Xbox 360

[dbeamer407]

My son has been wanting a Xbox and/or a Xbox 360. There is an Xbox 360 with 64 mb memory card and headset on Craigslist locally for $100. They say it is in working order and is one of the first models without HDMI, wireless adapter or hard drive. Is this a decent price? Can pretty good video quality can be obtained via component with this model? Can a wireless adapter or hard drive be added?

[hiphophead34]

The early Xbox 360 models are prone to failure. I would ask if it has been sent in for repair previously. As for picture quality the component cables are fine and can output high resolution. A hard drive and wireless adapter can be added to any Xbox 360.

[corn619]

My son has been wanting a Xbox and/or a Xbox 360. There is an Xbox 360 with 64 mb memory card and headset on Craigslist locally for $100. They say it is in working order and is one of the first models without HDMI, wireless adapter or hard drive. Is this a decent price? Can pretty good video quality can be obtained via component with this model? Can a wireless adapter or hard drive be added?

Its not a bad price and you can probably haggle a little on price. Component looks fine on the 360. You can only really notice a minor difference between HDMI and component on larger HDTVs. A wirless adaptor and HDD can be added, but Microsoft charges a lot for their accessories. Your looking at $100.00 for wifi adaptor, and about $100.00 for the HDD

The only problem would be reliabilty. Earlier 360s are known for the RROD problem. A crafty person can "fix" a broken one to make it work temporarily by wrapping a towel around the system to heat up the loose solder on the board. Just be wary about buying a old, used 360. You can easily throw good money out the window by buying a model that has one step in the grave. My advice? Buy a new one under warranty, because all 360s fail eventually.

[Cassidy]

*This is my opinion and my opinion only.*

I would never buy an Xbox 360 second hand, especially the model you have described. It seems to be one of the pre-Jasper (chipset) models which notoriously overheat and fail - and since it is second hand you'd be out of luck with the MS warranty.

Plus, you would have no idea of this particular console's history - how many times was it repaired, for what etc...

The 360 (and PS3 & Wii for that matter) are at a very attractive price point right now and a brand new Xbox 360 would put you within a 3-year warranty should something happen.

$299 can buy you a lot of piece of mind, plus HDMI and a hard drive.

Again, just my opinion.

[miked]

I say check to see if the warranty seal is intact. If its made it this long its probably a fairly safe buy. Fairly safe.....

[Dakinggamer87]

*This is my opinion and my opinion only.*

I would never buy an Xbox 360 second hand, especially the model you have described. It seems to be one of the pre-Jasper (chipset) models which notoriously overheat and fail - and since it is second hand you'd be out of luck with the MS warranty.

Plus, you would have no idea of this particular console's history - how many times was it repaired, for what etc...

The 360 (and PS3 & Wii for that matter) are at a very attractive price point right now and a brand new Xbox 360 would put you within a 3-year warranty should something happen.

$299 can buy you a lot of piece of mind, plus HDMI and a hard drive.

Again, just my opinion.

Yeah, I would totally agree with ya Cassidy.

[RadarScope1]

*This is my opinion and my opinion only.*

I would never buy an Xbox 360 second hand, especially the model you have described. It seems to be one of the pre-Jasper (chipset) models which notoriously overheat and fail - and since it is second hand you'd be out of luck with the MS warranty.

Plus, you would have no idea of this particular console's history - how many times was it repaired, for what etc...

The 360 (and PS3 & Wii for that matter) are at a very attractive price point right now and a brand new Xbox 360 would put you within a 3-year warranty should something happen.

$299 can buy you a lot of piece of mind, plus HDMI and a hard drive.

Again, just my opinion.

Agreed. If it's for your kid, the $199 Arcade SKU is fine. Kids don't really need several gigs of HDD space or to be online. All you need is a memory card and it will work just like a PS2 or GameCube.

[emwearz]

My very strong advice is to stay away from the Xenon chipsets of the Xbox360, they have a really high chance of getting the RROD at some point (The same for Zephyr).

Only buy second hand Xbox 360's off friends and only if they are Falcon or Jasper's

My suggestion would be to go out and buy a brand new Jasper chipset 360 (There are sites on the web which help you to ID one from the box alone, just to be sure you dont buy and old Falcon board, which is still good but not as good as the Jasper) as well as shrinking both the CPU and GPU down to 65nm (Less heat on both fronts) and using less power they also have more internal memory so that if you buy your son a arcade unit he can use all of his memory card for save games rather than a large chunk of it on the NXE (The new dashboard updates) if you decide its not worth investing in a HDD.

As for the HDD, you can buy third party ones off the net fairly cheap, or if you go to computer swap meets you find real Microsoft ones fairly cheap (I picked mine up for $40AUD) and having the HDD will allow you to play a large amount of Xbox 1 games (There is a compat list online).

Overall I strongly advise you not to buy it.

[Weekend_Warrior]

I would stay far, FAR AWAY from buying a used Xbox 360! Especially an early model (pre-HDMI).

Buy a new Arcade 360. Most of them come with 512MB internal memory built-in now, which is PLENTY of room for game saves. *Remember: PS2 cards were only 8MB!* Also, the Jasper chipset is said to be pretty much "RROD Free," and the system less prone to overheating and failure overall.

For an extra $50, you can get a 2 year extended warranty from Best Buy. It's a really great deal because if anything goes wrong with it you just bring it in to any Best Buy store and exchange it FOR A BRAND NEW ONE!

The optional hard drives are really only for the gamers who want to go online and download media such as Xbox Live games or movies. It's not required for game saves. And neither are the memory cards for that matter, they're just nice to have if you want to take your saved game data over to a friend's house or something