List Price: $399.99
Sale Price: $349.00
Today's Bonus: 13% Off
I've been an Xbox 360 owner for year and it's been a really great console. This S model is their more recent iteration and it is incredibly quiet and reliable (this is an important point, because the models at the beginning of the Xbox 360's lifespan were notorious for terrible failure rates...Microsoft has learned their lesson). I won't waste your time listing all the great 360 games you can pick up, but I will say that the 3 included with this holiday bundle are decent. Forza Horizon is the best of the bunch and if you're a fan of arcadey (i.e. not simulation) racing games, I think you'll love it. Kinect Adventures is a collection of minigames that basically show you the type of fun things that you can do with your Kinect sensor. Kinect Sports I don't own but from what I hear it's similar to Kinect Adventures, but the minigames are sports-themed instead. Kinect Sports is probably the weakest game of the 3. That said, I have friends that have been interested in getting a 360 and Kinect and I've been advising them to pick up a model that includes the larger hard drive (versus the less expensive model that just has 4GB of storage...that 250GB of storage on this model DOES come in handy). Today would be the perfect day for anybody in their situation to pick one up, because the price for this bundle is great!
One word of warning: if you have plans to play multiplayer games online or use services like Netflix on the 360, Microsoft puts those things behind a subscription service ($60/year for Xbox Live Gold, which gives you multiplayer, access to apps like Netflix, and also a number of free games in their "Games for Gold" initiative. You can find deals on the subscriptions if you search for them so you rarely pay $60, but it's still something to be aware of).
And one more thing: If you have kids, I'd highly recommend buying the downloadable game Kinect Party. My 4 and 2 year old LOVE playing that game, and it's very inexpensive.
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I managed to pick this up when Amazon had it listed for $249, a bargain in my book (...wouldn't be surprised to see a similar discount again with Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up...). For anyone that doesn't already have an Xbox 360 and wants a Kinect to go along with it, this is the bundle to get. Microsoft's most recent "E" iteration of the unit gives it a simpler slightly slimmed down look which blends in nicely with all my other entertainment center tech (the power pack is enormous though, make sure you have room to tuck it away behind something). To anyone that already has a recent 360, there's not much reason to upgrade, everything else is pretty much the same under the hood.The internal 250GB drive should be sufficient to store a decent amount of downloaded games and additional DLC if you're considering the 4GB version, be aware that this may limit you sooner than you might think as many disc-based games now make it necessary to offload some content onto the hard drive (even if you have no intention of purchasing fully-digital copies of games). You could always buy a hard drive later, but if the price is right with the 250GB included already, why not spring for it?
The Forza Horizon game included in the bundle is a digital copy a card with a download code is included in the box. The two Kinect games have the discs included. The Kinect turned out to be a lot of fun but make sure you have plenty of space. I have the Kinect mounted on the top of my 55" Panny plasma (make sure you buy the mounting clip separately if you want to mount on top of your flat screen!) and I measured 8 feet from the front of the unit to the edge of my couch, and this turned out to be not enough space, still ended up having to rearrange the furniture. Realistically I would say make sure you have about 10 feet of distance between where you'll stand and the Kinect. There are some "zoom lens" products sold for the Kinect as well to try to decrease this minimum distance, I have not gone this route as reviews seem to be mixed. But YMMV.
Finally, I made this purchase fully aware that the next generation Xbox One will be out by the end of the month. I reasoned that the upfront hardware cost for the aging Xbox 360 is a good value for the price I paid, many of the games will be much cheaper (and at least for now, are still widely available), and I anticipate Microsoft will still support the system for a least a few more years even after the Xbox One is released, if prior generations are any indication. As the "E" version is also the last version of the 360 to be made, I'm hoping all the hardware kinks have been worked out by this point. Not comfortable jumping right in with the new One hardware at release, especially after seeing what happened when the 360 hardware was first released. I'm comfortable with waiting 2-3 years before considering an Xbox One when the hardware has been proven and there's a solid library of games to choose from.
Best Deals for Xbox 360 E 250GB Kinect Holiday Value Bundle
Pros:most compact model released
most silent model released
compatible with current "slim" removable hard drives
Neutral:
only 4 USB ports instead of 5 (but so what who uses all of them)
swipe to turn on/off gone (i didn't hate swipe and don't miss it either)
no major improvements such as USB3, addition of blutooth, huge SSD or anything else (possible they can't do this without major issues)
value. $50 gc came with my deal, but this bundle includes various outdated titles that can be obtained used for $10 each (if not cheaper)
Cons:
removal of digital optical output might render some high end (Turtle Beach) headsets unusable
biggest hard drive available is still only 320gb (won't be a con to some, but is to me)
flash data limited to 2x32gb (won't be a con to some, but is to me)
otherwise the same old 360 you already know...
Honest reviews on Xbox 360 E 250GB Kinect Holiday Value Bundle
This is a great bundle for those looking for a new XBOX 360 or wanting to hold off on the XBOX One craze until more games come along.I highly recommend this one since it comes with a large HD which comes in handy now that more games are requiring installs of game data (GTA V was roughly 8 GB more than the arcade XBOX holds).
The new sleek E version of the 360 is nice and looks more professional than the odd shapes of the last 2 editions.
The Games on this edition are a bit older than the regular bundle, but my kids love both Adventures and Sports games included with this bundle.
Well worth the investment.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Xbox 360 E 250GB Kinect Holiday Value Bundle
I have four Xbox 360's in my house since I use them as extenders for my Windows Media Center PC that runs my TV. But one of them was the original Xbox 360 from the initial release when they first started being sold. It still worked (no red ring of death) but was noisy as all you know what and didn't have a large hard drive. I've got the Xbox One preordered already, but since games aren't backwards compatible I knew I have to keep a 360 system on my main TV in the great room anyway. So I thought I'd take advantage of decent pricing and get a new one that will sit next to the XB1 when it arrives, that will be in warranty for a little while as well. And this way I can move the slim into my Halo Vanguard portable gaming system, pull the elite out of there to put back into my room, and shuffle things about. And all this will free up an Xbox I can give away to someone.The unit itself is nice. People are complaining about the lack of an optical audio out, so if you need that, the 360E is not for you. I use HDMI so not an issue for me at all. The controller is standard, as is the Kinect (although there's a bit more to the logo than my existing Kinect). The power brick is similar to the one for the Xbox 360 slim, but rather than two power barrels on the end, there's just one barrel with multiple sections on the cylinder. There's a network port still which I like, since I don't like saturating my wireless with things that I can run plugged into my gigabit network here at home.
The unit is nice. I like that it's more a match to the forthcoming Xbox One, and I like the less intrusive appearance from the front, since the power button and lights are a fraction of the size of previous version's power buttons. This comes at a cost, however. There is no longer any indication of what controllers are connected, like you used to be able to see with the four different quarter arc lights around the power button indicating player 1, player 2, etc. There is no more indication of any controller connected whatsoever. This is a bit of a deprecation, but since it's generally me and my 10 year old son playing, it's not something that impacts us.
The buttons are buttons again, not just sensors like the Xbox Slim had. Physical clicking buttons for power and eject.
Fit and finish is nice.
But the big thing is the silence. And it is VERY silent. I'm about 15 feet away on the couch and can't hear anything at all from it. Even up close, it's dead silent. The drive also makes considerably less noise when reading discs than the slim or previous versions did.
It took me several hours to transfer content from the slim to this via a USB stick, and then the hassle for transferring licenses and redownloading things that I couldn't just transfer over in that process.
UI is smooth, I didn't see any difference here between this and any of the previous Xbox versions I have.
The games are alright, but don't buy it for the games since they're usually discounted separately now anyway. And be aware, the racing game is a code only, you have to download all 6.8 GB before you can play it.
If you're looking for an Xbox 360 because you want to be able to play the games available, this is a great choice. If you are looking to replace an existing older Xbox 360 for whatever reason like I was, it's a great choice. If you're looking for any new features, there are none. Some people prefer the looks of the Xbox 360 slim, so you can always get that without any loss of functionality compared to this one. They're ALL going to be cheaper because of the push to get as many sold as they can before the Xbox One launches in another 22 days.
For the price, I thought it was a great deal, getting the games, the new style Xbox 360, and another kinect that my son can take with the Vanguard when he goes gaming elsewhere.
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