Best Buy Canada (and maybe Futureshop, I dunno I didn't check there) have their trade-in your old DVDs towards credit for BD select titles running again.

Oh, I know the issue, like it has lost calibration. I haven't experience that on the 360 actually...I think the N64 was the last system I had that problem with.

I dunno...I don't mind shelling out for quality controllers. One only needs to go look at the Ouya controller or other 3rd party console controllers to see what cheap controllers bring to the table. I don't think they prices are going up though are they...that's pretty much the same as the controllers now.

Phantom joystick?

I guess it is to prevent the battery dying in the controller and being a pain to replace like the PS3 controller? I dunno though. I have had to replace one PS3 controller battery...but I have 4 controllers and the others are just fine and I rotate use quite a bit. My 360 batteries have cost me more than replacing…

Maybe old school is another name for environmentally irresponsible? :) I just can't use regular batteries anymore, they make me feel bad. I hope you at least dispose of them responsibly.

Yeah, I think the over charging was the biggest problem.

That's too bad. The official 360 ended up being my favourite controller of all time. But if it didn't fit your hands well...it would be a pain. The PS3 controller cramps my hands after long plays...so I know where you are coming from.

Yeah, I didn't have too much problem with the headset jack. That is a pretty standard jack for phone headsets, so there was still a fair bit of options for headsets. USB would have been nicer I guess for more gaming headset options.

Oh I do...now. I went through about 4 battery packs before I clued in how crappy they were. Even got the official dual charger for the packs. Lots of money spent on a crappy battery system. I use rechargeable AA Duracell batteries now and have no complaints at all.

Ergonomics with the controller? I really love the controller otherwise. Maybe you have very large hands? I can see the battery packs on the 360 getting in the way for large hands. I use a wired 360 controller on the PC, and that doesn't have the battery hump which is nice.

Let's hope the recharging packs fare better than the battery packs on the 360. I think crappy battery packs were my biggest disappointment with the 360 hardware.

The problem you have with the first game definitely sounds like the HID issue. You can look at disabling the HID devices in the Device Manager (you likely have LOADS of HID devices) until you find the offending ones.

Hehe...we'll just have to agree to disagree. :)

Buggy? I played FEAR (the first game) a couple years back on this rig and it was fine. There was an HID problem causing increasing framerate reduction during the game, but once the offending device was isolated, I think it ran just fine.

We did discuss putting in Thief further along in the thread. Deus Ex was certainly ground breaking, but I really feel that System Shock 2 did similar things with better results. Still...wouldn't hurt to have it on the list. :)

For the record, I'm Canadian...but lots of the religious fever in the U.S. spills over here and is cross-border. Canada certainly is better off than the U.S. for freedom from religion and we definitely offer a much better separation of church and state than the U.S. would aspire towards. We have legalized abortion…

Excellent...sold! Thanks!

Is Odin Sphere fun? I mean, it LOOKS incredible, but the very little I played of it when it launched didn't strike me as loads of fun. It certainly caught my eye for $5 though.

I don't think anyone is being forced to make Kinect games and you'll likely be able to not use any connect functionality in games like you can currently with games on the 360 that use Kinect functions. (Forza, Mass Effect, etc). More options always seems like a better thing to me.