Not a replacement for your old Xbox

We love the Xbox for obvious reasons--the grapics are amazing, the selection of games is vast, and the wireless controllers are very toddler-friendly. We used our old Xbox for a long time, and this Christmas I decided it was time to upgrade to the Xbox 360.

I found the Xbox Arcade version on Amazon.com. My holiday budget for my husband's gift was $200, and at $199 this fit the bill. Unfortunately for me, I didn't spend any time reading up on the Xbox Arcade and the differences between it and the standard Xbox, which cost $60 more. I just assumed "Arcade" meant it came with arcade type games (like PacMan), while the standard version came with better games.

When my husband tried to use it, he put in one of his old Xbox games and was disappointed to discover that the Arcade version can't play the old games because it doesn't have a hard drive (the hard drive has the software required to translate the old games). So he can only play the new Xbox games.

Yes, it is true that you can put a hard drive into this unit (which is what we did), but it ended up costing more money (not to mention the time and inconvenience) than it would have cost if I'd just purchased the standard Xbox to begin with.

If this is your first experience with Xbox and you don't already own a lot of the old Xbox games (and you don't plan to load demos or use any of the other features you need a hard drive for), then at the bargain price of less than $200, this is a good choice. Otherwise save yourself time, money and hassle by purchasing the standard Xbox unit.