$40 Media Center! And its one of the best available!

[number six]

Gamestop has a coupon for $20 off the original XBOX (used) this week. They normally sell for $59, so this would drop it down to $39. Why do I want an XBOX? Well, it's quite possibly the best self-contained media center of all time. Here's what it can do:

• Play virtually any video file. DIVX, XVID, AVI, MPG, Whatever. Wierd Frame Rate? Strange Resolution? No problem.
• It will upscale the above video files to 720p
• It is 5.1 capable and can play your Dolby Digital encoded DIVX/XVID or 5.1-a-tize your MP3s
• It also plays MP3s with just about every feature you'd ever want, milkdrop visualizer, playlists, you name it
• It's a region free DVD player, macrovision free
• It will do all of this over your network via samba so no funky media server is required. Just share a folder, done.

Oh yeah it can also do the following non-media related items:

• Plays XBOX games (duh)
• Near perfect emulation of every console from the 2600 through the SNES, so-so emu of N64
• Emulation of nearly every computer system you can think of
• DOSBOX for it works wonderfully, yes you can play Wing Commander II on your big screen. USB keyboard/mouse adaptors exist
• MAME and other popular arcade emulators, will play most stuff through mid-90s just fine.

There are two limitations to this -

First off you have to mod it for all of this to work. This isn't that hard and doesn't require opening the case or any hardware modification. You can easily Soft mod the XBOX -- it literally takes 5 minutes.

Secondly the CPU is only a Celeron Pentium III. Before this sounds like too much of a downer, strip away Windows and all that and you can actually do quite a lot with that CPU. The only real limitation with it's video playback is it can't do HD native video (even though it can upscale).

Yes an actual Media Center PC can outperform this but even that is hard pressed to match the kick ass interface and ease of operation. There are no drivers, server or issues here.. you plug it into your TV and you are done. There is no way in hell you can come anywhere near this for $40.

[micksimmonds]

Thats a great offer and anyone that doesnt have a Xbox, its well worth getting for all the above, I have one in every room, hooked up to home network, kids can watch divx etc streamed off the main PC HD, they can play as many emulators as you can think of, they enjoy SNES the most, plays MP3's again from the PC HD, so easy to mod, various skins to customise it, heck even the Xbox Arcade driver (like Ratslif) its a cheaper option for most drivers & emulation, if I didnt already have 4 of them, would pick up another.

[number six]

Thats a great offer and anyone that doesnt have a Xbox, its well worth getting for all the above, I have one in every room, hooked up to home network, kids can watch divx etc streamed off the main PC HD, they can play as many emulators as you can think of, they enjoy SNES the most, plays MP3's again from the PC HD, so easy to mod, various skins to customise it, heck even the Xbox Arcade driver (like Ratslif) its a cheaper option for most drivers & emulation, if I didnt already have 4 of them, would pick up another.

As someone who owns every major console, ever. I can say without an shred of doubt that by far the XBOX is the most useful square foot of technology I have ever owned in my entire life. It's basically the collection of everything from the past 20 years, plus music and movies in a small plastic box of pure joy. I haven't played an XBOX 1 game in months (maybe even a year) but I fire up the XBOX literally almost every single night. Everytime I have a party, the XBOX handles the music. When I want to watch a movie, play something on MAME.. It's all on the XBOX.

Neither the 360 nor the PS3 can come anywhere close to ease of use. The only time I begrudingly use either for video is if it's a HD video otherwise on all SD stuff it's the original XBOX.

Right now I've got one in the living room and one in the bedroom. At this price I might buy a backup. The good thing is all you really need to keep the XBOX running indefinitely is for the mainboard and network jack to stay functional.. which shouldn't be too difficult. Unlike the 360 these were pretty rock solid.