A Parent's Guide to Buying an Xbox360 Console

If you are thinking about purchasing an Xbox 360 as a gift for someone there are a few things that you should know. There are different types of Xbox 360s for sale right now and you should know exactly which type you are getting before you decide if it's a good deal. I'll give you a quick rundown on the products and then my personal recommendation. There are two main types of Xbox 360 consoles. There is the lower cost Arcade Console for $199.99 and the next level up Elite Console for $299.99.

First of all the lowest cost Xbox 360 console is going to be the Arcade console. This is the one that probably caught your eye first because it is consistently the cheapest. The basic package has a console and one controller and a 250 MB hard drive. That is a very small hard drive and not good for much of anything. If you just want to play video games and not use the system for much else including downloading demos/add-ons for your games or watching videos this may work for you. I would caution against it though because even with just saving progress in the Xbox 360 video games you may eventually use up this small amount of memory.

Now if you're thinking that you are going to wait and buy the hard drive later I would like to caution you. The 120 GB hard drive runs right around the $150.00 range. My point here is that if you buy the Xbox 360 Elite console which is the next level up you will get the 120GB hard drive and two relatively popular games for only $100.00 more.

That's not the only difference in the products. The Elite console also has an HDMI connection capability which the Arcade console lacks. It also comes with a free headset to talk to your friends during online gaming. The headset usually retails for $19.99 but is on Amazon for $9.99.So in the end if you purchase the Xbox 360 Arcade you may end up spending more money for less product.

Often you will find stores running promotions for the Xbox 360 Arcade to come with two games. These games are generally not very popular and you should keep in mind that you would get the hard drive and two games for the extra hundred dollars with the Xbox 360 Elite. I would urge you to check the ratings and reviews on Amazon.com for the games before purchasing. You can also check IGN.com or Gamespot.com for game reviews, just to name a few.

Lastly they usually have some kind of special edition console to coincide with a major game release. This generally has at least all of the bells and whistles of the Elite console. It you will usually cost more than the Elite console by at least $100. So at the time if this writing the special edition console is for Modern Warfare 2, it has 250 GB, and is four hundred dollars. That is a whole lot of memory for an Xbox 360 unless you are going to actually purchase movies and music to store on your system.

Needless to say I would recommend that you purchase the Elite console. Obviously Microsoft wants you to purchase the upgraded console so they make it the much better value. I choose to see it like that. You could also look at it as they charge way too much for that hard drive.

My other recommendation is that you check your local membership based warehouse chain. They usually bundle the products together so that you get a free item included that would normally be about a twenty dollar value. If they have nothing special included you can still usually get around eight to ten dollars off the cost.

One last thing that may help you is to know that an additional wireless controller is $49.99 but you can find them on Amazon for around $35.00. There is also a controller that is not wireless with a suggested retail price of $39.99 but is on Amazon.com for just under $30.00. The system can only support two non-wireless controllers at one time but can support up to four wireless controllers at once.

Anyone reading this article who may disagree with anything I've said or just have something they would like to add please leave a comment. It seems to me that many people could benefit from this knowledge when looking to purchase one of these systems. My main reason for writing this article is that many people purchase the Arcade console without knowing the difference and all of their options.