360 Arcade on sale in US today, UK Friday

I don't get it like can you only play games from xbox live? o

great idea, hdmi output is nice, plus it's new so most likely will not get the red rings. i guess we'll see.

For the Arcade system...great idea on MS' part. It may not have a hard drive, but with the memory card, it can go on Live Gold. The only thing someone should get with this package is a headset. But now even their low end systems can do some gaming online out of the box. On the Looney Tunes cartoons...good idea, but $1.25 for a 7 minute cartoon that's close to 70 years old??? I'm sorry, but I've seen DVDs in the budget bin with 10 of these cartoons on it for $1. I'd consider it for 1/2 the price just for the convenience and old school memories, but it just isn't worth it at this price.

great, but no hard drive, which means games do not run on it as well as they could. Now people will have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a 20gig hard drive when they find that they cannot put and music or videos on the system.

nice, very nice

this would be my 2nd choice if i didn't get halo ed

This sounds like a good step forward because it's a better deal when compared with the Core

NO Hard drive !!! they move back instead of goin forward, what is the new thing in this? just more failes hardware more red rings ? why should people buy this piece of junk!

lol no harddrive. That's horribleeeee Plus still no wifi. lol X360arcade + 20GBHDD + wifi addon == 479. lololol Get real microsoft. The smart gamers will see right thru this trashy sku, you might be able to sucker the casuals but honestly who can't sucker an audience that doesn't know squat lol

Just bought it. Now I have a 360 in the living room and one in the computer room. Life is good.

I hope it has the 65nm Processor.

HOT TIP: Less SKUs, more reliability. I'm on 360 #3.

Gah! Another SKU? At this rate, the PS3 and X360 will have more versions than the Odyssy did. And their coming out almost as fast...

Smart move, ship a cheap gimped version of the 360 to the ignorant masses during holiday season and they will end up paying more for the hard drive upgrade later.

There`s nothing special about it, why do people lose their mind over xbox 360! Wake up people!!!

Great move. The best part being the inclusion of a 256MB memory card.

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This would be great but if you want to add a HDD it is just too damn expensive to spend a hundred bucks for 20 freaking gig. They need to drop the price of the smaller Hard Drive pronto. then more people would be willing to fork out for the cheapo system if they new it would be inexpensive to purchase a HDD later.

Finally unbanned again! Microsoft perhaps you need to start making games that just don't appeal to Geeks - so this is the right move! not all of us have hours to play video games! short games - mini games - is what i need - TAKE THAT!

This seems to be an excellent move for Microsoft. Just throw Pac-Man on the front of the box and see how many casual gamers catch a case of whip-lash. Seems almost like Microsoft is shifting from its original fight with Sony to focus more on Nintendo. Personally, I'm upgrading to an Elite console sometime next year. I'm hoping there will be some word on the rumored HDDVD model by then. But this seems like a reasonable choice for consumers who haven't made the next-gen jump yet.

Why would I download cartoons, especially those 50 years ago? Isn't that what Youtube and other similar sites is for?

Well it looks like your rewarded for not buying a console when it launches.... except for Nintendo's Wii

I still think that MS should have included the 20GB hard drive with this console, since most of the attention has been shifted to the 120GB hard drive which is sold separately if someone hasn't picked up the elite console yet. It's great to see MS intro this console to go head to head with the Wii, but with XBLM introducing Looney Tunes cartoons for download, you're almost forcing that same family to shell out extra cash for a hard drive of some sort, (at 7 minutes long per cartoon, they still take up about 80MB of space in standard def, so the 256MB memory card would fill up in no time)......so it almost negates the price point. But then again, if that same family doesn't have high speed internet, then it would be a pretty decent package.

Great deal for those finally moving up to this gen of gaming. Smart move on MS's behalf!

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i guess it has more stuff than a regular 360 does. but it doesnt seem to be anything special.

--v8nnwilder -- I agree to a point except for one thing. If you don't have a HDTV or more importantly High Speed Internet then you really don't need and won't use any of the elite features. I have 2x 360's, an original Prem. and a Core...I got the Core for the cottage and it's absolutly perfect for that. The other thing is at this point all 3 versions of 360 have the exact same guts. With this new Arcade version if you added a 120gig after the fact (granted it would cost more) you would have exactly the same gear as if you bought an Elite. Where as Sony has a half dozen different PS3's with different internal hardware MS has streamlined everything into the same single box now.

This is completely ridiculous. If it at least came with an hdd & included 10-20 arcade games, then it might be something interesting. I can go buy a joystick with 20-30 Intellivision or Atari 2600 games on it for $20 & hook that to the TV & probably get more mileage out of it than I can with this package. Or just go download MAME & play hundreds of arcade games for nothing. Just stick with a regular 360 (with an hdd) or elite.

Obviously they want to take on the Wii and try and turn the "non-hardcore-gamers" over to their side... And by that "owning" the console wars completely.... Might work might not but I sure as hell won't be getting one. If I had kids I'd rather get them the Wii and then I'd spend my money on the Elite instead of the arcade version. That way I own all three. But I guess it's a good marketing strategy and it might work out for MS but only time will tell....

LOL, RROD...the only thing fanboi's constantly bleat about...live in fear and sit there hoping nothing ever changes in life if that's all you got. As for the memory card...since all you're doing is using if for save games it's way more then enough space. My original 20gig is full...total save game files for everything is under 100mg. If you're getting the Arcade version you're probably not connecting it to the net so 256mg is way more then enough.

I don't care about the fancy new box when what's inside will surely get RROD. Crappola.

so does this come with a Mame32 XBOX build? So we can play tempest again?

What a 256 mb memory card make it 1 gb and why haven't Microsoft made a av adapter to hdmi

In Response to "TripSe7en": "Hey everybody, I spent $600 (plus another $60 for Resistance and at least $40 for Warhawk) and I don't care!!!" "I'm so cool for making that statement. Don't you wish you were me? I know I do." Well, I for one am impressed. I wish I had money to waste like that. It's comments like this that make me fear for our future. People not making investments but rather spending money and getting gadgets and technology for no other reason than to appear superior to someone else. Why buy something then brag about not using it? You also have too many systems and probably no real social life. Either that or you're trying to fill a void in your life that you feel can only be filled with things. Here's a homework assignment: watch "American Beauty". Life is more than just stuff. If you're not using it why not give it away to someone who can't afford it? But no you won't do that will you? You'd only go out and buy another and not that play that one either.

TripSe7en... what a great post. I've been saying that all year. Not worth it. Power doesn't equal success. And all the negative reports about the PS3 coming in from all over prove me right.

I wish that i would have waited to buy my PS3. I was one of those who waited in line and got the PS3 and the Wii preordered at toys r us when it came out nearly a year ago. I had already owned a 360 which I played often. In the last year, I have only bought one game for the PS3 besides resistance which I bought at launch, and that game was Warhawk. Warhawk was a fun game, but not too cutting edge and all it did was wet my appetite for Halo 3 ( I haven't turned on my PS3 since!). In my opinion, and it is only that, I would wait and buy a PS3 in a year if it is still around. There are no exclusives, the graphics are better on the 360 in the comparable games, and an online community is utterly lacking (I also just bought a new laptop with Vista Ultimate which interacts with the 360's media center amazingly!) I hold no allegiance to any system as the PS3 has potential, but the $600 I spent a year ago could have bought me two PS3's at the price they will be selling them at in another year. Until then I play Wii with my girlfriend and Halo and Madden on the 360! This is just to spread some heat in the forum as well: PS3 in 2008 = TGfx16 in 1992. Overpriced, Overspec'd, and Underground! I own one, so I can make that statement!

so, xbox put ps3 outta business. bye bye wii. hahaha.

This will do much better than people think, due to the Wii not being available for many people looking for one this xmas, by Nintendo's own admission. If you had a budget for $250 for a new console, and the Wii was sold out, the Xbox 360 arcade would start to look pretty appealling for only $30 more. The audience that the arcade system is trying to reach doesn't really need a Hard Drive right now, and they can always get one later if they want. I think it really improved the value that you get from what was given with the core system. I do agree that most of the arcade games included are pretty worthless, but its better than nothing.

Seriously, has anyone bought one yet? --Is it more quiet or not?

they should have made it at least 1GB memory card i mean come on static memory is so cheap these days

@ratradler Because last gen system/games doesn't require that much memory space and ppl don't use it to download music, movie, video clip, photos like we do now.

nice

The bundled games are horrid. I can get those same 5 games and about 500 others included in one of those all-in-one boxes at the mall for about $19 bucks. Keep in mind no Backwards compatibility on this box either. @OnlyTbone Just a fyi. Microsoft has not made any announcement saying the RROD is fixed. Everytime the media asks they respond "We don't comment on speculation or rumor." So that says to me NOT fixed.

OnlyTbone if you check last week the ps3 outsold the 360 2 to 1 in europe, it is also Ubisofts most profitable platform, thats not doing so bad, ubisoft knows the ps3 makes most of its money, may be a reason why Haze went ps3 exclusive, and may make more games for ps3 rather than 360 now

wow people quit bashin microsoft so bad, its a good sales move for the family, and its money safe. Just because it doesnt have 932 gigs! of mem doesnt mean it sucks. all ps3 lovers scream.....RROD! they've fixed that with the new chips inside. It's gone, old news. plus it never happend to mine and i have a launch system. Ps3 fans are just mad that this is going to generate more sales for xbox and ps3 isnt getting back on its feet. I guess it's about time that they realized that they lost. The only reason ps3 are ever going up now is when everyone has a 360 and wii and everyone starts getting ps3's because there cheaper and they just dont have one yet.

I wish they had this last year.

yea i agree its not for the hardcore gamers but yea its better then the core which i think is a smart move

why not $249? Now that's competition.

good for people who want a 360, ima play my new ratchet when i pick it up tomorrow! which is just .1 under the halo 3 press score on gamestats! http://www.gamestats.com/objects/819/819456/index.html theres the link if you wanna see the reviews, the lowest is a 8.5 from 1up and the highest is a few 10.0s

do you need the hardrive to play xbox live?