Heading to college on 17th, 360 worth it?

TekSomniaK

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I do have the money right now to buy it before I go away to school, but would it be a worthwhile purchase? My main concern is my TV. I'll have to talk to my roommate about it (don't know who it is yet) and see about what he might have, but my TV is just a standard def 20" Samsung. I have just been determining whether it would be worth the purchase given the shit TV. I would consider maybe going HD but I would be near broke after doing so.

Recommendations or opinions from people in college who don't have the means for a big (32-37") HDTV would be nice.
 
I've played 360 on HDTVs and it's definitely a noticeable difference, however it's not to the point where I can't play without an HDTV. In fact, I have a 53" HDTV in my living room. If I have people coming over then I might drag the 360 down there, but it's generally hooked up to my 27" regular old-school Maganovx CRT TV.

I still have an enjoyable experience.

Although, I'm looking into getting an HDTV for my room and for the 360, specifically, if it's something that will leave you broke, I'd say wait. The TVs are constantly getting better, but the 360 is going to essentially be the same for the next few years. Get the 360. Enjoy it, and save up some $.

If it becomes unbearable, shoot for the upgrade, or at least see if your roomate would like to pitch in for the upgrade.

Good luck.
 
I have my 360 playing on a Dell 2405.....superb. You might consider using a computer monitor, dual purpose you know.

Anyway, do you think you'll have time to mess with a 360 at college???? I may be old school, but all I had spare time for was a few beers now and then......
I worked plus did school, though.

Good luck, and yes a 360 is alot of fun.
 
magoo said:
Anyway, do you think you'll have time to mess with a 360 at college???? I may be old school, but all I had spare time for was a few beers now and then......
I worked plus did school, though.

I probably played more video games while in college, then when I was out. I worked full time during the summer, and Christmas break, to afford to go to school, without having to work while in college, so after classes, going to the gym, and finishing homework/assignments, I had plenty of time to hop on my Dreamcast or Xbox.
 
Looking at your sig you have a 2005fpw.

I have one too, at school I have my 360 hooked up to my 2005fpw through VGA adapter. It works and looks great. An added bonus is it makes the 360 very close to the router so I have easy access to Xbox Live without having to worry about an adapter.
 
Erasmus354 said:
Looking at your sig you have a 2005fpw.

I have one too, at school I have my 360 hooked up to my 2005fpw through VGA adapter. It works and looks great. An added bonus is it makes the 360 very close to the router so I have easy access to Xbox Live without having to worry about an adapter.

Ah yeah holy crap I never thought about that. Shit I may as well just splurge and buy it then.
 
Something you might also want to invest in is a set of RCA audio extension cables. Since you will probably be running the audio either through your computer speakers (plugging into the line in on your X-Fi using the included RCA-> stereo adapter) or into a stereo. You will probably need the extra room since without it you need the computer or stereo no more than a foot away from the monitor.
 
I would HIGHLY advise you to not bring it until you're positive your roommate is decent and you know him fairly well. If you get stuck with some moron, chances are he (or one of his friends) will steal it.
 
dotK said:
I would HIGHLY advise you to not bring it until you're positive your roommate is decent and you know him fairly well. If you get stuck with some moron, chances are he (or one of his friends) will steal it.

Lol, your roommate steal your 360? What's he going do, say something "Damn man, that sucks, somebody stole your 360. Not to worry dude, check this out, I just got a used 360 from a friend who didn't want it anymore".
 
JethroXP said:
Lol, your roommate steal your 360? What's he going do, say something "Damn man, that sucks, somebody stole your 360. Not to worry dude, check this out, I just got a used 360 from a friend who didn't want it anymore".

no, more like, "man, that sucks. I'm going to get me some ladies with this $$$ I have that I didnt have before your 360 got stolen."

I assume you never lived on campus? Shit gets stolen all the time. you go to a party/club/dinner and everyone from students to custodial staff could be in your room if they think they can get away with it.

At any rate, I dont understand why people feel like the 360 doesnt even work with a standard def TV...yes, it doesnt look as good as an HDTV but it seems to me that nothing looks better on a standard tv then it does on an HDTV, so why upgrade just for the 360?
 
If your roommate steals your Xbox, on the plus side you'll know where he lives. :) Seriously though, what you need to do is make sure you both agree to always lock your door when you're not "home," and off at class, or even if you're visiting somebody down the hall. I know some people who've had stuff stolen when they stepped out of their room to see somebody in another room, or went to the laundry room. I'm sure your R.A.s will tell you a billion times that when you're not in the room, lock it.

I had two different roommates, that when I lived in the dorms, I didn't know either of them until we became roommates. I never had a problem with either of them, but it's not always going to be the case.
 
dotK said:
I would HIGHLY advise you to not bring it until you're positive your roommate is decent and you know him fairly well. If you get stuck with some moron, chances are he (or one of his friends) will steal it.

I second Dot's opinion as well. I would go ahead and get the X360, but wait till you figure out what kind of person your roommate is before hooking it up to your monitor. Possible theft is one possibility, but I would be concerned about whether he'll abuse it, and whether he'll bring other people into your dorm when you are not there. Theft of these things are more common than you would think, as many of these dorms are just plain easy to break into.
 
A 20" TV is kind of small, and since it's a standard definition TV that doesn't really help any. That being said, it'll look fine on a regular TV, but if you can spare the money, I'd recommend going for at least a 21" or 26" widescreen HDTV. HD makes a huge difference. You'll be in a dorm room, so honestly I imagine that anything over 26" is overkill, but I suppose it depends on the size of the dorms at your school.

As for the theft thing, I dunno. I got a one-bedroom apartment last year because I didn't want to live at my schools dorms. It was essentially the same price, but my apartment is bigger and closer (the school dorms are off campus).
 
maademperor said:
I assume you never lived on campus? Shit gets stolen all the time. you go to a party/club/dinner and everyone from students to custodial staff could be in your room if they think they can get away with it.

I lived on campus my entire four years of college. However I suppose I sometimes forget that I went to a school were theft was never a problem. We had an honor code that was taken very seriously, to the point that locks were actually prohibited on the dorm room doors.
 
JethroXP said:
I lived on campus my entire four years of college. However I suppose I sometimes forget that I went to a school were theft was never a problem. We had an honor code that was taken very seriously, to the point that locks were actually prohibited on the dorm room doors.


??? What school was this? Was it in the US? Military academy of some sort? Heavily religious school of some sort? Thats pretty impressive. Not even car vandalism/break in/theft?
 
Jerome36 said:
I probably played more video games while in college, then when I was out. I worked full time during the summer, and Christmas break, to afford to go to school, without having to work while in college, so after classes, going to the gym, and finishing homework/assignments, I had plenty of time to hop on my Dreamcast or Xbox.

You must be stout. I worked full time, 40-50 hours a week plus school. But I'm old. If you can believe it, when I was in college Missle Command was THE game and the only way you played was in a bar with a pocket full of quarters.

I agree with Erasmus, use your monitor and jack the sound into the computer or a stereo receiver. It will save alot of space.

Plus for fun.....put an nVidia dual TV tuner into your computer......shazamm....TV, DVR, computer,homework and 360 all in one.

College can be fun. :p
';
 
Another thing to watch out for that hasn't been mentioned yet:

Some colleges require you to "register" your computer before they wil let it connect to anything but the registration web page. They do this because they want to have someone to be responcible (to blame) if said computer starts misbehaving (worms, viruses, trying to hack the network), and by registering, they can match up your computer, to you. They identify your computer by the MAC address of its NIC. This can be a real pain in the ass now days, because many times the NIC is integrated in motherboard, and so if I upgrade, I'll haft to go thru the pain of re-registering. It also would probably prevent your 360 from connecting to Xbox Live, as the NIC in the 360 also has its own MAC address, and you likely can't bring up the registration webpage on your 360.

If you get there, and notice your college is doing this, don't fret as there is a solution. What you will need is a router that can spoof a MAC address on its WAN port. And so you would connect your PC directly to the campus network and register it, then setup the router to spoof your PC's MAC address, and plug it in and let it pretend to be your PC. Some people also call this MAC cloning, and there are several web pages on the subject if you google or yahoo for them, many times it in reference to ISP's that use cable modems.

Another one that a college might do, but isn't has bad is PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol over Eithernet). This is the one where they require you to setup a username and a password before you can connect. Once again, if they are doing this, make sure you have a router that supports PPPoE.
 
JethroXP said:

figured as much, well as others have stated, regular universities dont have anywhere near the code of conduct people there would be accustomed to. Glad to hear such discipline is upheld though

On topic: SCSI Terminator brings up a good point. You could also add a second nic to your comp and enable Internet sharing on your comp and let your xbox connect through it.
 
dotK said:
I would HIGHLY advise you to not bring it until you're positive your roommate is decent and you know him fairly well. If you get stuck with some moron, chances are he (or one of his friends) will steal it.
QFT. i'd also look at the setup of your dorms. if your living room isn't closed off suite style, you might wanna pass on the 360. people get all sorts of shit stolen in college. also, you have to make sure that you won't mind everybody and their mothers asking to play your system. my roommate last year was a total douchebag. before i even finished setting up my 360, he was like, "let me play." it wasn't even a question, it was a demand. i don't mind sharing, but when you start telling me what to do with 500+ dollars worth of electronics that i haven't even finished taking out of the box yet, you don't get to play shit.


SCSI-Terminator said:
Another thing to watch out for that hasn't been mentioned yet:

Some colleges require you to "register" your computer before they wil let it connect to anything but the registration web page.

my university (UCSD) did this. what i had to do is connect my 360 to my ethernet port and try to connect to live. it'd fail, but it'd pull a default IP address. i gave that IP and my system's mac address to my school's resnet. they registered my mac address, and i was good to go.
 
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