Many people both young or old and male or female have been patiently waiting for the much anticipated release of the XBOX 360. The scheduled release date is November 22, 2005. Hopefully, this date will not change. Although the release is so highly anticipated, many people have some anger towards Microsoft. This is because the XBOX 360 will be released in two consoles. Each console will offer different things and will be priced differently.

The first console is the XBOX 360 Premium Edition, which is priced at a whopping $399.99. It comes with a 20 GB hard drive, wireless controller, face plate, headset, component HD-TV cable, XBOX live silver membership, and a universal media remote that allows you to play DVDS, music, and access Windows XP Media Center.

The second console offered is the XBOX 360 Core System. This is offered at $299.99. It comes with a wired controller, faceplate, standard AV cable, and an XBOX live silver membership. Microsoft offers this console so that people can afford a cheaper system. Although it is priced $100 cheaper, some people feel this is a poor value.

This poor value is described mostly because the XBOX 360 Core System does not come with the hard drive. The hard drive is needed to store the games. It acts as the memory. (For those of you who are not “gamer savvy” it means that your progress in a game cannot be saved and you will have to play it over and over each time you turn on the machine). The only way to solve this problem is to buy a memory card. Memory cards are $39.99. So in reality, if you buy the XBOX 360 Core system, you will still have to pay $339 just to play your games. So it really isn’t saving you any money. Or, you can even buy the hard drive separately for $99.99. But that wouldn’t make much sense because you won’t get all of the other stuff that the XBOX 360 Premium Edition comes with, and it will end up costing the same.

For most people, they don’t really care how much the XBOX 360 costs, they just want to get one. With the upcoming release date scheduled just before the official Christmas shopping begins, it may be a bit of a trifial just attempting to get one. Many gaming stores have already sold all of their XBOX 360 shipments and they haven’t even gotten the product in yet! Happy shopping!

By: Kristy Law