I plan to get a new job soon so tha tone day I can a 360 used but is it worth getting now considering all the red rings of death that permated the system for some time?
Slim models are robust enough. Actually my Falcon from 2008 (in use since 2010 though) has never shown any signs of problem either.
I bought it for a few shmups, and it was worth it.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
I would get a PS3 over a 360. It has better exclusives, the online doesn't cost anything (unless you want Playstation Plus), and it looks better on bigger TV screens.
It depends on the games, and if your willing to pay for online. Both XBL and PSN have their fair share of extreme douches online, and XBL has been shown to be more stable (not to mention PSN getting hacked, though I guess that's like a 1 time thing?). You could also get a Wii, as its fun on it's own, even without online play.
Xbox 360's don't have red ring as bad anymore, and is updated constantly with nearly every game, netflix, facebook (ehh), and all other things can be found online, not to mention your favorite classics (pac-mac and more). I currently don't own a PS3, so couldn't tell you it's features. Though I do have a Wii, and it's great fun playing Brawl, Metroid prime 3, Twilight Princess, soon to be Skyward sword also :).
Though great titles such as Gears of war, COD, & Halo are for the 360, so if you like Shooter games, these are great. I really don't spend all day on my xbox anymore, but as for "Is it worth it", I say yes.
I wouldn't count on that. After all, Sony never learn from their mistakes. It's quite literally amazing how a technological giant with metric tons of money at their disposal falls prey to simpliest of hacks and still claims high security and similar bullshit.
I bought my xbox 360 about a year ago and haven't had any problems with it.
Compared to a modern PC, the hardware (especially the graphics hardware) is quite outdated (especially because 512 MB of RAM, shared between the CPU and the GPU, is a ridiculously small amount nowadays), but the games still look decently good. OTOH, the stability of the system is superb compared to a typical Windows PC (which is one of the main reasons I bought the thing, as I had got tired of at least half of my PC games crashing on a regular basis, not to talk that my PC is getting outdated and some of the newer games are starting to lag quite badly). AFAIK Microsoft still hasn't announced any next-gen console, so the xbox 360 is still a pretty safe bet, and the game library is quite ample and still being expanded at full throttle.
Forget about playing FPS games, though, unless you are fluent at playing them with the controller. The xbox 360 does not support a mouse (completely on purpose; the logic of this still evades me). AFAIK the PS3 does support mice (or at least some kind of mouse-like devices; I have seen them on sale).
Compared to the other consoles, I don't have experience. The game libraries are slightly different for each console (although there's a great deal of overlap, especially between the xbox 360 and the PS3). If you like JRPGs, there's less supply on the xbox 360 side than on the PS3 side (I don't really know why this is so; maybe it has to do with the PS3 being Japanese and JRPG producers making exclusivity deals with Sony). There are some good ones for the xbox 360, though.
You can't play games online with the xbox 360 unless you pay Microsoft yearly fees, which sucks if you like online games. (Personally I find them boring so this isn't a big deal for me.) You can still download and purchase games (and movies/music) from xbox live without having to pay those fees, though. (Local multiplayer isn't hindered by this either, of course.)
From what I've heard it's just the old Xbox 360 that has the problem with RRoD.
I had my Xbox 360 for about 2 and a half years before I sold it.
I like PS3 more but I don't think that Xbox 360 is a bad console at all.
Isn't annual XBL subscription roughly comparable to half a new game's cost? For people that buy a new one each few weeks that's hardly much. There's no point to it outside of multiplayer though.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
I bought a 360 a few years ago (maybe close to four). The achievement system was a definite lure for me then. I still enjoy achievements (though Gamerscore failed to excite me) and so I like Sony's trophy system just as much (and tend to ignore the "value" of the trophies).
I'm on my second 360 now. My first one didn't RRoD, but something with the graphics output messed up and rendered the whole system useless.
As far as games go, I've found the 360 to have games much more suited to my tastes. But game taste is so personal, I can't really help on that front. PS3 had some must haves for me, so I eventually bought one. Plus PS3 is a BluRay player, if that interests you.
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Most Xbox 360 games have PC ports. They may suffer from consolitis, but obviously not as much as the original console versions. If you want to play Xbox 360, just upgrade your PC, buy an Xbox 360 controller, and play the PC versions of those games, which are all compatible with the Xbox 360 controller.
Actually I'm not completely sure of that. I'd say "many", but I'm not sure the majority do. (I'd estimate that the majority of retail games don't have a PC port, and the vast majority of XBLA games don't.)
Sounds good in theory. In practice, as I commented above, the PC/Windows platform often presents compatibility and stability issues that the Xbox 360 basically lacks completely. I'd estimate that at least 50% of the PC games I have (and I have quite many of them) crash on a regular basis (most of them are still playable, but the crashes are really annoying). I don't know if this is because of bugs/incompatibilities in the games themselves, bugs in eg. the display drivers, Windows getting bit-rotten, hardware compatibility problems, a combination of these, or something, but in the end it doesn't really matter: It's unstable and there's little I can do about it.
There are also other issues: Some of the PC games are so old that it's difficult to run them in a modern PC. Some of the newer games have such high system requirements that they are a pain to play (low framerates, low graphical quality at decent framerates...) Especially the latter is something you don't have to worry about with a console because the hardware is fixed. (OTOH a side-effect of this is that console games get more and more graphically outdated by the month, precisely because of the fixed hardware.)
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
Pretty much what Sir_VG said. There's no reason to get the beast if you can settle with the kitten, unless there's some PS3-exclusives you badly desire, in which case you'd probably had gone with "PS3 - worth getting or not?"
And it's not like many people don't have both consoles. Of course it's going to cost you double to get both, but they aren't exactly enormously expensive (especially compared to a top-of-the-line modern gaming PC).
I'm on my 3rd or 4th Xbox 360 which is the arcade model I had since October 2008, and it has the Open Tray error. Because of that, I usually play Xbox Live Arcade games on it.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
I believe Microsoft has said Kinect marked the approximate halfway point of the 360's life cycle. Since it launched in very late 2005, I'll just consider it to be 2006 for this estimate. Kinect came out in 2010, so I think we won't hear any news until 2013, or maybe at the earliest, late 2012. It's definitely not coming out next year though. Think more towards mid to late 2014. =)
Besides, if you are just going to always wait for the next thing to come, you will never get anything. The xbox 360 and its thousands of games are already there. You can go like right now and buy it and play it. You don't have to wait years for it. (Besides, whatever Microsoft's next console might be, its launching price will probably be at least double of what the xbox 360 costs now. You might as well buy an xbox 360 and a ps3 with the same money now.)