What the heck should I do? 360/PS3

Hi all.


I've had a Xbox 360 (fat 4 GB) for about 7 years....It's gone through 2 Red Rings but otherwise it's been fine until about two months ago where I've gotten the "Open Tray/Disk is Unreadable" error. After a few tries of resetting the system it would start playing. Eventually it was getting back to normal where it would boot up by powering on. Until today. Tried about 5 different games but I could never get it to start. I would never even get the game logo come on the menu.....just "Open Tray" after trying all day at random times I gave up. So I've been debating some options.

1.) Try one of those lens cleaner disks. Anyone have any experience with them?

2.) A new 360 system. Funds are kinda limited for me at the moment. (Saving for family vacation. Wife gave me the Death Stare when I asked to use the credit card..."You still have a Wii and a PSP....") I have $170 in credit at GS. I would love to get the Star Wars 360 but it's still at a high price) Kinect is not essential for me but I would like to get it cause I have a young daughter but I need a larger hard drive. I have about 15 360 games plus a few more on the hard drive. A bundle that liked nice for me was the Forza/Skyrim but even with my GS it's steep for me at the moment for $300.

3.) To hell with the 360! Go to Sony! If GS had the ACIII bundle for $240 at NewEgg right now I would go get that. I'm not tied down with Microsoft. I have Gold until the end of the year but I don't really play online with friends. I would love the GOW red system that is coming....but out of price range. But part of me would love to ship everything off to GS and see how much credit i can get and get a PS bundle. There are some Sony exclusives I would love to play. GOW/Uncharted/Last of US/Heavy Rain. I can't play FPS like Halo due to motion sickness anyways. I'm not sure how much my games/system/controllers will bring in but I can list em if anyone is interested.

I wish I had Amazon credit instead of GS cause I would love to wait for a Warehouse deal.


Any ideas/thoughts would be appreciated.

You could always take your 360 stuff to GS & just let them tell you how much you'd get for it all. With that current 50% bonus on games you might do alright, depending on what you have of course. And if you've never had a PS3, there are a ton of cheap exclusives you can catch up on.

does gamestop still sell amazon kindle gift cards? i believe in the past you could spend your gamestop credit on those, and since the credit on those cards could be used to buy anything on amazon it could effectively convert gamestop credit to amazon credit. i might be mistaken though.

if that doesnt work, and you dont want to buy another xbox, you might want to just go ahead and trade in all of your xbox stuff to gamestop and hopefully whatever they give you combined with your current credit can get you a ps3, and you can then get a playstation plus subscription. ps+ comes with a ton of great games that you can dl straight to your ps3 so it should keep you busy for quite some time.

You seem heavily invested in the 360 already, so fixing it is an ok option. But PS3 has soooo many great exclusives out of the FPS genre that you can get on the cheap if you're barely jumping on board. You can get the cheap packs they have like God of War, infamous, and Uncharted. Free online. Starship Troopers is awesome on blu ray. For less than 20 bucks you can score the Heavy Rain: Director's Cut, there's a list of stuff you can catch up on with ps3. When you get a GOTY edition or Complete edition, the extra stuff is usually on the disc NOT a voucher, and no more swapping discs if you care about that lol. This year, Last of Us and Beyond:Two Souls is coming out. PS3 is a slam dunk choice.

You can always sell your Gamestop gift cards. Hell I'd buy it at the right price and then you could just buy that system off of newegg.

If GS will do the extra $50 for the system trade in I'm thinking about doing a PS3 bundle. Either White or ACIII.

I was in the same boat as you and had almost the same reasoning. My 360 stills works though (3rd one but is acting up) but i really wanted Heavy Rain and uncharted but a couple other odd exclusives. I ended up buying the holiday bundle on black friday for $200 that gave me uncharted 1+2, infamous 1+2 and bonus game. I bought heavy rain and KillZone on my own for $15 each brand new. It was also the new super slim version. I had never had or played a ps3 till about 2 months ago.
After spending some time with it my conclusion is this: if i had the ps3 as my only system i wouldnt play it much and would have bought a 360 a long time ago. I find the system as a whole painfully slow. From bringing up the home screen to loading games to updates. Everything just takes much longer. I was always a little annoyed with the 360 always updating but flicking around the main menus was a breeze. It was something i took for granted till i got the ps3.
Really the only place the ps3 shines is a couple exclusives and the free online which doesnt seem to matter to you. The blueray is kinda nice since its my only one but it only becomes nice if im at redbox and the only copy of a movie they have is a blueray, other than that a standard dvd is more than enough for me.
The exclusives are cool but they dont have enough of them to keep me on the system. games for both systems seem to always play better on the 360.

[quote name='kit352']if i had the ps3 as my only system i wouldnt play it much and would have bought a 360 a long time ago. I find the system as a whole painfully slow. From bringing up the home screen to loading games to updates. Everything just takes much longer. I was always a little annoyed with the 360 always updating but flicking around the main menus was a breeze. It was something i took for granted till i got the ps3.
Really the only place the ps3 shines is a couple exclusives and the free online which doesnt seem to matter to you. The blueray is kinda nice since its my only one but it only becomes nice if im at redbox and the only copy of a movie they have is a blueray, other than that a standard dvd is more than enough for me.
The exclusives are cool but they dont have enough of them to keep me on the system. games for both systems seem to always play better on the 360.[/QUOTE]

I will second all of this. I think the PS3 is a great piece of hardware, hampered by some seriously bad decisions by Sony (marketing/UI design/I have to stare at a download screen?!?). I find myself playing Xbox far more than PS3, to the point where I am currently trying to get Xbox versions of all my PS3 games so that I can stick my PS3 in the bedroom as a Netflix box (to replace my Wii, currently serving as my Netflix box).

So many times when I start up the PS3 to play something I get frustrated and say to myself "Man, I never thought I would say that Microsoft beat Sony at gaming." I never even had an original Xbox. I was too busy playing my PS1/PS2. I figure the guy that made the PS1 and PS2 great must have died.

Just the other day, because I got $10 free, I was browsing the store on the PS3. It got slower, and slower, and slower, and then rebooted the PS3. Seriously?

It's all personal preference - I had both, and used the 360 so rarely that I traded it in last year and never missed it. I will say that the PS3 has far more than "a couple" of exclusives that make it worth owning, and especially if you don't like FPS games then the 360 has next to nothing in the exclusives department to compete.

[quote name='JMusic']I will second all of this. I think the PS3 is a great piece of hardware, hampered by some seriously bad decisions by Sony (marketing/UI design/I have to stare at a download screen?!?). I find myself playing Xbox far more than PS3, to the point where I am currently trying to get Xbox versions of all my PS3 games so that I can stick my PS3 in the bedroom as a Netflix box (to replace my Wii, currently serving as my Netflix box).

So many times when I start up the PS3 to play something I get frustrated and say to myself "Man, I never thought I would say that Microsoft beat Sony at gaming." I never even had an original Xbox. I was too busy playing my PS1/PS2. I figure the guy that made the PS1 and PS2 great must have died.

Just the other day, because I got $10 free, I was browsing the store on the PS3. It got slower, and slower, and slower, and then rebooted the PS3. Seriously?[/QUOTE]

i agree with both of you, my 40gb ps3 died recently and i found a good deal on a slim (not super slim) the ps+ bundle, and when i set everything up i could not believe that this system felt so much slower than my fat 40gb, i was so pissed, called Sony about it, they had no idea. i also noticed that i could hear the drive on the newer model, the only thing i ever heard on the fat was when the fan had to increase speed, and that was rare. if this system goes, i will just sell all my ps3 crap and be done, very disappointed this gen with sony, and not impressed with what i've seen so far on their next system.

If you go with 360, don't repair it. Just get a new slim. You don't want to keep getting the fat models.

Well I think I might make the switch to PS3....

I had more 360 games than I thought....using the online price tracker I have about $450 worth of games and that is not including the system itself...which I hope would get the bonus $50 trade in plus the base. So I wouldn't be touching the credit I already have at GS.

The thrill and excitement of playing exclusives and some are pretty cheap and the hunt for cheap ass deals for a new system excite me.

So I'm going to try and be patient and wait for the red GOW system....but if I see the ACIII bundle I might just grab it.

Well it seems like you have your mind made up but I've switched back and forth and always end up keeping the xbox. I would suggest using that credit and getting a slim 360. If you have a hard drive you can open it up and use it in the slim with little effort. And you could also buy a bigger one down the road cheap.

Keeping with the above replies, they are slower and keep in mind that for every new game you purchase you'll be waiting 30 mins or so before you get to play it because they all have to be installed before playing. And that takes up quite a bit of storage on the console.