[quote name='etcrane'] I'd say fundamentally this is probably your best bet at the moment for 360s. (Unless you want an Elite from Dell with their discount and don't care about the game extras that come in this bundle).[/quote]
Thanks for the great response etcrane, I really appreaciate it
I agree that for people who dont already own anything thats its a good deal however they must weigh the fact that one day they may not get back the red console as MS might send them a black one or white one if god forbid it does RROD after the initial 30 days.
For me personally however, it's almost a wash.
This is how I figure it (unless someone comes along and tells me that the Arcade is inferior somehow to the Elite when talking about build quality of the the XBOX 360 itself in which case I'd go in another direction):
Arcade - 200
120 gig HD - 150
= 350 + decent HDMI cable - ?? (say 20 bucks or less) = 370 total or maybe even cheaper
I think the Arcade has a wired controller but I already have 2 wireless so thats not important to me.
I have like 4 headsets so no need for another.
I already have a great component cable (old 360 didnt have HDMI port) so all I'd need is a decent HDMI cable and maybe an adapter for the optical out.
I have a 20 gig HDD which I will just keep it for now along with my RROD repaired 360 (should it ever finally get back to me) as a backup (or I may just get rid of that and keep the repaired console)
Now this is not taking into consideration about the games in the bundle (RE5 and SF2). But if you have a huge backlog like me then waiting for it to drop, and then grabbing it used cheap, isn't a big deal. SF2 isnt a big deal because I have all the originals from SNES, and have my old SNES ready to go for that, so its not needed.
Now, I wish I could just get this RE5 bundle and be done with it, but I am just not being convinced that for me its the right way to go given the lack of reliability of the system. I'd feel totally different if it was reliable since it'd be cool to have a special edition ala my Regular XBOX Halo Edition which is still solid after all this time. So, unless someone comes along and tells me that the Arcade is inferior somehow to the Elite when talking about internal component quality/build quality in anyway shape or form....