Let me welcome you to the 360 family, Angela. Maybe you can plus sell me a PS3 sometime . . .

Thank you.

Where'd you find that deal?

My local game shop had it used.  I can go see if they have another copy if you're interested, though it seems most retailers are selling it new for thirty bucks now.

I made a direct wired connection just long enough to create my profile, grab the BioShock 1.1 patch, and browse the Marketplace real quick.  Funny how I'm just getting accustomed to the current Dashboard's look, and then they're going to be changing everything up next month. 

Anyway, my profile is aliu2008.  For uniformity's sake, I've posted it on the PS3/Xbox 360 tag thread as well.

well, if someone is interested I have wireless 360 adapter(official one, by microsoft), for $60 in mint condition.

Angela,
Are you sure your Xbox Gamertag is actually on Xbox Live?  I tried adding your a_liu2008 tag, and it's not going through.

^

Same here. In fact, I wasn't even given the option of putting in a _.

Yikes, scratch the underscore.  I could've sworn I had put one in when I created the gamertag, but then remembered that, yeah, it actually doesn't support it.

Sorry 'bout that.  I've gone ahead and edited the two other posts.

Just a cautious heads-up that the NXE update has been leaked online and is available for download.  Using it before the official 11/19 release comes with a number of caveats.  The major one is that you won't be able to connect to Live AT ALL until the official 11/19 release - which means no online play, no accessing your Friends list, and no marketplace shopping.  The avatars feature isn't quite functioning yet either. 

Personally, I'm still deciding whether I want to make the jump or not.  I'm a Silver user at the moment, and there aren't any demos or games I really need to try out right now.  I seriously want to try out the full games installation feature on my 120GB hard-drive, and reap the apparent benefits of quicker load times.  (The loading in Dead Rising is so awful, it's making me cry.)  My only fear is if Microsoft really does decide to do permanent banning of Live accounts, which though seems unlikely, is still a distinct possibility.

It's only 2 weeks away, just wait it out

You must be mistaking me for someone with patience. >_>  I went ahead and installed the update.  Went off without a hitch - no problems to report so far. 

The new Dashboard looks spiffy.  I especially like the way the Achievements page looks now - they use a row-by-row thumbnail format, and it's much easier and quicker to navigate than the old way.  I installed BioShock and Dead Rising, which clocked in at 6.1 and 6.6 GB respectively.  The load times between areas in BioShock are noticeably shorter, but it's Dead Rising that sees a tremendous improvement; its load times now take, at most, 2-3 seconds.  Very speedy.  At last, I can play the game proper now.  ^_^

But the best part is not having to hear that disc drive's whirl.  Its loudness genuinely frightens me with concern.

Talk about a quick finish, and women say that men "can't last".

Mine's been quiet, but recently, I've gotten that pretty loudly. I blew out the vents in the unit, just to be safe.

first thing I will install, will be RB2 and maybe GHWT.
ps.any serious RockBand player should go right away and get AC/DC expansion pack, it's totally amazing.

Yup, I'm definitely loving that. One complaint: The opening for Highway to Hell is basically a jam session (live performance), so half the time I fail it before I get to the actual song. Oh, and that Thunderstruck riff...*shakes fist*. I love Heatseeker though. And the "big three" from Back in Black of course. Worth the cost, since it's basically what you'd pay to download the songs from XBL and a lot of these are songs I really wanted to see in there. More classic hard rock is always welcome in these games.

I'm tempted to bust out the mic for the first time in awhile.

I grabbed the NXE last night and so far it's pretty nice.  I didn't put a whole lot of time into it, installing games and whatnot, so I can't say that it's insanely better just yet. 

My current avatar

I figured it'd be fun to share our avatars (it's like the Mii all over again) and that one mostly looks like me.  The nose isn't quite right, but it'll do for now. 

Strangely, after viewing Angela's profile on the NXE, my system froze. 0_o  Hope they fix that in a future update.  Tonight I'll be installing the last two discs of Lost Odyssey, Kameo, and Bullet Witch.  It's such a refreshing change to not have my TV compete with the volume of the xbox.

Ack, hope that isn't because I'm still using the leaked version.  But then, I haven't been on Live since early this month, and as such, I haven't downloaded the official update yet.  Will probably attempt to do so tonight - here's hoping nothing goes wrong! 

Looking forward to messing around with the avatars.  How did you get yours to export as an image that way?  Is there an option on Live?

I meant to ask, how is Kameo?  I saw it dirt cheap at my local game store.  Worth a pick up?

And  Bullet Witch. Play gave it a pretty good review. How is it?

I haven't played either of them yet (darn you Valkyria Chronicles!), but I've heard they're decent.  Kameo especially.  I believe both of them can be found for relatively cheap (<$10) at gamestop, or even cheaper if you look elsewhere. 

Apparently the system freezing is a problem that Microsoft has to issue as it's been reported on other systems as well, so rest easy Angela.

Oh, and to get your own avatar, you have to use this URL:

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/GAMER … r-body.png

...where "GAMERTAG" is replaced by your xbox name.  For example, mine is "The B4sh" so I input the following:  "http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/the B4sh/avatar-body.png".  It's as easy as that.

I played... maybe a third to a half of Kameo at a friend's place and had a blast with it.  Absolutely cannot wait to pick it back up once I have my own 360.  Has anyone seen a better Black Friday deal for the system than the Target $60 gift card with purchase?

Right-o, here we are:

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/aliu2 … r-body.png

A decent likeness, I suppose - though a bit more tweaking is likely in order.  I like how your avatar can double as your Gamertag; it was a whole lot of fun getting that right snapshot of a glasses-free me. 

All right.  So my 360 Live avatar is also functioning as my Gamertag - and in turn, my Gamertag is now also serving as my STC avatar.   Savvy? :)

One thing I've just noticed about the 360.  You get a surprisingly long battery life out of the wireless controller -- assuming you turn off the vibration.  When I first got the system, I had the batteries last about a week with the vibration on.  Since then, I've turned off the vibration, and now, even after a month of nearly every day lengthy play sessions, that second set of batteries still shows a full four-bar status.   

After experiencing the mad battery draining power of the Wiimotes, and even the relatively short life of a Dual Shock 3/Six Axis's charge, this comes as a very pleasant surprise.

Yeah, the Wiimote drinks up batteries like crazy, so I eventually got a rechargeable one, but in my experience the PS3 controller lasts quite long. I don't have rumble though.

Wiimotes last a bit longer with the vibration turned off and the speaker volume lowered too.

Assigning the same conditions across all three console controllers (vibration turned off, the Wiimote's speaker on mute), I've found the 360 to have the longest battery life.  By a long shot. 

I can't say if the Six Axis and the Dual Shock 3 with vibration turned off have the same life per charge, but they've felt about the same.

On-topic. I took advantage of the Memory Upgrade Program (many kudos to Microsoft for thinking of us Core Users) and created my avatar today, and this is the, rather accurate, result:

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/zolbr … r-body.png

Sorry ladies, I'm already taken

RISE FROM YOUR GWAVE

As I said elsewhere, I've a 360 now. Picked up a used wireless adaptor (at insane cost...*grumph* *growph*) and a bunch of games (if you're curious, Banjo-Kazooie, Blue Dragon, Kameo, and Lost Odyssey) but was hoping system stalwarts could educate me on some points.

1. I plan on resting the deck horizontally on a milk crate with a fan blowing on its butt, as I do with my PS3. Is this a decent guard from That-Which-Is-Crimson-and-Must-Not-Be-Named?

2. I understand a "Gamertag" makes what you've played and for how long readily available, an idea too 1984 for my liking. Any way to hide or delete the annoying feature?

3. Do I have to pay to access XBLA, and can its downloadables be played offline? Also, do Achievement Points do anything or are they there for bragging? Could I trade Points for downloadable content, for instance?

Thanks in advance.

Bit the bullet for that damned adapter, eh?  Still haven't picked up one for myself yet, but I am trying that workaround method where you can use your laptop's wireless as a bridge.  Not sure if it's going to be worth the hassle, though.....

It sounds like a good idea in practice -- but would even a fan be enough to penetrate the hard shell casing of either system to get at the core guts?  What model/manufacturer's make did you get, by the way?  If you've got a system with a make that postdates 8/24/2007, you've got the Falcon motherboard.  That's good.  If you've got the latest with the 256MB internal memory storage, you've got the Jasper.  That's even better.

I'm thinking that all you need to do is sign out of your initially-created profile.  Though I'm not sure why you'd want to; you're going to need it if you ever go on Live for purchases or online play.  And even if you never go online (but you did purchase a wireless adapter after all, right?), why wouldn't you want to keep track of your gaming records and earned Achievements?  That's half the fun of the 360 experience, and one I'd suspect you scoff at now, but will readily warm up to soon enough.  Same thing happened to me.

I made the same type of inquiry somewhere in this thread.  Stephen readily replied:

To summarize, yes, you can stick with the free Silver if all you'll be doing is purchasing downloadable content and playing them offline.  (You'll still need to buy up MS points for any kind of purchases, though.)  I myself signed up for Gold for a couple of months, just to see how it is.   Needed to anyway, since I've been dying to check out the multiplayer modes for Gears 2 and Call of Duty: World At War. 

Achievement points aren't redeemable in any way, so yes, they are there largely for bragging purposes.  But like I stated in the VIDEO GAMES 2008 thread, it's a great idea that I myself initially thought of as trite.   It really adds another strata to your games, where you'll find yourself WANTING to attain those Achievements, if for nothing more than to prove your own self-worth.  There's fewer joys than nailing a hard-to-get one, and then having it officially emblazoned on your Profile for all-time.

As far as the system goes, it's apparently a Pro Model, Falcon 175w Rev A. Damned if I know what that amounts to, but it sounds OK.

On the gamertag issue, mostly it's just me bristling at being monitored. I deleted the Nintendo Channel from my Wii for the same reason. I'll play Bubsy from time to time, but it's not necessarily something I want to broadcast to strangers online, you know? Worse still, what if a friend gives me a game I wind up despising, and he looks me up to find I haven't played it since I got it, and then for not much more than an hour? Maybe I'll turn a corner, as you say, but until then I want to learn how to play close to the vest.

Thanks for answering.

Here, I think this is worth a post.  Grabbed this really useful specs chart from Neogaf, detailing the various 360 models:

---

Xenon
Launched Approx: November 2005
CPU: 90nm
GPU: 90nm
HDMI: No
Power Supply: 203w

This is the launch console, the console that was given a huge amount of bad press due to the Red Rings Of Death problems where a large percentage of consoles would die from an overheating GPU that would pop out of its socket.

Zephyr
Launched Approx: July 2007
CPU: 90nm
GPU: 90nm
HDMI: Yes
Power Supply: 203w

This revised edition brought in a HDMI socket that was causing an outcry of whether it was a true High Definition machine if it didnt have a HDMI socket. It didn't provide any cure for the RROD issue other than the use of epoxy glue to hold the GPU down better. It did, however, bring about a 3 year warranty for the RROD issue.

Falcon
Launched Approx: September 2007
CPU: 65nm
GPU: 90nm
HDMI: Yes
Power Supply: 175w

This version of the Xbox 360 brought about a smaller, cooler CPU. As this was not the chip causing the RROD, it was considered to be little effect at combating the RROD issue.  However, it did bring a lower power consumption, and the cheaper smaller CPU allowed flexibility for price reductions.

Opus
Launched Approx: June 2008
CPU: 65nm
GPU: 90nm
HDMI: No
Power Supply: 175w

This version was released to allow Microsoft to refit the old Xenon consoles that were returned with RROD issues with an updated version of the Falcon. The problem with the Falcon was it had HDMI support and yet the old Xenon never had HDMI when launched so the console case was incompatible. Microsoft had thousands of old Xenon consoles coming in and having to be replaced with brand new consoles while the old broken consoles just mounted up in storage. With Opus (Falcon minus HDMI), it was to allow refurbishing of these old consoles when RROD issues occurred. This reduces the number of old consoles to be scrapped and allows the replacement of the Xenon>Opus board rather than the entire console, thus saving Microsoft millions in not having to replace entire consoles (case and other parts).

Jasper
Launched Approx: September 2008 onwards
CPU: 65nm
GPU: 65nm
HDMI: Yes
Power Supply: 150w

The Jasper is the first proper attempt to combat the RROD issue by finally having a smaller, cooler and hopefully more reliable GPU. The issue of the RROD was the overheating and eventual disconnecting of the GPU, and the Jasper should go a long way towards making the Xbox 360 a lot more reliable with regards this particular issue.  Because of the cooler CPU and GPU and possible further reduction in power supply, it is believed that the internal cooling will be revised and as such will lead to a much quieter Xbox360.

Valhalla
Launched Approx: Late 2009
CPU: 65nm or 45nm
GPU: 65nm or 45nm
HDMI: Yes
Power Supply: Unknown

Valhalla is predicted to be the final (or at least scheduled) revision of the Xbox 360 before the next generation Xbox is launched. Apart from the possibility of the CPU and GPU being further reduced to 45nm, reducing cost of production (which will help with price decreases in retail), it is believed that both the GPU and CPU will share the same piece of board together. The benefits of this (along with the reduced need for cooling systems with a much cooler 45nm chip) is that the entire internal board within the console takes up a great deal less space (possible as much as 30% less), and as such the Valhalla could lead to a Xbox 360 Slim version.  Due to the hard drive limitations, it is believed that it will be shortened along its long length rather than its narrower width leading to a machine up to 30% shorter when stood upright.  With a smaller design, smaller cooling systems and lower power supply, it is believed this could be the most reliable, smallest and quietest of the Xbox 360 family.

Now, if they could just put the damn wi-fi in the box, I'd be all set. :-)

Nice info there, it seems that waiting will have paid off in the end, since any potential XB360 I end up buying will be the better Jasper or Valhalla version.
The less noise & heat the better!

Well, I'm up. My Mii60 looks a bit older than I'd like it to, but whatever. I also bought some Arcade titles (Banjo, Braid, MM9 - yes, again - and Portal: Still Alive, which seemed a better idea than buying the Orange Box to play it), but only had a shot at Banjo so far. My ventilation solution seems to be working, since I was on for a good 4 hours and it wasn't even a little warm after I finished. Off to put tags in the appropriate thread.

Does Still Alive actually include the original Portal?  I thought it was just the expansion missions.

Son, you need to go out and get the Orange Box, ASAP!
Half-life 2 is fantastic!