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Should I buy an Xbox?

Yeah, I know, Late to the party or whatever. There are a couple of games I want to try out, and couple of games I couldn't try out due to my computer being rubbish. (i.e. : HL2, Tron 2.0 (I actually played that 5 hours at 15FPS), KOTOR, Halo 1&2), etc...

There are also a couple of games I'm interested in like Crimson Skies, Jade Empire, Fable, etc...

The Xbox I could have would be 150$CAD, but is also Modded. OMG IT'S MODDED PIRATE AHOY. Well for starter, I only wanted it modded so I could watch DIVX on it.

I just don't know if it's worth it, you know, with the 360 being released (but I still can't find one)... the fact that I have a standard rez. TV kind of worry me about the use of a 360 also.

Help me, GAF. You helped me in the past.
 
If you don't plan on getting the 360 for a while, sure. Personally, I think the media center and emulation capabilities of a modded xbox already make it worth the 150$ CAD.

If you do plan on getting a 360 soon, I think many of the games you wanted to play are already on the compatibility list..
 
a modded xbox is an incredible, incredible toy. I'd get it. So many things you can do.

Not to mention that there are more than enough past Xbox games to have fun with.
 
If you were intersted in that many games you should have one already. :/

Going by the current bc status, I wouldn't depend on the 360 for anything I wanted to play on the xbox. Plus there's the DIVX video bonus and everything else that comes with having a modded system. I say go for it.

Granted you can't find one, but the whole "I don't have an HDTV yet, so I'm going to wait on the 360", argument is stupid. Yes, it'll look better on HDTV, but 360 games will still look better than xbox games on a standard tv as well. The better textures, draw distance, more polys, lighting and the like are still very much apparent on a SDTV. It'll just look better still on a HD. Plus there's the obvious VGA cable -> PC monitor solution.
 
While we're on topic, how would I go about modding my Xbox? What's the best chip with the most features? What sort of things should I install? All that sort of jazz.
 
Heck, it's only 150 CD... That's definatly worth it if you haven't played those great games yet.


But, do me a favor. Buy your games, don't copy them. :D
 
Yeah talking about chip, mine would come with an Apple-X chip. All I want to know, is if there's a way to put a switch on this chip.

And thanks for everyone reply.
 
Speevy said:
I've never used a my PC monitor for this sort of thing. Do I have to own any special kind of monitor?

Not really. From what I hear, the Xbox 360 VGA cable will let you output at a resolution as low as 640x480. Ideally though, you should have a monitor that supports at least 1280x720 for a "true" high definition picture (720p).
 
As far as specific chip questions or programs, I would spend a little time at xbox-scene reading a couple faqs. Tons of info. I basically picked a chip and a big hd and had someone install it for me so I'm too noobish on the technical side to give big advice. I tried using my system on Live and it worked fine, but I can boot up as a normal xbox. If that's important to you, make sure your chip supports it (most modern ones do).
 
Another question :

What are the most popular XBL games to this day? Games that are still played a lot (beside the obvious Halo 2).
 
Battlefield 2 is pretty big right now. I noticed that 360 games are dominating the top 10 list they put out. If you go to xbox.com their is a ranking someplace.
 
Definitely get one. Its DivX/Xvid/anybloodyformatyouthrowatit capabilities are completely unrivaled. I could never go back to any other media player. It seriously does like 10x more than its nearest rival, making playback of nearly any goddamn file and subtitle and language track you wish to play on it possible with a couple of button presses. And then there's all the other stuff it does.
 
I am thinking on getting one just to play JSRF...I owned the game for years and I want to play it...The 360 BC news made me decide to not get one.
 
ourumov said:
I am thinking on getting one just to play JSRF...I owned the game for years and I want to play it...The 360 BC news made me decide to not get one.

I wanted to get an Xbox then heard about 360 backward compatibility then decided to wait for that then learned it was a mess then decided it was no longer worth it to buy a Xbox then heard about 360 problems then decided to not buy anything for awhile.

A confusing situation deserves a confusing sentence.
 
Crimson Skies is one of my most favorite videogame experiences of alltime. It's definately worth checking out. It has that je ne sais pas quo
 
That's a steal even if it didn't play games... For XBMC alone.

 
ShowDog said:
I wanted to get an Xbox then heard about 360 backward compatibility then decided to wait for that then learned it was a mess then decided it was no longer worth it to buy a Xbox then heard about 360 problems then decided to not buy anything for awhile.

A confusing situation deserves a confusing sentence.
I did not create that situation...it was Microsoft's poor implementation of a feature like BC.
 
callous said:
Je ne sais pas quo? Is that some sort of bastard variation of je ne c'est quoi?
First of all, it's "sais" [to know] and not "c'est" [it is]; and actually, without the "pas" it is colloquial... even though i know most leave it out, it is technically incorrect.

Je ne sais quoi. = "I know what." (note that "ne" is not a word, but a signal for a negation to come, and since you dropped the "pas" you have not negated... pas is but one of many negations btw [jamais, etc.]).

Je ne sais pas quoi. = "I know not what." (pas = "not"; it is your negation).

So, no.. the bastardization [literally] is the other way. "Je ne sais pas quoi" is proper French.

P.S. I now fully expect blimblim to come in here and own us all. :D
 
radioheadrule83 said:
Hell yes. Xbox + XBMC + Wireless link to the DivX movies on my PC = best thing I've ever done with a machine in the living room.

Mine streams from a network HDD, so you dont' even need your PC on. Lovely lovely lovely

Buy one now.
 
I was dead set against getting an Xbox till I finally broke down and picked up the Halo editon april '04.

Crimson Skies
Rallisport Challenge 2
Otogi
Panzer Dragoon Orta

These were the only reasons I had to buy it at the time, just these 4 alone are worth owning the system imo. Of course I've since expanded my collection but none have topped those 4 for me. The biggest games on the system have been the biggest disappointments for me though.
 
Himuro said:
I seriously want an xbox. I'm going to buy a 100 dollar xbox in a few days from a friend.

I was also wondering about modifications. There's so many mod chips and dashboards I don't know what to choose. All I know is that I want to boot it up like a normal xbox.

Also, how much do chips usually cost? Can a soft modded xbox do all the same things a hard modded xbox can do?

I used the splinter cell 'method' on a friends Xbox and got everything I had on my 'hard'-modded Xbox running on his just fine. I wasn't quite sure how to make it permenantly boot straight to a custom dashboard or XBMC like mine did, so sometimes it booted to a Linux shell, but that wasnt a problem for him, he just manually loaded the appropriate dash from there.

After having gotten banned on XBL for modding my system, and then actually breaking my Xbox by trying to reflash my Eeprom (which feasably got you unbanned as though you'd bought a new system at the time), I really wish I'd soft-modded mine in the end.

Having said that, some of these new chips - with the XBox Live lock outs and switches - they sound really great too.
 
shpankey said:
First of all, it's "sais" [to know] and not "c'est" [it is]; and actually, without the "pas" it is colloquial... even though i know most leave it out, it is technically incorrect.

Je ne sais quoi. = "I know what." (note that "ne" is not a word, but a signal for a negation to come, and since you dropped the "pas" you have not negated... pas is but one of many negations btw [jamais, etc.]).

Je ne sais pas quoi. = "I know not what." (pas = "not"; it is your negation).

So, no.. the bastardization [literally] is the other way. "Je ne sais pas quoi" is proper French.

P.S. I now fully expect blimblim to come in here and own us all. :D


You don't need the "pas" when you speak. "Je ne sais quoi..." is an expression, therefore you don't need the pas. The "pas" is "sous-entendu".

But you're right, Je ne sais pas quoi is proper French.
 
Soft-modding an Xbox is the easiest thing in the world with the latest installers, if you have a memory card, Xbox->usb adapter and either Mechassault, Splinter Cell or 007: agent under fire.
It has all the functionality of hard-mods too.
 
Littleberu said:
You don't need the "pas" when you speak. "Je ne sais quoi..." is an expression, therefore you don't need the pas. The "pas" is "sous-entendu".

But you're right, Je ne sais pas quoi is proper French.
"Je ne sais quoi" is also proper french. But it's an exception (like many others) to the usual french usage. It's "une expression toute faite" that just can't be used in any other way than for this exact meaning.
 
The guy got the Xbox at launch, but he said he didn't have any problem with the drive.

When did the drives began to be shit? I heard many stories about drives being dick and not wanting to play DVD.
 
shpankey said:
So, no.. the bastardization [literally] is the other way. "Je ne sais pas quoi" is proper French.

Aha. Thanks for the thorough explanation. I was merely going by google which, going by what you say (and I believe you), shows that 99% of people who aren't French are doing it all wrong.
 
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