A quick question for all of the Xboxers out there. The arcade version is $70 off right now,$129.99, is this worth the money knowing you need to buy a hard drive. I can't seem to find any other real differences between this and the Elite platform

I have seen some ads from Futureshop and Walmart with this pricing - I thought to myself this is a good deal. Buying the hardrive IS A MUST. However the Xbox 360 has had a history of hardware problems since it release date though because of this they come with a 3 year replacement warranty instead of the standard 30-90 warranty. Microsoft is very good about replacing defective units but dealing with the customer support staff can be frustrating at times.

The developer/game support for this console is fantastic and IMO has the best controller.

Hard drive is the only real difference. I bought an Arcade even though I have an Elite simply because it had the newer Jasper chipset.

It was that Jasper Chipset I was wondering about as when it was first released it had been said only the Elite was going to be getting it.

Do the Arcades have HDMI now? In the past the best they got was component.

Plus my video game systems have to be black (that's why I don't have a Wii yet, but rumor has it that North America will be getting black Wii's on April 20th).

The old black or the new black?
Oops sorry, wrong thread.

Yes the Arcades have HDMI now. The Elite comes with an HDMI cable while you have to buy the HDMI cable afterwards with the Arcade, which is no problem with Monoprice, if they get things straightened out.

I hadn't heard about a black Wii for North America. It does make sense as you can get black Wiimotes now. No matter I will hold out for a Wii HD.

It's easy to spot a Jasper if that's what you're worried about. You just need to make sure it's rated at 12.1 amps.

I wish I was confident enough to paint my consoles. Yeah, right now I have my Jasper Arcade unit hooked up to my main system, and my older-chipset Elite just sitting hooked up to nothing in my other room. Every other component I have is black, so the 360 is really disturbing the vibe.

I bought one (my third 360, argh) for $150 about 6 or 8 months back, I thought that was good. $129 is crazy, I paid $670 for one on launch day, and it didn't even have HDMI... lol