How to Spend $200?

[Damnidge]

Hello Everyone,

So I wanted to get input from the techies/gamers here as to my choices to spend my BDay money. I have $200 to spend (plus anything extra I want to throw in), and I'm looking at the following three choices for black Friday:

1.) Buy an xbox 360 or PS3. My friend has a 20GB drive he will give me for free if I get an xbox arcade (199), and the year xbox live gold cards are $30 on black Friday this year. PS3 is 299, but has blu-ray and two solid games on black Friday from BestBuy. I'm curious to try console gaming beyond my Wii, and I have a 42" 1080p tv to play on.

2.) Buy a Blu-Ray player that has streaming netflix capabilities.

3.) Buy a Dell Inspiron 537s for $350. The link for the BF ad is here: http://bfads.net/Ad/Dell-2009/Page7 My thinking is I can use this as the "business" computer for my finances, word processing, school, etc. and then I can start playing around with overclocking my current gaming rig to get more power from it and have it solely as the gaming computer. (current rig has a 8800gt superclocked, core 2 duo e6750, 4gb ocz plat., and a Gigabyte ga-p35-ds3l mobo) Is this worth overclocking at this point?

Any/all input is appreciated. Thank you! :cheers:

[Damnidge]

Anyone?

How about the debate between PS3 and xbox 360? I know the RROD is huge with xbox 360, but supposedly the Jasper 65nm board/chips fixed a lot of the issues.

Of those of you with xbox 360s, how many have had a RROD?

[DW_Bomzin]

Friends don't let friends play consoles.... :cheers: nuff said .

[DW_Damaged]

Sorry Damnidge but but I have to say no to all 3. I would upgrade something on my PC before I bought an Xbox or PS3 and the same goes for the Blue Ray player. Laptops have an average life span of 3 years so I wouldn't spend my money there either. However with all that said you have a family and for entertainment I would probably go with the Console. I got bored with my PS2 years ago and said I would never get one again but we do have a Wii system and that’s all we need. Wish I could help you out more but I'm limited on answers.

[Damnidge]

Friends don't let friends play consoles...

I know consoles are guilty for ruining some PC games, but there are many non-FPS games that are better on consoles. I love racing games and platformers, which are non-existent on PCs. The ones that do get a port don't feel right, and in the end they just feel better with a joystick. Try using a keyboard on a need for speed game on PC, you'll want to shoot yourself :stongue:

PS2 was awesome for me, but I was in college when I got mine. I wonder if the console idea here is a generational difference?

I did think about upgrading my computer, but my mobo is on PCI-E x16 v1 and not v2, so I didn't think it would be worth buying a new vid card only to be limited by my mobo slot. I wonder how much I would get out of buying a 45nm quad core to replace my e6750?

Thanks for the thoughts Damaged :ssmile:

[DW_ACY]

Damnidge, I think you should do the PS3 if you are going to do a console. Xbox 360 just does not seem to have the life span. The Ps3 will be out longer and have more new games because of the Cell Processors in it. you will find that in the long run the PS3 is the better buy.

[DW_Bomzin]

Don't you have to buy into a membership to play Xbox on-line and PS3 is open ? Just a thought not sure if thats still true or not .

[DW_Skittles]

I decided to sell my xbox because of the monthly fee so i decided to get a ps3 which is much better =)

[Damnidge]

Yeah, you have to pay into xbox live - it's $50/year unless you get the card on special, but from what I have read it is money worth the features. PS3 does have free online play, but the main complaint I heard was it is not as easy to find a game, communicate with friends, etc. Most of my friends have a xbox 360, which make trading games a nice option. Skillz, what do you think of multiplayer on PS3?

The other main thing I read that is making it harder to decide, is that supposedly most studios (for the exception of PS3 exclusive sony titles) are developing for the xbox 360, and then porting the game over to the PS3, which make the graphics/game not run as cleanly as it should.

I did hear however that the Sony ps3 processor and hardware is superior, but that it has "yet to be taken advantage of."

I guess what would really help me is, how much longer do you think the current (7th) gen consoles will run? I read somewhere they expect them to go into 2012 at least, but that seems far off compared to previosu trends (a new console every5-6 years)

If the xbox 360 hasn't had so many issues with its hardware this would be a no brainer! Damn this is a hard decision!

[DW_Bomzin]

I have heard the PS3 is more reliable from people that have had them both.