Which Xbox 360 should you buy? Things to consider…

I miss the simpler times, when the Nintendo was the Nintendo, and the Sega Genesis was just the Sega Genesis. Sure, the consoles were revised, but at least you didn’t have to worry about different specs. I was recently asked by someone if they should buy the 4GB or the 250GB Xbox 360. After thinking for a minute, I found it a surprisingly easy question to answer.

The question comes down to money. Not how much do you have, but how much do plan on spending long term? If you already have a collection of videos from the Zune Marketplace that perhaps you bought a while ago, maybe you’ll want the 250GB drive. If you plan to download your games from Xbox Live, rather than buying them at Gamestop or Target, then you’ll want the 250GB drive. But for most people the 4GB drive will suffice.

4GB is quite a small drive, but if you don’t plan on downloading games or movies, you’ll be fine. A 4GB Xbox 360 is still capable of streaming from services like YouTube and Netflix. To use those apps, you must download them to the hard drive, but 4GB is ample storage. You will also have room for your title updates as game patches are released. You won’t be able to download very many Xbox Live Arcade games, but at $5-$20 each, it is just as I mentioned above: how much do you want to spend long term? If you ever do change your mind? You can upgrade to an even bigger 320GB drive for the same price as it would cost to buy the $250! I suspect the price drop to be permanent, although it is possible that the drive may return to it’s $130 price tag. Still, an upgrade later is always an option if you decide that 4GB is not enough for you, once you get a taste of all the offerings on Xbox Live!