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.
I recently read an article by Julian Dibbell entitled “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer” and I was thoroughly intrigued. It brought perspectives to light I hadn’t thought about, Many gamers out there are quite familiar with MMO games such as World of Warcraft, Phantasy Star Online, Ultima, Guild Wars, Second Life, Final Fantasy, the list goes on, but some may not be aware of the subculture that exists as a result of these games.
There are many players who play the game straight up and are content with leveling and questing, perhaps joining some buddies every once in a while and making a new one at other times. Then there are the hardcore gamers that play with no other purpose than being the best and having the most elite gear or the largest bankroll. Then there are the players that want to be “elite”, but want it the easy way and purchase their items from farmers or online services.
The latter classes of players are the ones that intrigue me and made me think about what is right and wrong with MMO games. In all MMO games there is a sub culture of gamers for the most part of Asian decent that play, no better stated “work”, in these games to gather gold or currency in order to sell it back to real life players typically in Europe and America. If you have played an MMO like WoW they are typically known as “Chinese Gold Farmers” and typically are frowned upon by other players and in extreme cases hated and even hunted.
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?
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.
We’ve had numerous reports coming in of users getting 3 red lights on their brand new Elite consoles this morning. While this is a daily occurrence with 360 Premium and Core systems, we thought Microsoft would have had a better handle on the situation with the Elite.
We’ve all seen the pictures of the motherboard changes. I assumed that these would protect the console better from heat and such to make sure less consoles would die. But alas, no. Microsoft has introduced another new product that is failing at a higher than normal rate.
To top it all off, the disc scratching issue is back. Seriously Microsoft, what the hell? Did you completely get rid of your QA department?
I just took a trip around to all my local stores that sell video games. After a trip at 1:30pm to Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Gamestop, EB Games, and Circuit City, I found that they ALL still have Elite systems in stock.
I know some of these stores got as little as 4 units, and they all have systems in stock. Is the demand not there? I would have expected the stores with the smaller quantities to at least sell out, but it doesn’t look that way.
A quick trip to Ebay shows systems selling for a premium over the retail value. Could my market just be an anomaly?
Let us know in the comments if you find Elite’s on the shelves.
In case you’ve been living in a bubble the past month or so, the Xbox 360 Elite is coming in a mere couple of hours. Word is most Best Buy stores will have around 20 units each, and the same with Target. Gamestop will have much lower allocations.
So, are you upgrading to the new system? Maybe just getting a 120GB hard drive? Let us know what you’re going to do with your 360.
I’ll be out at Best Buy tomorrow morning checking things out.
So you’re buying an Xbox 360 Elite this coming Sunday. I’m sure you’ve already heard the Elite doesn’t come with a transfer kit to move all of your data from your old 360 hard drive to the new 120GB hard drive on the Elite.
Luckily, Microsoft is providing FREE transfer kits to those who are upgrading. Details were released today on Xbox.com, with a linked PDF that must be filled out and mailed to Microsoft. Upon receiving the letter, Microsoft will mail you a transfer kit. Expect this process to take 4-6 weeks. In the meantime, you’re stuck using your current 20GB hard drive, which means you can’t go selling your old 360 just yet.
My advice, spend a bit of cash and get the XSATA so you can migrate all the data yourself. It’ll save you a lot of time waiting for a transfer cable from Microsoft.
Remember how we told you the Xbox 360 Elite doesn’t come with a HDD transfer cable? Well, Microsoft decided it didn’t want to royally screw it’s current hardcore customer base (this time), and will be giving away HDD transfer cables if you ask for them.
Q. Got it, thanks for the advice on which item to buy, but I am pretty set on upgrading to the Xbox 360 Elite, how can I do this? A. We realize that around the launch of the Xbox 360 Elite that some folks may in fact want to upgrade from their current console. For those consumers interested in doing this, we will be providing a solution to obtain a migration kit from Xbox.com completely free of charge. You can get more information about obtaining one of these kits from a URL that will be live tomorrow.
Note that there are some differences between migration data from one hard drive to another using the same console and doing this migration to a completely new console. See the differences outlined in more detail below.
The URL has not gone live yet and has not yet been provided by Microsoft. This is good news though for users looking to upgrade. Hopefully it doesn’t take Microsoft 6-8 weeks to send it to you…
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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.
We’ve had numerous reports coming in of users getting 3 red lights on their brand new Elite consoles this morning. While this is a daily occurrence with 360 Premium and Core systems, we thought Microsoft would have had a better handle on the situation with the Elite.
In case you’ve been living in a bubble the past month or so, the Xbox 360 Elite is coming in a mere couple of hours. Word is most Best Buy stores will have around 20 units each, and the same with Target. Gamestop will have much lower allocations.
So you’re buying an Xbox 360 Elite this coming Sunday. I’m sure you’ve already heard the Elite doesn’t come with a transfer kit to move all of your data from your old 360 hard drive to the new 120GB hard drive on the Elite.
Remember how we told you the Xbox 360 Elite doesn’t come with a HDD transfer cable? Well, Microsoft decided it didn’t want to royally screw it’s current hardcore customer base (this time), and will be giving away HDD transfer cables if you ask for them.
