New Xbox Experience Creates Second Class Gamers

how funny, the thing is aimed at casual gamers, the ones that go out and buy an arcade! or previously a core! and thise casual core gamers are stuffed. what a shame MS you fecked things up again!, first we have a non standard HDD, then RROD and now you are going to tell those gamers your aiming at that if they want it they will have to shell out for some storage. derr

Well expect them to cough up cash. Microsoft and extorsion - No change there!

It wouldn't be too bad if the avatars were optional, but I've seen reports that they are mandatory. You have to either choose or build an avatar and that's what takes the storage.

"there are likely to be some unhappy 360 owners out there after having to pay for something their fellow gamers get for free"

That's rubbish. The gamers who get it for 'free' already paid more for a console with a hard drive.

Really? As far as I was aware they were optional. It would make more sense if it was, because what about those that don't want them? Being forced to have them isn't exactly going to have those people in a happy mood.

Anyone who thought that they were "set" with their Core or Arcade system is a foolish fool who was fooled. Its a stepping stone, not a complete solution. Blame MS' PR and sales for misleading you into thinking that you weren't going to have to buy that hdd eventually, and youself for believing it.

I, personally know two kinds of people who own Core/Arcade SKUs. First kind doesn't have LIVE!, and so this doesn't affect them a bit, though they are looking at picking up a hdd just for the gamesave storage. Second kind bought the Core as their 2nd 'box, and already has one hdd from their Premium, which they swap about as needed. (or already bought another hdd, in one instance)

My major issue with the hdd is that you can't piggyback them, so when I go over to my mates to play Rock Band, we have to pick one of our hdds and the other person is screwed out of using their own profile, since neither of us owns a memory card, (We have a friend with 3 but hes a stingy bastard) of course since I'm the one with all the nifty DLC, we play on mine ("You can play all those on-disc songs when you're by yourself, or we're on LIVE!, let's play the DLC now!") This works out so that if you want to travel with your profile and play on your mate's console so you have to have BOTH a hdd AND a memory card...and you'll have to manage your gamesaves accordingly, which could be a further pain in the ass, when all you want to do is play.

You really need the hdd for your 360, the update is just the full stop at the end of that sentence. Sony fanboys and headlines playing this up nonwithstanding, I don't think we're headed for an Xbox class war any time soon, the casual gamers need an hdd for downloaded XBLA games and videos and suchlike anyway, if they plan on getting the most out of teh NXE... the 'core will probably sell you their old 10GB for cheap and upgrade, so it'll all work out.

your point doesnt make sense, especially when both the Arcade/Core are both designed to do pretty much everything an Elite can do sans HDMI output. MS designed the Core/Arcade unit with the ability to ATTACH a HDD solution to their console for this particular reason and to get an 360 into homes for the people who cant buy an Elite...who cares if it didnt actually come with one, the fact remains it's plenty capable to expand upon. Now the funny thing was that Sony from the start never said anything about "Mandatory Installs", Sony claimed in the beginning that the choice was up to the comsumer (considering the sheer mammoth size of the BluRay disc), but somehow 25 gb & 50gb discs cant do it because the Bluray ROM in the Ps3 is slow as crap and the installs become more mandatory. Why does the Ps3 have mammoth sized discs, AND a HDD is something beyond my comprehension, because there are only a handful of games are even running at 1080p...the PS3 is just upscaling it. Maybe Sony should release another Ps3 model with a 4x BluRay drive....oh wait....that'll just be plain stupid...nevermind. Anyway, 25 & 50 gb HDD of the same size are both more than enough to satisfy at the very least half of MS's install base, and in the NXE its a proven fact the the older 360 games will benefit more than the newer titles of being installed "locally". Meaning that the newer titles are all optimized to run properly off the disc without a "pit stop" in the hard drive.


Your major issue, is nothing you,I, or any Xbox360 owner can change. MS is doing the best they can do protect their XBLive Arcade investment by making it hard to play Arcade games on another console, its called DRM(the same thing Bluray discs use). Why is there even a "Sony Store" with those mammoth BluRay discs !? [sarcasm] Why dont Sony just tell the developers to put all added PSN arcade games and stuff on the BluRay disc as extra...oh wait....nevermind that too [/sarcasm].

To make a long rant short(too late), you cant just buy a Ps3 and make it just as great as the "high end" model, you'll pretty much hafta go right back to the store and drop another $400-$500 dollars. If you had an Arcade/Core unit and you want an Premium/Elite(and you dont mind NOT having no HDMI output unless you get a special adapater), all you would need to do is go to the store and BUY a HDD.Out of my 20 gb, I still have 10.6 gb left. I'd say I have plenty of space for the NXE.

P.S. Wi-Fi XBLive sux, Direct connection FTW.

could someone re-word this in English?

the point here is not that those who bought core or arcade have a less than Required spec it sthe fact something as basic as the GUI and User Interface of the system cannot be updated to all consoles without some user paying for it, its almost as bad as apple`s strat! its shameless on MS`s part, they could easily change this by making Avatars non requireable! but they dont seem to want to do that!

Looks like your outraged squawk was a bit premature. In any event, any users who thought they would never need a hdd were only fooling themselves.

Bites Tongue