So it's holiday tiem and I'm intending to get a 360 for the family. I intend to get Rock Band eventually, but not this month. When it comes to storage, would the 256 MB be fine, or is that a trap compared to the 20 GB Premium? It comes down to downloadable content, but I have no idea as to how much space such content would fill up. I'm thinking I should probably get the 20 gig bundle, because it comes with component cables and two games, though I don't see myself playing either Marvel UA or Forza 2... Darren will play Forza, though. We don't have a HD-TV, though, so would that make the cables useless?

I'm pretty sure I'm not interested in the Elite. I know for certain I'm getting my bro Need For Speed Pro Street. I'm getting Perfect Dark: Zero cuz it's 20$, and the gifts to me from others would be Bioshock and Lost Planet.

I really wanted to get my mother a pinball machine. She's really wanted the house to be something special for years now, but there are boxes everywhere, as we couldn't afford the storage shed any longer. It kinda sucks; she keeps talking about a yard sale but never comes through, and we can't throw anything away... That gift will have to wait until things are cleared up.

But back to the topic, what titles would anyone strongly recommend? The big reasons for getting the system would have to be RE5, Rock Band, Bioshock, I know there's more but I'm tired right now...

Personally, I'm not home that often anymore to game, so if anything, I need games where I get to blow things up. That, and awesome non-violent games. No sports sims. I'm not really into [i]killing[/i] games, like violent action games; but I certainly love to blow shit up. FPS's (guns in general) I'm fine with, it's just... I really don't like the sight of bladed-melee combat games since the graphics leap has gone to such detail. I'm not terribly familiar with the software lineup, so any insight would be appreciated.

Well i would say if you are going to get xbox live account and so fort. You should get the 20 gb. If you are just gonna buy games rather then doing any downloading might as well go with the smaller one.

I don't own a 360 personally but some good games to get i would say elder scrolls, viva pi~ata i heard that was good, quake 4 =)
You could wait for banjo-Kazooie

If you don't have an Hd-TV you won't be able to use the cable.
I got the wrong Cable for my xbox a while back.
It was the Hd one and i connected it to my regular tv it gave me an image but no sound the image quality being very poor. So you'll have to fork out some more cash for a regular one.

If you are wanting to get a pinball machine, you could go for a small sized one. Or atleast for now. =) Or sell some stuff at ebay. Or here.