Pack in games usually suck donkey balls or are older than hell. There have been some exceptions lately with the Uncharted bundle with the 160gb PS3 and the Resident Evil 5 bundle on the Xbox 360. But Microsoft could be turning up the heat by packing in both Halo 3 and Fable 2 with upcoming Elites.
Ars Technica was tipped off about this possibly upcoming pack, which is still rumor until we get confirmation from Microsoft (who never comments on rumors, we tried).
Could this be enough reason for those still on the fence about picking up a current-gen console to make the jump? It’s certainly possible. I have a feeling Microsoft is waiting to pull the trigger here until we see what Sony is doing in terms on a PS3 price drop.
Thanks to Scuba’s great post yesterday, I was able to snag a Falcon Elite to replace my 8th broken one. Hopefully this new system will be good to go and I won’t have to replace it.
First impressions: it’s deadly quiet. Much quieter than my old Zephyr Elite. It’s on par with my PS3 and Wii to be honest. The power brick is lighter and has a cheaper plastic connector that goes into the 360. Previous power bricks had 2 buttons to secure the cable into the console and were heavier with some metal in there. This one doesn’t have that.
Thanks to my handy dandy XSATA, I was able to backup everything off my old hard drive and I’m in the process of restoring to the new console. Like I say to everyone, backup backup backup. It will save your life one day.
After just over 5 months, my Xbox 360 Elite has kicked the bucket. I get disk read errors on every disk I put in the tray, whether it’s a game, movie, or audio disk. Good times.
This marks my 6th Xbox 360 to die since launch day. Yes, my 6th. F’ing ridiculous.
I know some people are going to jump all over this in comments saying I treat it badly or whatever, but that is far from the case. My Xbox 360 has it’s own shelf in the entertainment center, with full ventilation from the front and rear. The power brick also sits on the shelf fully ventilated. The console is never moved when playing (in fact, it’s only moved a tiny bit once a week to dust). The console is kept perfectly clean, as are my other systems. I haven’t had any problems with my PS3 (save long install times) or my Wii. Never had problems with my PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube before that.
I guess I’ll be making a trip to Best Buy this afternoon to get this thing swapped out. Maybe #7 will be a lot luckier than the first 6 consoles I’ve gone through. At least I didn’t get the red ring of death again this time.
Microsoft sent out a press release today to let us know that new Xbox 360 bundles are coming for the Holiday season. Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance will be packed in with all Pro and Elite consoles. Sorry Core buyers, no love for you. And no love for the Halo 3 Special Edition either.
This is a pretty good bundle for those looking to pick up a 360 (or replace a broken one).
Hit the jump for more »
As you may or may not yet know, the Xbox 360 Premium consoles in the US will all be shipping with an HDMI port soon. So if you don’t want to spend the money on the Elite, you’ll have a chance to get true digital 1080p from the Xbox 360 with the newer Premiums.
The guys over at Joystiq dug a little deeper and found out a very easy way to tell what consoles will have the coveted HDMI port. Just check the side of the box for the “HDMI port” text. Supposedly all consoles manufactured after July 1st will have HDMI.
I’ve been using HDMI out on my Xbox 360 Elite and I have to say it gives a much cleaner and vibrant picture on my HDTV than component. For the record, I have a Samsung 50″ 1080p DLP set.
Joystiq dug a little deeper and found the code name Zephyr on the label, which indicates the new Premiums have the same motherboard and new heat sink as the Elite’s (remember Zephyr is the code-name for the Elite motherboard). This also shows these new Premiums do NOT have the 65nm chips, codenamed Falcon. I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer for those smaller, cooler chips.
In an effort to boost stability, Microsoft has been putting in an additional heat sink on the graphics chip of refurbished Xbox 360’s as of late. Now, that added heat sink is in all new Xbox 360 Elite models being shipped. Ben Heck, modder extrordonaire, took apart his newly purchased Elite to find the change.
This is good news for people thinking about buying an Xbox 360 right now, as the stability problems have been widely publicized.
I’m going to take Ben’s word on this one. I’m not about to void the warranty on my Elite and see if I have the new heat sinks.
Just in case the Japanese market wasn’t overly saturated enough with Xbox 360’s that no one is buying, Microsoft decided to put even more consoles into the retail pipeline.
Coming October 11th for the cool price of ¥47,800 (which converts to about $390 US, almost $100 less than what we pay in the States), the Xbox 360 Elite will give Japanese gamers the extra hard drive space and HDMI outputs they’ve been waiting for.
Just what the Japanese market needs, even more “choice” with their Xbox 360’s that they don’t want to buy. I think it’s time to invest some hardcore marketing dollars into making the Xbox brand appeal to the Asian marketplace.
There’s a new update available for the HD-DVD addon drive for the Xbox 360 today. Most notably, it improves compatibility with newer titles that are using advanced copy protection schemes, such as Digital Video Essentials, which didn’t play in the 360 drive until today.
You can now also select 2 channel linear PCM as an audio output option if you’re using the Elite. Great, but why give up surround sound for a movie so you can hear crystal clear sound from only 2 speakers?
Hit the jump for more »
So here’s a nice little problem with the transfer process for the 120GB hard drive on the Xbox 360 (thank you to a friend who lent me his transfer cable). While transferring data, if you disconnect anything, the process stops and dumps you back to the dashboard. This includes HDMI handshaking when using the Elite.. So if you change the input on your TV or turn off your TV, the process stops. I found out the hard way after an hour of watching some crap on my DVR.
I guess I’ll have to switch over to component video while I’m transferring the data over, so I don’t have to leave the TV sitting with a nice static image for an hour.
Hey Microsoft… can you please make some of these processes easier?
Even though I said I wasn’t going to, I picked up a Xbox 360 Elite today. The black beast is better than I anticipated.
The first thing I noticed was the Elite is very quiet. Much more so than my older Premium console. This is when idle, playing movies (both standard DVD and HD-DVD), as well as playing games. It’s a treat to not have to hear the fans spinning like crazy. The new Hitachi drive helps too.
The HDMI video connection looks fantastic. There is a noticeable difference in colors and black level on my 50″ Samsung 1080p over component video. Don’t take this to mean the HDMI connection produces a much better picture… it’s a known thing with my model of HDTV that HDMI looks way better than component.
I’m waiting on my transfer cable, so I can’t comment on using the 120GB hard drive yet.
Overall, it’s the best 360 console I’ve had. Is it worth the upgrade for most users? I don’t think so. But if you’re looking to replace a broken console and you don’t have warranty, or you just want to pick up a 360 for the first time, definitely take a look at the Elite.
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