Christmas is a-coming, and someone in your life wants an Xbox 360 to be sat under the tree on Christmas morning. If you haven’t a clue about what to get, then fear not – RewiredMind is here to help with the first of our CCCB Guides.
The Console
The first thing you’ll need to do is familiarize yourself with the basic packages, since not all Xbox 360 consoles are the same. Here’s a handy chart to help you out…
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 |
 |
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| Controllers | Wireless x1 | Wireless x1 | Wireless x1 |
| Storage | 256MB Memory Unit | 60GB Hard Drive | 120GB Hard Drive |
| Extras | 5 free XBLA Games | Xbox Live Headset / LAN Cable / 1 month Xbox Live Gold subscription | Xbox Live Headset / LAN Cable / 3 month Xbox Live Gold subscription |
| TV Connections | SCART | SCART / HD Component | SCART / HD Component / HDMI |
| RRP | £129.99 | £169.99 | £229.99 |
Arcade
The “Arcade” pack was introduced as an entry-level system to get folks to buy consoles, quite frankly, and for anyone who’ll be playing often or online, isn’t worth the money and I’ll tell you why. The pack may only cost £129.99, but comes with a woefully undersized memory unit which is practically useless for anything other than saving your progress in a game. If the person you’re buying for is going to play online, then they’re probably going to download demos of new games too, which weigh in at about a gigabyte each. In other words, they’re four times bigger than the memory card – each! The logical option is to buy a hard drive to go with the new console, but that’ll cost you between £50 and £60 – taking your purchase price up to £189.99 all in.
Premium
In other words, your only real choice is whether you’ll be buying the Premium or the Elite. The Premium comes in the classic white colour and comes with everything you’ll need to get started. The 60Gb hard drive might still be a tad restrictive given that you can now install games on the console (although this is very much optional – they’ll always play from the disc without installing, it’s just that installing makes things run a very little bit quicker) but you’re still looking at good value for money here. However, if your “target” has a HD-ready television, then you’ll need to buy a HDMI cable to get the best quality picture out of the machine. The bundled cables WILL work with pretty much any TV you can buy (including that flashy new LCD screen you’ve got) - but an HDMI cable really does make a lot of difference to the quality of the on-screen image.
Elite
If you decide to splash the cash, the Elite comes in a very cool black colour that’ll probably match all of the other equipment you have stashed under your TV. Technological fashion aside, the £60 difference between this and the Premium is due to the fact that you get a hard drive that is twice the size (120GB) and a HDMI cable bundled in, meaning that you can not only get online without any further purchases, but you’ll have the best quality image playing out in front of you.
Games
Remember, a console is only as good as the quality of the games you have for it, and your choice of games very much comes down to the person you’re buying for. Someone who loves their football will want FIFA 09 this year (not Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 – it just isn’t as good) as opposed to a tennis game. It sounds obvious, but this is many a present-buyer’s downfall. We’d recommend finding out what sort of games your target is into, and then checking out online reviews to see which ones are the best.
Here are some quick recommendations that you won’t go far wrong with:-
Football – FIFA 09
Shooting – Gears of War 2 or Call of Duty: World at War
Fighting – Soul Calibur 4 or Dead or Alive 4
Music – Rock Band 2 (with an instrument or the full instrument pack) or Guitar Hero: World Tour (with an instrument or the full instrument pack), or Lips (with microphones)
Kids – Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise or Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga or Lego Indiana Jones
Family – Monopoly or Scene It? Box Office Smash (with controllers)
Driving – Burnout Paradise, Project Gotham Racing 4 or Forza Motorsport 2
Puzzle – Beautiful Katamari, Tetris Evolution
The Extras
Now you’ve chosen your games and console, you’re all set to give someone an awesome Christmas gift. There are other things that can be picked up that could go as stocking fillers or as extra presents under the tree, though. Here are a few to consider…
Extra Official Wireless Controller
If your target is likely to have friends over to play on their new machine, or if you fancy playing against them yourself, you’ll need an extra controller. None of the Xbox 360 standard packages come with two. A wireless controller will set you back £32.99, whereas a wired one will cost £24.99. There is no difference between the two - other than how it connects to the machine - so the choice is all yours.
Play and Charge Kit
If you’ve taken the smart option and picked up a machine that comes with a wireless controller (or picked one up as an extra, see above) then you’ll probably become sick and tired of paying out for power. Each wireless controller takes two AA batteries, and you’ll find that they need replacing fairly often. The Play and Charge Kit is an official product from Microsoft that is essentially a charging cable and a rechargeable battery pack that fits into the controller. All you need to do is plug the cable into any USB port (the console has a few and you can even use your PC to charge it up if you fancy!) and the battery pack will charge. What’s more, if the pack has run dead, you can plug the cable in and it’ll charge while you carry on playing – hence the name. An essential expense at £14.99.
Xbox Live Membership
Xbox Live is the service that Microsoft provides that allows gamers to download full games, demos, movies and whatever else they provide, as well as play online games against the rest of the world. There are two levels of service – Silver and Gold. Everyone gets Silver for absolutely free, but this doesn’t allow you to play online games and quite a few other services are restricted. The Elite pack comes with a free three month “Gold” subscription and the Premium and Arcade packs give you one month. A twelve-month subscription costs £39.99 or you can pick up an extra three-month subscription for £12.99 if you aren’t sure it’ll get used all that much. Personally, we’d suggest that they try the service out using their free subscription time, and then subscribe themselves to the service later on if they like it – but it’s something to consider.
Xbox Live Points Card
The Xbox Live service allows users to grab DLC (“DownLoadable Content”) for their games (extra songs for Rock Band, new cars in Forza Motorsport etc) and purchase movie rentals and full Xbox Live Arcade games – for a price. The price is in Microsoft Points, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the recipient of your gift will want to get their download on within the first few hours of opening the box. The full games that can be downloaded are generally of decent quality, with some rivaling the games that you can buy in the shops for four times the price. The price of items varies of course, but Microsoft allow you to either top up your MS Points account online – directly through the Xbox 360’s interface – by using your credit or debit card. A safer way of starting a new Xbox 360 console owner off though, is to pick up a points card. You can get these is denominations of 2100 points (£17.49) or 4200 points (£34.99) from most retailers.
The Last Word
There are tons of other extras and addons that you can pick up for the Xbox 360. Some are official and generally well built, whilst some are made by third-parties and aren’t worth the money. I couldn’t possibly cover everything in this guide, but I’ve done my best to look at everything that you’re likely to need to consider when buying a console for a lucky recipient. I hope it helps! All of the prices stated are the recommended retail prices, and are generally a fair bit more than you could reasonably expect to pay.
My suggestion this holiday season, would be to take advantage of one of GAME’s really good online offers. Yes, we are affiliated with them, but the Xbox 360 Elite with Kung Fu Panda, LEGO Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider: Underworld AND the extra Wireless Controller for £255.10 is an absolute steal when you consider the console’s RRP is £229.99 on its own. You’re essentially getting somewhere in the region of £120 worth of extras for £25.11 - and unless you fancy grabbing some Play and Charge kits, you really don’t need anything else to complete the present.
Current Offers and Prices (as of November 28th, 2008)
Consoles
Xbox 360 Arcade Pack with Kung Fu Panda, LEGO Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider: Underworld AND Extra Wireless Controller - £157.22
Xbox 360 Premium Pack with Gears of War 1, Gears of War 2 and Far Cry 2 - £185.95
Xbox 360 Elite Pack with Sega Superstars Tennis, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Gears of War - £225.10
Xbox 360 Elite Pack with Mirror’s Edge - £225.10
Accessories
Play and Charge Kit - £14.67
Xbox Live 3 Month Membership -£14.67
Xbox Live 12 Month Membership - £39.14
2100 Xbox Live Points - £17.13
4200 Xbox Live Points - £34.25
Wireless Controller - White - £32.29
Wireless Controller - Black - £32.29
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