Be Excellent To Each Other

Haven't been interested in going next-gen for the past couple of years.
I was quite happy with my PS2 until last year.
Then I sold and it bought an Xbox1 to play some of the Xbox exclusives.
I think I've pretty much exhausted most of the titles I wanted to play now though.

Plus, I noticed that 360's seem to be pretty cheap these days, and my local 2nd-hand shops seem to have plenty of decent-looking older 360 games for 5 or 6 quid (plus Gamestation now have a "4 for £20" used section which will obviously increase in choice as time goes by).

Yes, I'm a cheap-skate when it comes to consoles and games and I always wait until they've been out a while and can be picked up cheaply.

Anyway, couple of boring questions :

First off, do I need to use an internet connection with the 360 ?
I have zero interest in on-line multi-player.
I do have some interest in buying some of the Xbox Live Arcade games in the future (just not straight away) and so I'd be buying the premium 360 (as opposed to the the cheaper Arcade version which doesn't have a hard-drive).

Initially though, I just want to play "proper" 360 games, so is there any actual need for me to hook it up to an internet connection ?

Secondly, I only have a standard TV (ie, non-widescreen, not HD).
I've heard that PS3 games look shite on standard TV's but 360 games look ok.
Is that correct ?

Also, are 360 games produced in wide-screen format (ie. will I have big black bars at the top and bottom of the screen on my standard TV), or will they fill the whole screen ?

Thanks in advance....

You certainly don't have to have an internet connection.

You won't be able to download XBLA games, not sure if you can get them via any other format. Games on disc will work fine - the only issue is that the games do get patches and content updates via the internet, so you won't get those. The console software itself is also updated online.

Saying that, would you be able to move it somewhere where there's an internet connection solely for patches, updates, and XBLA games, then returning it somewhere else to actually play on it?

My 360 is displaying SD, and it looks fine to me.

Cheers Craster.

Yep, I know I won't be able to d/l XBLA Arcade games initially and I do realise that I need an internet connection for that purpose.
That's why I'd be going for a premium 360 with HD, so that if I decide in the future that I want to get some XBLA games, my 360 is set up for it.

I've never connected a gaming system to the internet before though, and initially, I'd just like to buy a 360, buy some 360 games, take it home, plug it in, stick a game disc in and be playing it within minutes.
I'm sure I'll hook it up to the internet at some point, but initially I'd just like to play some standard games as quickly and simply as possible (as with every other console I've owned) without having to read up on how to connect it to the net, and without having to splash out on some extra adaptor (that I presume is needed for a net conection ?).

What's the patching situation like ?

Do a lot of 360 games have nasty bugs like PC games, that mean patching is pretty much a necessity ?
Or is it just minor non-essential patches for a handful of games ?

"My 360 is displaying SD, and it looks fine to me."

Sounds good, but is that on a wide-screen TV ?

I'm particularly interested to know if you get black bars (and how large they are as a percentage of the screen) on a non wide-screen TV as that would put me off some-what.

Both of my lads have 'normal' telly's, they are not widescreen and there is none of this black bar business.

If you want to connect to the net using a wired connection, then everything you need should be in the box with the 360.

I hope you decide to play online though, it really is great fun.

Do it. You won't regret it.

Also, DO get XBox live as it's awesome and you can get the odd free month here and there.

And even if you don't play online, competing against friends' scores increases the longevity of a lot of the games massively. I think you only need a silver subscription for that too.

The other thing about Xbox Live is you can use the free silver account but still get access to the leaderboards which make for a whole shedload of banter and extend the longevity of a lot of games.

Edit : Spook etc. I saw the post above as I clicked on submit on mine to tell me there were new posts and thought it was mine it was that similar. Please get out of my head thanks.

Excellent advice nonetheless

Also, on xbox live, you can access friends' scores which increases the longevity of the game!

WRT patching, it isn't a huge issue, a number of games have "updates" but a lot of these are updates to aid with playing online, rather than patches. Some games have more though, eg Burnout Paradise has huge free downloadable content.
Also, you may be required to connect to XBL to play some original xbox games, should you wish to do that.

Without the free XBL you miss downloading demos, you miss leaderboards, you miss updates, you miss expansion packs.

It's so integral that I can't believe anyone wouldn't want to.

If you don't want to go online properly, get a Wii or a PS3. The 360 is built around the online experience, the new dashoard is going to scream about online into the face of anyone who isn't connected. Gaming is only going to move further in this direction, with much of a game's intended content to be downloadable at a later date. I'd be very wary of getting anything less than a 60 gig drive with a 360 nowadays, I've filled 30 gigs of mine since getting the 360 in April.

The 360 will fit the screen you give it, they are very powerful in this regard, and new display modes will come with the update. You speak as if anything beyond 'insert game, play game' is more complicated than that. It isn't, everything 'just works' - mp3 players, DVD, Media Centre networking, connecting to my router, the lot. I'm convinced the 360 is really made by Apple, given that the alpha dev kits were G5 Macs.

But in short, piece of piss to get the 360 to do what you want. But why go to the priciest and classiest whore in town when all you want is a quick wank?

So it's a bit like having a PC, but no net connection. Yes you can use it, but it's not the experience it could be.

You know, sometimes I think I would like my PC more if there were no internets for it to connect to. More time playing gamey goodness and less time pissing about watching pointless things on Youtube.

V. Good 8/10

Black bars? Can't say I've noticed. Ancient SD CRT here.

Get one, and connect it to the internet!

No it isn't, no connection, no update, no new dashboard.

If you're getting black borders then something's wrong. Make sure that you've got it set to 4:3 in the dashboard settings and everything should be fine.

Oh, a lot of games require 60(?)hz to run, if your TV can't do that, you can't run the game.

does any of you uses the xbox with a pc monitor? how does it looks like? I'm thinking of getting an 22'' with 1680*1050 resolution, but i don't know who the 360 will look on it. I heard that that is going to be an update for the xbox to support that resolution, but i suppose the game must have been programmed with that in mind to work, or not?

I only have one tv at home, and i want to be sure that i can play everytime i want.

I have run mine on a 19" monitor with 1440 x 900 and a 20" with 1680 x 1050. Runs fine on both. HOWEVER, those resolutions are 16:10, so running your Xbox at 16:9 (normal TV ratio) will result in either black bars or a stretched screen.

Until the new dash comes out next month and adds those resolutions in, we can't tell if it's going to fix it by rendering the difference properly, or by adding bars. I'd go for bars, tbh.

(Aside - there's one 16:10 res supported now, and it works fine over my VGA cable on my HDTV.)

It's no so much the resolution, but the ratio that can make a difference. 720p and 1080p are both 16:9, 1680x1050 is 16:10 (almost) so not perfect. But there has been a recent update that makes all that I just said irrelevant, since the xbox can now do 16:10.

So ignore me

EDIT - Damn you Sheepeh, and damn my slow typing

yes, but even if the xbox is capable of doing it, does every game supports it?

sheepeh: do you you prefer to run it on 1440 or 1650? what are your monitors btw?

I'm pretty sure that most games are resolution abivilent. A lot are rendered interally at 720p anyway and scaled to fit the target

You will still get the dashboard updates just might take a little time. Most games come with an update of essential XBOX patches and will update your dashboard... but you'll have to have a game thats released after the new dashboard is released to get it.

Basicly if the new game requires a new dashboard to work it'll have the dashboard with it... weeeeee

Ah makes sense. My bro has a lonely, isolated, non-live (dead?) xbox and I remember it updating for PGR4

It's ace. I've run it at 1280x1024 on a 19" CRT and at the resolution you mention on a 22" TFT. On the TFT everything used to be a little squished because it's a 16:10 display and the 360 puts out a 16:9 picture; you didn't notice after a minute though. That's also now been fixed and the 360 itself will rescale to 16:10 for you.

Hello.

Everybody who doesn't have a 360 just get one and plug it into the information super highway. Then buy a nice telly/monitor.

That is all you need to do.

Yes. Then you too can crash your car into the car of Dimrill and laugh out loud.

but now every game supports 1680x1050? or it only matters in the dashboard?

and what happened to Gaywood? did MS censorship reached this forum?

His choice.

Games render almost exclusively in 720P, the scaler will handle the rest.

Heh, no, I fancied a change.

I didn't vote any doctor as mod. I move for a miselection.

1280 x 768. Because it's 15:9, which is as close to 16:10 as the Xbox can do over VGA as it can get right now. The added support is coming on the new Dashboard next month. Anything much higher is scaled anyway, as most games don't internally render at 1080.

I'll be switching to native in the new Dash, and this should stop being an issue.

You really don't need to worry about it too much though, it looks pretty aces whatever.

Indeed, both Mr Chris and RichardGaywood have disqualified themselves from the election with these changes.

You'll be changing the names in the poll though, right? So people know who they're voting for.

Another one here to assure you that 360 games look fantastic in SD - though as someone else mentioned, a lot of them are 60Hz only, so that might be something to consider. Also - they're a doddle to get online. With most broadband routers, it's just a case of plugging the Xbox in and you're away.

I bought a widescreen JVC TV from Tesco for £199 two years ago, specifically for my 360, and bought the posh RGB SCART cable too. It's pin-sharp, absolutely fine, I don't feel like I'm missing anything by not having HD.

Neither did I until I got an HDTV. Now if I play on someone's SDTV it feels a bit murky and grainy. And sometimes it's really hard to read text. It's one of those things like HD DVD. DVD is perfectly fine, but once you've upgraded it can be hard to go back.

I ran the 360 on an SDTV for maybe 2 years though. I never had a problem with it.

The difference between this 'new' TV and the one I originally ran the 360 on (an ancient Sharp CRT hooked up to via AV cables) is a much bigger one than what I've observed playing Halo on an HDTV.

Halo's not a great looking game anyway in my opinion.

I bet you'd have seen a difference if we'd forced that projector last weekend down to SD.

Thanks for the replies to everyone who answered my original questions.

Sounds like I'll be quite happy with the 360.

Just to answer a few of the comments made :

First off, regarding getting hooked up to the internet. I'm 95% certain that's something I'll want to do in the very near future (probably within a few weeks of getting the console).
Live Arcade games appeal to me immensely as does having access to leaderboards and the free downloadablr content that some games apparently have.

However, weird as it may sound, I REALLY don't enjoy on-line multi-player and have NO INTEREST in it.
I used to play the occasional game of Quake and a few other shooters on my PC years back against mates, but just got bored of it very quickly.
The only multi-player games I enjoy are ones where you're playing against someone in the same room (preferably after a night out at the pub).
My favourite game for this experience was Everybody's Golf for years (both the PS1 & PS2 versions), where me and my mate would come back from the pub, bet 50p per hole, insult each other when we made mistakes, make each other laugh, and generally have a great time.

Other than that, it's single-player for me all the way, and there's no changing my mind on that front (damn good effort though from all the people that DID try to change my mind !).

Plus, I should mention that I'm a technical moron. I have to get someone else to re-install Windows XP for me when it's required, and if someone completely unplugged all the cabling from my PC and internet connection, I'm not confident I'd be able to plug it all back in correctly on my own.
I should learn, I know, but I'm bloody lazy when it comes to technical stuff.

That's why, INITIALLY, I'd just like to buy an 360 with some games, get it home, and be able to have some gaming goodness within a few minutes.
Once I've had my initial fun though, I'll no-doubt get on-line.

My TV can handle 60hz so no problems there.

Also, glad to hear I won't get black bars on my non-wide-screen TV.
My only basis for wondering about this is that I obviously DO get black bars when watching most dvd films, and with the 360 coming out at a time when most people had upgraded to wide-screen TV's, I thought that the games would be produced in wide-screen.

As for the suggestion that I maybe get a Wii or PS3 instead, I can't be bothered typing out the many reasons why I'm not interested in either of them in the slightest. Suffice to say "NO".

Thanks again for the replies. Reckon I'll be a 360 owner within the next few weeks.

Fair enough, the rest is just so brilliantly integrated you DO still want it.



I'm presuming you have a router and so a wire identical to that which you'll get for the 360 going from the PC to some box near the wall.

Plug the end that's in the PC into the 360. Job done.



The 360 is cleverer than you think is the shortest version of the answer to this

The 360 is ace and I wouldn't be without mine - however - I also have never had an interest in online gaming, so this isn't something I've ever tried with a 360 game, but I do take it online every couple of months or so, to get any update thingies.

I did buy some of those Microsoft credits or whatever they're called (Microsoft points?), as I have a hi-def telly and I wanted to see what a hi-def film would look like, so downloaded one from the, er, film download section area thing.

I only play online with the Bezzies. It's much fun with the headsets and general banter. I never play with "strangers" though, there's no fun in that.

It's way more fun than it sounds cruising in a game, or co-oping with Dimrill, Dave, et al.

Online gaming was never a thing for me either, but the 360 makes it feel like you are in the same room (Bezzies I'm talking here, not Halo brats). It's a social thing, not a l33t gamer thing - just like when your mates are round. I mean, there's a gamerpoints harvesting thread - meaningless numbers, contrived ways of playing a game, but still we do it - it's a reason to be cocking about with your mates. Christ, it's worth the admission just to listen to Dimrill, ffs.

This is why the 360 has succeeded as the best current gen (proper) games console (and props to M$ in spite of everything ever on that score). They've turned that particular corner and nailed online gaming for the masses. Obviously there could be improvements but, y'know, they're making them.

Some 360 games are widescreen only: I'm pretty certain Dead Rising gives you black bars on an ordinary telly.