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Microsoft Xbox 360

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15961

Microsoft Confirms Xbox 360 Arcade Bundle Release

Microsoft Confirms Xbox 360 Arcade Bundle Release Officials from Microsoft have finally confirmed the price and release date of the much anticipated “Arcade” model of the Xbox 360 console, which is due for release in the U.S. and Europe this week at a price of $279.99/£199.99.

Like the Core, the Arcade will not feature a hard drive, although it will include a 256MB memory card. Also included is a wireless controller (unlike the wired version from the Core bundle) a HDMI port (but no cable) and five pre-loaded Xbox Live Arcade titles: Pac-Man Championship Edition, Uno, Luxor 2, Boom Boom Rocket and Feeding Frenzy.
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Nice to see the UK getting ripped off as usual, $279 actually converts to £136, British people have to pay more because of their greater understanding of irony?


So here it will either be $409SG if converted from the US price or $600SG if converted from the UK price

Considering you can get an Elite here for $799SG it's not worth it if it's the UK price......
 
The handling is really poor, it's very hard to glide around a corner. It's so stiff, you're braking and pushing to turn and the car just won't move. You have to use the handbrake on every single corner... It's not fun and it's not a simulation, so it's not much good really is it?

The graphics are gorgeous though, truly brilliant.
 
Damn, my brother's 360 has just got its 3 red lights. He's had it since last Christmas and has been played every day so it has done well by 360 standards. Can't send it back to MS either with it being flashed.
 
if you do that it will only go again

it needs reflowing and if that dont work then reballing
 
Well reports from those tutorials are that it's a permanent fix for 90%+ certainly more permanent than MS' refurbished units, friend of mine got his replaced by MS and the replacement failed in 2 hours......
 
Not sure what my Dad will do with my brothers 360, I'm not sure if he'll have the patience to want to fix it. He (my Dad, he was the one who bought it) was pretty angry at a console failing after ten months and said he doesn't trust MS anymore, would rather get a PS3 as they're a more reliable machine.

I told him there's hardly any games at present and he'd be better buying a new 360 with the new board, he didn't seem to want anything to do with MS though.
 
^^Snoop^^ said:
Not sure what my Dad will do with my brothers 360, I'm not sure if he'll have the patience to want to fix it. He (my Dad, he was the one who bought it) was pretty angry at a console failing after ten months and said he doesn't trust MS anymore, would rather get a PS3 as they're a more reliable machine.

I told him there's hardly any games at present and he'd be better buying a new 360 with the new board, he didn't seem to want anything to do with MS though.
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Well I have had abit of a ding dong about this with Coopz in the past, BUT if you tamper with your console, you void your warranty at your OWN risk, whether its flashing your drive, or chipping machines in the past. Especially now that MS give you 3 years RROD cover. I cannot show any concern for this, you flash your drive for one reason and one only, getting free or cheap games and thus 'saving' money. People who say its to play back ups talk shit.

I have a chipped PS2 and an original XB that has a bigger HD and chipped, but I also have perfectly intact original machines. The chipped PS2 was to play patched WE's, but I also bought the WE's. My extra XB I used for LAN games, and put it on my bedroom tv, so I still had the original games for playing LAN. It's a really big debate, and guess it shouldnt be in this thread, but for flashing your drive, I dont see any other outcome other than playing pirated games, and I dont mean the Carribean type games either. ;)
 
Mine isn't flashed, but with 3 of my games being cracked due to the 360... I really wish I flashed it, becasue its a bloody hassle to get a replacement esp. if the game is 1+ year old, its "out of warranty" so to speak.
 
Aye, it is a big debate, quite a lot I could say on it but nobody is ever right in these debates :)

The basics of it is that my brother has learning difficulties and is unable to work so plays games all day, so my parents have to support him. My parents aren't particularly loaded with money and can't afford to go and pay £40 a game for him. Remembering he's in the house all day on his own, he gets games and gets bored playing the same games, so flashing his drive was our best option.

I used to have a flashed 360, but it started to develop disc-reading errors so I sold it. Bought an Elite since and have no intention of flashing it. I figured there isn't THAT many quality games that I'd play enough to warrant a purchase so I figured I'd keep it unflashed and buy the games that are worth the money. Also covering myself for the RLOD.

It's just one of those things when you modify your machine, you're aware of the risk and my brother and Dad were aware of it when I flashed his drive. They knew if it cocked up after flashing that they didn't have much to complain about, it's the risk you take and it was bound to happen. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner if I'm being honest.
 
Placebo said:
Well reports from those tutorials are that it's a permanent fix for 90%+ certainly more permanent than MS' refurbished units, friend of mine got his replaced by MS and the replacement failed in 2 hours......
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I have had the xclamps done and it went again after 3 months some lasts longer but its far from permanent if use use your 360 abit

All it does is stop the board bending and losing contact with the chip. But flowing and reballing does this properly. Its microsofts shoddy soldering jobs that have caused this mess in the first place

ill dig a picture out and show ya what i mean
 
this is Microsofts soldering, this is why you need to push the chip into the board with the Xclamp

gpuoxidacoesfb8.jpg


And this is what it should be like and is after reballing needing no clamping

ownedforumuoljt2.jpg


The only reason i know this is becuase my Xbox has been breaking regurarly over the past year and half and i have had to fix it myself

as i say the xclamps worked and still do to an extent but i get regular freezes and its often accompanied by the 3RLOD when i switch it back on. My 360 atm dosnt have a case on it because im constantly inside it fixing it

All im doing now is waiting for it to break agian so i can send it to get reflowed/reballed
 
^^Snoop^^ said:
Can flowing and reballing be done by anyone?
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No only specialists

i have found a 360 one though (after alot of searching) for £75 inc delivery which i have found out the hard way is £20 a time anyway 1 way :)

and a 270 day warranty if you add another £10

http://www.undercutter.co.uk/khxc/ccp0-prodshow/Repair14.html

So when mine breaks again im getting it done, i just wish i hadnt sent it to GTA eletronics when it first broke ages ago. All they did was heat gun it to melt the solder back to the board which is another temp fix. Thats just an alterative of the towel trick if you want a free 3 month fix :)
 
A new model Arcade will cost £175 or less now though. You can sell a RLOD 360 console alone for £40 or so on eBay, sell other parts like the power pack, keep the HDD. Wouldn't cost you much more than £75 and you get a brand new chipset.
 
360's IPTV features spotted in dashboard
xbox360-iptv-rumor3.jpg

Several images of IPTV options being displayed in the Xbox 360's dashboard have made their way into the blogosphere, courtesy of our pals* at X3F. According to tipster Aaron, the console recently returned from the oft-visited Microsoft repair center, only to display several new and seemingly incomplete menu additions. Appearing under the Media and System blades, mentions of DVR storage, live television services and pause buffers all seem to imply that the Xbox 360's IPTV services are close enough for us to start using words like "impending."
xbox360-iptv-rumor1.jpg

If these images are indeed proof of premature tweaks to the console (which still shows an older dashboard version number), one can speculate that IPTV may be introduced with this Fall's dashboard update. We've already asked Microsoft to comment, but if they treat this anything like the Arcade SKU, we can expect them to deny it until well after everybody's started watching TV on their consoles.
xbox360-iptv-rumor4.jpg
 
my 360 is freezing pretty much 10 times a day now and i'm getting the 3 red lights after rebooting it. i can still play on it a fair bit so at the minute it's not critical...

i'm gonna do the mkIII x-clamp replacement fix.

just need to get to BnQ now!
 
i thought i only needed some screws, bolts and washers!

it seems i need a drill too!

daz, could you tell me exactly what tools you used? can you remember? did you need a drill?
 
I would love to know as well, for the future lol!
Mine is perfect so far, never had any problems and have had it since June 2006.

It all looked good, until the dirlling bit. Haven't done that for ages.
 
Spunk_of_MJ said:
i thought i only needed some screws, bolts and washers!

it seems i need a drill too!

daz, could you tell me exactly what tools you used? can you remember? did you need a drill?
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Yeah you need to drill the bottom

You need a ratchet, screwdriver, a T10 screwdriver to get it open
and you could do with some Artic Silver 5 thermal paste to put on the GPU and CPU when you put it all back together

heres the best guide for it

http://rbjtech.bulldoghome.com/pages/rbjtech_bulldoghome_com/XClampIII.htm

Your best to use a shim as well which is shown at the bottom
 
Scene It demo on Xbox Live

Got the family or friends around? Then go test the Scene It demo now on Xbox Live. Sure, you won't get the fancy big controllers that come with the game (pictured), but it's a good chance to see if it'll be worth picking up this holiday season. The only thing it says in the Xbox Marketplace description currently is "sell," but if the full game is anything like the demo they'll have no problems doing that. Scene It can either be family friendly fare of diabolic drinking game.

The full Scene It is expected Nov. 6 and will retail for $60, which includes the four big button controllers. There is currently no other announced use in the future for these controllers beyond Scene It and its guaranteed XBM expansion packs. We're just going to go ahead and say it again: We want XBLA You Don't Know Jack!
 
I still fucking hate the expression "holiday season" with a sincere passion, there are 4 seasons, 5 if you must include Fall, there is no fucking holiday season for fucks sake!

Next week, more things to make a grown man irrationally angry......
 
Is anyone using the official MS Component cable? I've been told by Sirius that to use my TV in 1080i it can only be done via HDMI or component, HDMI isn't possible due to it being an old core so I'll have to get a component cable.

Jack I think it was said some time ago that the official component cable offers much worse image quality than the official VGA cable, is that true for everyone with every tv? Currently I'm using the VGA cable and running at 1280x1024.....
 
It's not true for everyone, some people (Coopz, although he has a projector, and someone else who has a projection TV, and someone else who I forget) have grainy flashy images through VGA. But if your TV supports VGA properly then you're missing out. Most TVs I've seen component through are really horribly blurred compared to VGA - but if you've never seen the 360's VGA through a TV, then you won't notice that it's blurry. So you'll probably be okay.
 
Well right now I'm running at 1280x1024 and it looks pretty good but curious if 1080i is better, gonna buy a second hand cable for about £12 and see how it looks.....
 
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