LIVEdigitally

I’ve only had my Xbox 360 for three weeks, but I’ve wondered if the upgrade to the new unit would be worth it.  Ryan at Engadget did the xboxo y xboxo today, and it sounds like there’s not that much to be gained by bumping to the Elite.  Here’s his final thoughts on the topic:

Basically, unless you are seriously eagle-eyed, have a massive friggin screen, or for whatever reason need to use HDMI because you’re all out of component inputs, your investment in the first-gen Xbox 360 is probably safe. Do yourself a favor, just buy that 120GB drive if you need the space, the HDMI really just doesn’t justify replacing your whole console for a new $480 unit.

While the improvements seem barely marginal at present, I wonder if the next batch of games for the 360 will take advantage of the improved resolution.  The fundamental problem here is this: 1080i and 1080p video games might actually look the same unless you have a truly huge screen.  Remember, they both have the same pixel count, so the only difference is frame rate, and you aren’t going to be able to see the difference without a BIG screen.  I still think CNET’s piece from 2005 is the best-written article on the topic of 1080i vs 1080p. 

With my 32″ Olevia 720p/1080i display, I’d be surprised if there’s any real need for the “better” unit.  Besides, I can’t possibly rock any harder than I already do at GH2, so what’s the point?

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 1:46 pm by Jeremy Toeman and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.