(Part 2) Best products from r/xbox

I will try to keep this post as non biased as I can. Sorry if it appears to be unorganized. Wall of text warning

I agree with what most said in this post that you should find the games you like the most and buy the system that supports them. Xbox One is not backwards compatible with 360 games.

I have both systems and I enjoy them quite a bit. I recently bought my One before Christmas, when it was $350 + tax. I got my console without the Kinect as it was cheaper. It even came with download codes for Assassin's Creed Unity and Black Flag, and a 500 GB hard drive. The same setup is running for $387 on Amazon.

If you are a big Call of Duty player, this setup on Amazon may interest you. It comes with the Xbox 360 E console, 500 GB hard drive, download codes for COD Ghosts and BO2, and a free month of Xbox live gold. It is running for $237.

With both systems, if you have a relatively up to date tablet or phone running iOs, Android, or Windows, you can download SmartGlass. There are two SmartGlass apps specific to the console you buy. SmartGlass allows you to perform some Xbox controls through the phone or tablet, and you can use it to send messages to your XBL friends when you are away from your console, provided you have a data connection. SmartGlass also makes typing messages while playing games so much easier.

With Xbox One, you have the ability to snap. Snap allows the ability to do two things at once. The game will be on the left and take up about 85% of the screen. The right side can be a different function, such as messages, achievements, and even using Internet explorer (I will add that unless you have a larger screen TV, Snap may not be the best). I use my snap so I can listen to Pandora while playing games. The best illustration of Snap would be this commercial featuring Aaron Paul (though you would need the Kinect for what he does.) Snap also runs through SmartGlass.

Whichever console you get, it is best to have an Internet connection, though this may not be an issue. Xbox 360 is very offline friendly, while Xbox One is not very offline friendly.

Gold membership is almost an essential. You don't need it necessarily if all you do is Netflix and other streaming sites, but you do need it to play online multiplayer. With Gold membership though, you do get 2 free games each month for either console. You also get special discounts on certain games. You don't need to pay full price for gold membership as membership codes can be found at various online outlets for much cheaper.

Xbox One does have home gold. With home gold, one gold member can provide gold benefits to other players on the console. I have a friend with a silver membership, which means he can not play online multiplayer on the Xbox 360. I allowed him to save his profile to my console. Since I have my profile on there as well, he is allowed online despite only being a silver member. Basically to simplify it, One gold member can allow several silver members to play online, as long as all profiles are saved to the same Xbox One console. Xbox 360 does not provide home gold. More info here.

Xbox 360 is going to continue to be supported for the next several years. I believe I read that Xbox 360 will continue to receive updates from Microsoft for the next 5 years. However, like the original Xbox, there will come a date when Live access is removed permanently for Xbox 360 consoles. As of April 2010, Xbox original consoles can no longer access Xbox live. Most likely, the Xbox 360 will receive the same fate in the future. Trust me though, Microsoft will announce this several times, so you will get a good amount of warning.

Right now, the best advice I can give is to find the games you enjoy the most and buy the console that will support them best.

Bonus note: If you have ever played Grand Theft Auto V on the Xbox 360 or PS3, Rockstar completely remastered it for the Xbox One. They added first person view, some new cars, better traffic spawning, and new songs to the radio stations. All of those features add so much to the experience. First person driving is awesome, as the cars have some working gauges, and the new songs on the radio helps to prevent the same songs from cycling over and over again.

I started off with a cheap MS Stereo Headset and bought a handful of other headsets as time went on, each one more expensive than the last, until I settled on this one: -

https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATH-ADG1X-High-Fidelity-Gaming-Headset/dp/B01AYZZP5U

It's expensive, but it is by far the best gaming headset I've ever owned or tested, as long as you're OK with it being wired to the controller or plugged into a headset adapter.

Pros: -

• Great sound quality
  
• Wide sound stage
  
• Excellent mic quality
  
• Has an in-line rotary volume control and mute switch
  
• Very light and comfortable, including for people that wear glasses
  
  Cons: -
  
  
• It's open back, so if you have the headset cranked up really loud, sound will leak into the mic
  
• The main headset cable is hard wired in, but it is nice and thick
  
  I've owned them for about 3 years now and if I somehow managed to break them, I'd honestly just buy another pair.
  
  There are a couple of perceived negatives that come up sometimes in user reviews: -
  
  

1. The wing system. The headset doesn't use a traditional band. Instead it uses a system of two wings that are designed to make the headset feel very light on your head. I have a fairly large head and have never had any issues with the headset not feeling comfortable, or feeling like it's slipping down, but YMMV with that.
   
   
2. The sound of them is what I would describe as "neutral". If you're used to listening to bass-heavy music with headphones and/or EQ settings that accentuate the bass even further, the first time you put these on you would almost certainly think that they lack bass.
   
   So yeah, I definitely wouldn't buy these blindly from a place where you can't return them if you don't like them. Either try before you buy or make sure you can send them back for a refund if they're not to your taste.

If you want the cheapest regardless of speed get something like a terabyte or two of whatever brand you prefer (Hitachi >= WD > Toshiba > Seagate generally but you may not have any problems at all) then get a case like this https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Enclosure-Support-Optimized-Tool-Free/dp/B00KYF1LLI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1543291444&sr=8-3&keywords=2.5+ssd+enclosure+UASP or cheaper as long as it specifically supports UASP and since you have an X1X it has to have USB 3.0 doesn't matter the flavor but you won't really benefit otherwise.

If you want a compromise get a cheaper SSD with the same case. From what i've seen, it seems X1Xs have a bit better USB and benefit more from SSD.

Edit: Forgot to mention the speeds but if you get a "green" drive that says its 7200 it'll still perform like a 5400 which isn't too bad but again highly recommend a SSD. Check r/buildapcsales

FreeSync is an adaptive technology that will help the monitor sync up with graphics card emitting a smoother play. In order for this tech to work with the Xbox the monitor must support FreeSync over HDMI. There aren't very many monitors out yet that support this.

I advise you wait until monitors catch up with the tech of the 1X if you want all the little things. Now there are some nice 4k monitors that you can get by just fine with. You'll want to make sure it has HDMI 2.0 for 60hz support. LG has a pretty good monitor with all those needs except FreeSync over HDMI.

Did you have PC and/or Game mode enabled on your TV? That cuts the input lag by 2/3. If it's feel you're looking for, response time isn't going to have a big impact. The only thing it affects is motion blur and your TV has far lower response than any monitor you'll find, see the link to the review I sent, because it's OLED. Any decent monitor should have good enough response rate. 4ms is great.

Displaylag.com rates both TVs and monitors. Click the second link I sent and you'll see filtering options up top. Select 4k under HD Res and then in the Display drop-down you have different types of displays, i.e. TV, Freesync Monitor, G-Sync monitor, etc. All of the 4k monitors they've rated have around 10-11ms input lag which is about 1/2 that of your TV.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the frame rate can affect the feel of the game in a similar fashion to input lag. If you have access to any monitor with input lag in the range you're looking for hook your Xbox/PS4/whatever up to that and see how it feels vs your TV. Try to play a game that's 30fps and one that's 60fps. That way you know how much of what you feel is from the monitor/TV and how much is from the frame rate.

Hope that helps. I'm using one of these for my monitor and I love it. I still have my PCs and consoles hooked to my TVs for when I want some 4k action. Looks like there are some good 4k options available now. These both look pretty good with 10ms input lag. Good luck finding a monitor you like!

edit: Forgot to mention, avoid G-Sync as others have mentioned. It jacks the price up big time and you won't be able to use it unless you're connecting to a PC with an Nvidia card.

edit2: Damn you displaylag and your affiliate links! Replaced those with regular Amazon links.

Sorry as previously stated, Destiny does not support cross-platform play... not even between the 360 and One due to the hardware differences.

If you want to play with your son this weekend, you might have to buy another Xbox One. That's the bad news... the good news is that Microsoft just dropped the price to $299. As daunting as buying a new system sounds, there is a bright side... and maybe an opportunity to save. With gamesharing on xbox, you can share your gold and digital games with one other xbox and play them at the same time.

On amazon, you can get a 1TB xbox with gears of war ultimate, rare replay, ori and the blind forest, forza horizon 2, AND a second controller for $319. its a great deal and you can save the money that you would have spent on gold and buying two copys of every game you want to play. Ill post a link below to the amazon deal and help on setting up game sharing.

Link to amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Xbox-One-1TB-Console-Bundle-Ultimate/dp/B015TL6PCQ/ref=sr_1_8?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1464836269&sr=1-8&keywords=xbox
(If you are planning on this, i suggest you jump on this deal fast, i think its a mistake as its the same price as everything in this bundle minus an extra controller and forza)

Link to gamesharing help: http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/how-to-xbox-one-game-sharing.454282952/

I got a 1tb hard drive for £50, t'was good for the Xbox one and USB 3.0

Edit 1
Here's the hard drive I got my friend for Christmas last year I wanted to share this with you it's worked for my mate well let me find at least mine if I can
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B01AJWNYLA

Edit2
Although I see why you're going for 4TB but that's a bit overkill I'd say 1tb is enough although I have up to 200 games I have about 50 usual between the hard drive and console 2TB might head up to 80 bearing in mind I also have gta on console that's a good 70GB and I know I have another that's 30GB that's already 1/10 of my hard drive but with smaller games you'll get more so it can vary quite a bit but that's my estimate

Edit 3
This is my hard drive in 1TB and there's several versions you can get in different types mine is shock proof and I bought it in September started using it at Christmas so I have had it for almost a year and it has worked well for me even 1TB. But as said there are several versions and this one is kine and I ca tell you it's good and has that armor in case you drop it when you want to plug into another console, even the waterproof ones look almost as sturdy too!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00FG1WVN2


That is my last edit I hope this helps and I hope it save you abut of money, although mine has increased by £13 get a hard drive overall though, it is needed

First off, congrats on the twins. Second, it's cool you're doing this for him. You sound like an awesome wife.

Lastly, my suggestion would be to get this model. It doesn't come with a game, but it comes with the Elite controller (which is amazing and which retails for $149.99 on its own) and a 1 TB hard drive. As others have mentioned, hard drive space isn't all that important because he's probably going to want to expand it via an external hard drive eventually, and a 1 TB drive will give him a good starting size.

The brand I'd recommend most for monitors is Hewlett-Packard. They make the best monitors I ever used, but they ain't cheap. The only brand I'd recommend you stay away from is ASUS. Their monitors may be cheap but you get what you pay for.

As for what to look for in a monitor, the only numbers to really pay attention to are resolution, size, and price. The rest is all just marketing mumbo-jumbo and should be mostly ignored. The overwhelming majority of monitors are either 4k or regular HD, and you've already made up your mind about that. As for size, with 4k bigger really is better. Buy the biggest screen you can afford. Price may seem self explanatory, but remember that more expensive monitors generally get better color fidelity. Ignore any specification that tries to describe color. 80 percent of the time, More money = better color.

And Freesync? It's nice to have but not really a deal-breaker for most.

Wireless 360 controllers won't work without a special USB receiver that costs extra. The Play and charge kit doesn't send input data - it only charges the controller.

Xbox One controllers will work on PCs using micro USB cables (the same ones used to charge Android phones). Same goes for PS4 controllers (some newer games even natively support it, button prompts and all) and PS3 controllers (3rd party drivers needed and the cables are mini USB).

This is an example of what I'm talking about: http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Receiver-Windows-Certified-Refurbished-Pc/dp/B00VB2UT3O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1464719371&sr=8-2&keywords=wireless+360+receiver

It might be more worthwhile to wait for a sale on Xbox One controllers though. They're fully compatible with older PC games that only recognize the 360 controller (it'll just switch to the 360 driver), and the overall build and design is a huge improvement from an already good gamepad.

If they're anything like my xp500's, you have to buy an adapter for it. I got one on amazon for $30, and the turtle beach headset cord for like $10. They sound great and I haven't had any problems with it, I can enjoy my games loud late at night with no one yelling at me to turn it down now lol.

Edit: here's the adapter: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IAVDOS6?pc_redir=1410327818&robot_redir=1

Edit 2: and here's the talkback adapter for the turtle beach. Idk if it works on the xp400s, they should! http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00B08REVE/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1410424412&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

Get one of these and just text your friends in a group chat. It'll really help you out as you'll have easy access to both! Hope it helps!

I read a good blogpost about this a while back, I fished it out for you.

http://robburke.net/2007/08/moving-my-european-xbox-360-to-north-america/

Interestingly you can buy some games on disk, as well as buying all other games through the arcade.

The most trouble you're going to have is the power adapter.

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Microsoft-Xbox-360-Adapter-Packaging/dp/B0060QTIZG/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1417016735&sr=8-4&keywords=360+power+adapter

Is probably going to be what you need to buy (depending on which 360 you have). The reviews suggest buying from xbox support is going to be cheaper and more reliable however.

Hope your move goes well :)

I once cut the end off an OG Xbox controller and connected the wires to a USB cord. Worked without issue on my PC. I can't remember what drivers I used.

Since wired 360 controllers are USB connections you might have some luck getting it to work on your OG Xbox. I imagine this is the adaptor to do it.

If you have a USB Type-A female end to play with and a spare OG Xbox connector cord to you could probably hack one together that will do the same thing.

No guarantees that it will work but let us know here the result!

https://www.amazon.com/NEORTX-Adapter-Cable-Xbox-Black/dp/B00SMCJB4Y/

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't read your question properly. You definitely can do this as I've said I've done it before.

This has a tutorial about how to connect the wires if you want to hack it yourself. It also has the drivers and how to install them on your PC with Windows 10.

https://www.s-config.com/xbcd-original-xbox-controllers-win10/

EDITx2: If you have a 360 wired controller you can should be able to connect that directly to your Windows based PC and it should work with far less hassle than messing with modding or buying an adapter for an OG Xbox controller.

If you're doing what I did and wanted to use an OG Xbox controller for emulation for the 6 button configuration then I understand. Good luck!

I got a 2TB usb 3.0 external drive for my xbox one on my birthday(dec 5th) and when i installed it i followed these steps.

• With the console off, plug in the drive.
  
• Turn on the console and wait for the home screen to load.
  
• a notification will appear telling you that your 'External drive is ready to be configured'
  
• Hold the home button to open that and configure it.
  
• After configuration you will be giving a final window asking to install all future items on this drive, choose yes!
  
  
  Hope this helped, I just did it myself, but if you're willing to spend $140 on a 2tb expansion drive for your xbox I would suggest doing it with these.
  
  $40 - 2.5" Hard Drive Enclosure & 3 Front USB 3.0 Ports Media HUB - Xbox One
  
  $100 - 2.5" Sata HDD

I bought this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KNNSKV0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and used the Optical audio output on the XB1 into the adapter and then a 3.5mm cable to go from adapter to the AUX in on my PC speakers and it works perfect. I can even hear the audio from the Xbox at the same time as audio from my PC so no need for changing inputs on my speakers or anything.

For Windows support you'll want the wireless variant with Windows in the name, as the non-"Windows" variant doesn't include the dongle. The dongle works plug-and-play with Windows 7 (IIRC, or 8.x+). The dongle can also be bought separately. You might also want the Play-and-charge kit.

I use the wireless controller with my PC all the time. You absolutely HAVE to buy the wireless controller dongle, there's no way to make it work without one. Plugging the controller in with a charge & play kit just charges it, it won't transfer the controls through to the computer. I went ahead and bought this one a few years ago, since the dongle itself was around $20 at the time. I figured I may as well get another controller with it for an extra $15.

It came with the installation CD as well.

It's prime eligible right now, too!

You will need a optical to analog converter

Something like this should do it

PROZOR DAC Digital SPDIF Toslink to Analog Stereo Audio R/L Converter Adapter with Optical Cable- https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KNNSKV0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_9lZPBb2BTQ1KN

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00T76ZGDO/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

This product is awesome. It has sata connectors inside the device and 3 more USB 3.0 ports. So you can just buy a standard SSD and use it. Plug and play. NO! this is not overkill. idk the speed of the hard drives in the xbox but it cant be a 10k RPM or 15k RPM. But SSD is 100x faster than any mechanical hard drive EVER.

>If so are there other serviceable options?

What do you mean by this?