers. You may have to pay a few hundred bucks more for a Playstation 3, but I really think your getting a much better package for the price.

You can persuade me as much as you want that the XBL experience is much better than the PSN experience, but at 70 bucks a year, as long as the PSN works, I'm extremely happy.

That said, I've had a Xbox 360 in the past, but I sold it.

yeah but a $199 arcade and a $30 starter package via xbox.com (headset/20GB HDD/ethernet cable) and a $50 yr XBL subscription is only $280. How is that a scam?

and if you choose to buy a wifi adapter is $380, still cheaper than the cheapest PS3 SKU.

how is the PS3 price point better than this?

And what if you don't have $400 in your bank account? You can buy the Arcade sku now. Then a few weeks later you can buy the $30 starter kit. Then you can buy the XBL subscription a month later. Then by the wifi adapter a month after that.

It's called options. You get the freedom to buy whatever model you choose. How is this a scam?

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yeah but a $199 arcade and a $30 starter package via xbox.com (headset/20GB HDD/ethernet cable)

Just a question for you more xbox savvy guys, can everyone get that hard drive offer?

What about the new Jasper with onboard memory, are MS still doing the cheap hard drive combo if you phone them with a new model? Right now I'm guessing the new model was their long-term solution to installing NXE on the arcades, and therefore might have nullified that deal they were doing if you had an arcade and needed a way to install NXE.

I'm asking as I might pickup a new Jasper arcade to replace my halo 360, and if I could get a cheap hard drive casing for it from MS I wouldn't mind - Seeing as my 360 halo still works, I just don't like the colour of it :p I would just keep both of them hooked up and functional, the halo 360 could go downstairs for my parents.

However I'm in the UK, I have no idea if MS even had this hard drive/memory scheme in place for anywhere outside of the USA!

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