The 360 thread!

[Jonesey]

Wonder how much the 60gb HD is on its own. I am fairly tempted to pick up a new Arcade, retire the Pro to the living room as a media player.

Knowing Microsoft it'll still be stupidly expensive for what it is - if I had to put money on it i'd say they'll be charging between £80 and £120 just for the 60GB drive, which is really stupid when you consider the reductions in the cost of the consoles themselves.

I ended up using this guide to upgrade my 20GB drive to 120GB using a specific SATA laptop drive. Thus far it all seems to be working just fine and of course i've still got my old 20GB drive just in case I ever need to revert back - and i've also got the warm fuzzy feeling that i've not handed over cash to the evil Microsoft.

Nice.

I took the more costly and unadventurous route of buying from ebuyer.

It does include a migration kit in the box, though. Worked without any problems and took about an hour. But for some strange reason I'm only left with 100gig - I mean what does it do, copy everything including the unused space as - well - unusable space?

[Flabio]

A percentage is reserved by the system for use as a file system cache.

[Phineasfool]

A percentage is reserved by the system for use as a file system cache.

Isn't there a chunk set aside for the backwards compatibility as well?

[benedictw]

A percentage is reserved by the system for use as a file system cache.

Isn't there a chunk set aside for the backwards compatibility as well?

10Gb from memory. Personally I would appreciate it if the new dashboard allowed me to format that chunk as normal HD - then I wouldn't need a bigger hd at all. *Wishes*

[benedictw]

I ended up using this guide to upgrade my 20GB drive to 120GB using a specific SATA laptop drive. Thus far it all seems to be working just fine and of course i've still got my old 20GB drive just in case I ever need to revert back - and i've also got the warm fuzzy feeling that i've not handed over cash to the evil Microsoft.

Is this 'safe'? I'm put off by any theoretical bannage if I go on live etc.

[Phineasfool]

A percentage is reserved by the system for use as a file system cache.

Isn't there a chunk set aside for the backwards compatibility as well?

10Gb from memory. Personally I would appreciate it if the new dashboard allowed me to format that chunk as normal HD - then I wouldn't need a bigger hd at all. *Wishes*

Seems a bit high as the 20GB usually have 13GB free when there is nothing on them from the user.

[benedictw]

Yeah, its around 6-7 Gb from reading around. Never answer a question first thing in the morning.

Japanese HW sales last week.(8->14th) (360 out of stock in Japan until 11th).

• Xbox 360: 28,681 units
• Wii: 27,057 units
• PLAYSTATON 3: 8,050 units

The end is NIGH!!!

[Flabio]

Been out of stock for a few weeks, they've also dropped the price.

Seems people there really wanted to play Tales of Vesperia (and from the video of it I've seen, who can blame them?)

[PVB]

I took the more costly and unadventurous route of buying from ebuyer.

It does include a migration kit in the box, though.

It doesn't mention the migration kit (and cable?) on that page, so was it listed on the box, as it's not usually included?

[Jonesey]

I took the more costly and unadventurous route of buying from ebuyer.

It does include a migration kit in the box, though.

It doesn't mention the migration kit (and cable?) on that page, so was it listed on the box, as it's not usually included?

It's all in there. One of those awkward, heat-sealed plastic boxes that require nuclear scissors to open. Inside is the 120HDD, 2 instructions booklets, a disk, and a transfer cable. In the picture you can see part of the cable to the right of the HDD - looks like a thick, black, vertical line.

[Phineasfool]

I took the more costly and unadventurous route of buying from ebuyer.

It does include a migration kit in the box, though.

It doesn't mention the migration kit (and cable?) on that page, so was it listed on the box, as it's not usually included?

Actually it is included in all new 120GB HDDs. I had bought a used one myself though (to save a bunch and get it for under $100) and had to use a memory card to slowly transfer data over.

[chub]

There are a couple of new demos on XBLM now, for Mercenaries 2 and Fracture.

Also I read that next Friday there will a demo for Mirror's Edge, a game I rather like the look of, so it'll be good to try it.

[WiredWorm]

Is this 'safe'? I'm put off by any theoretical bannage if I go on live etc.

I did wonder about that myself and I considered it for a long time before I went ahead.

In the end I figured that it would be difficult for them to detect the changes i've made. I'm assuming that anything that would link the drive to the console is probably done during the format stage anyway as it's when you come to do this that it asks you to provide the Xbox Serial Number - not sure quite why - it could be some kind of 'linking' process that takes place or it could just be so that people don't accidentally format their drives. Not sure to be honest.

[chub]

I thought the Mercenaries 2 demo was fun, in a 'take your brain out and and blow up everything' way. I might pick this up sometime for some mindless carnage.

I didn't like the Fracture demo much though. It came across to me as 'generic futuristic shooter with gimmick'. In fact it reminded me of Timeshift in that regard. I tried to use the landscaping gun to create a mountain, but it only let me make a small mound of dirt. Hmm.

[The Captain]

Mercenaries 2 is woefully last gen - played the demo right after GTAIV and the gulf in quality is shocking. It's not even much fun, it's too clunky.

And Fracture should be called Shitpiler. An empty, soulless tech demo with a setting so generic it should be prefixed 'Tesco Value', save for the fact that it will be £50 like everything else.

Chub's right; Timeshift is a good comparison, and similarly vacuous. Maybe there should be a crossover game with all the gimmicks called ShitShifter.