Everyone who reads these pages knows how big a fan I am of the Xbox 360. There is no doubt that I love that console, and before anyone says I bet you love the RRoD, I’m pretty certain you know the answer to that without getting into a big fanboy debate. Don’t bore me. As with everything, it isn’t perfect, it has its faults like the aforementioned RRoD issue. Which is mostly, fingers crossed becoming a thing of the past. There is something more sinister though, something that I thought would never bother me, that being accessory prices.I’m not complaining about controllers, all the current consoles have expensive wireless controllers. I’m not bothered about wireless headsets, battery packs, chargers or wireless adaptors (any serious online gamer wouldn’t entertain the idea of wireless). The one thing that bothers me is the hard drive prices. Right now, if you search around you can get an Xbox 360 Arcade for around £125. This doesn’t come with a hard drive, but should you then entertain the idea of online gaming here is the problem. You’ll have to upgrade and that is going to cost you around £90 for the 120gb drive.
The minimum size for a hard drive today on the Xbox 360 is 60gb for new consoles. If like me you are lumbered with a 20gb from the original premium consoles then you might very well be looking to upgrade. Size was not an issue for me until very recently, after three years of owning an Xbox 360 only now has the drive become a problem and it’s mostly down to the launch of the New Xbox Experience (NXE) last year. The update allowed you to copy images of your games to your hard drive to playback without the need for the DVD drive to spin up while playing. This is a great feature and makes your 360 almost silent while playing. I really want to take advantage of this, combined with the amount of download content I have purchased these days, that 20GB drive just doesn’t cut it anymore.
My problem is that the 120gb hard drive, the only upgrade readily available that also comes with the transfer cable to copy your old data to the new drive is ludicrously expensive. For £90, I am £35 quid short of a new Xbox 360 itself. Admittedly that console being the drive-less Arcade model, but all the same a new console it would be. The Xbox 360 Elite can be purchase currently for £195 on Amazon. Only double the price of the separate hard drive and that console comes with the 120gb hard drive. I have held out for some time now and the price just doesn’t seem to be budging. This leaves me with a dilemma.
I have the technical know how to make my own 120gb hard by modifying the firmware of a very specific Western Digital drive and then housing it in my original 20gb drive casing. This would cost me about £35 to do. I play a lot of online multiplayer games, which means I risk being banned from Xbox Live for modifying my console. This is simply a risk I do not want to take. I love playing games online, but with such a huge price difference between the official and the hacked solutions, I really am left wondering what is for the best. Should I wait and see if MS drops the cost? If the Arcade drops in price any further I cannot see how MS could justify the cost of this increasingly vital piece of hardware.
What to do? I just cannot bring myself to pay that £90. It just isn’t worth it. This is definitely something Sony got right with the PS3, you can upgrade the hard drive easily if you so wish. Why MS couldn’t have done something similar I don’t know, but I know one thing for certain, they need to get it bloody sorted. The early adaptors deserve some better treatment and a 120gb drive.
3 comments:
i saw the elites at 195 and was giving it some good thought, increased hard drive, hdmi port another warranty. i think it makes more financial sense to get a new console and sell the old one
or better still, if they let you send them your old one and they did the transfer to a shiny new 120gb and give it you at a discount, they could then recycle the housings.
I agree. I know exactly what you mean.
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