…officially announced and released today
Microsoft officially announced the Xbox 360 Arcade console earlier today, yet another version of the Xbox 360. Offering it at a much lower price — around $279.99 USD — it is their hope is that come the holiday season shopping, more people/parents will choose this version over Nintendo and Sony’s consoles. Sony has already announced a lower-priced PlayStation 3 model for $399, but Nintendo still has the lowest priced console at $249.99USD, but the lack of consoles available to the consumer continues to make the Wii a popular but rare commodity.
What exactly do you get with this new stripped down version of the 360?? Well its not exactly the Xbox 360 because you can’t play any other 360 games on it, unlike the Core version of the Xbox 360. The morning radio personalities discussed this earlier today and ended up becoming more confused than excited over this announcement. The callers who called into the radio station just made the situation worse with one person saying that now you can plug it in directly to your TV, and that Microsoft’s new focus was using the console at home as opposed to on the road…she definitely was getting her systems mixed up. I think she was talking about the hand-held consoles documentary she had seen and not the new Xbox 360 Arcade console.
What do you get?
- The new console combines a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connector and 256MB of on-board memory.
- Five full games (not the demos) previously only available to Xbox 360 users who signed up for Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade online service: Pac-Man Championship Edition, Uno, Luxor 2, Boom Boom Rocket and Feeding Frenz
- One wireless controller also included.
The limited storage capability may make potential buyers think twice. The Xbox 360 already has two other versions at $349.99USD and $449.99USD respectively, offering a much larger storage capability and limited backward-compatibility with older games for the original Xbox.
In my opinion if the consumer is willing to pay $279.99 for this new version, they should consider paying the extra $70 to get the next version up of the Xbox 360. They would then get to play the other Xbox 360 games instead of just being limited to playing the arcade games. But I must admit that there are a number of really great arcade games available on Xbox live arcade, Boom Boom Rocket being one of them. It was a smart move to include this fun, addictive rhythm game as one of the 5 included free.
Bizarre Creation’s Boom Boom Rocket – those who purchase the new version of Xbox 360 Arcade enjoy this game for free!
