I'm looking to play this over xmas break. Buying an xbone or ps4 is not out of the question, however I'm very happy with my 360 still.

How is the 360 version? In my experience the old console versions of cross-gen games seem to suffer and perform poorer than standard games for that console do in a lot of ways (example: wolfenstein new order, Just Cause on PS2).

Seeing as this is an atmosphere-heavy game that aims to draw you in, moderate technical/graphical shortcomings would hamper my enjoyment.

Thanks

"The last-gen releases of Alien: Isolation feature all of the core elements found in the PS4, Xbox One and PC releases to successfully recreate the suspense and much of the atmosphere of the top-end versions. However, the experience is compromised by low frame-rates and a rough, sub-720p presentation that makes it much harder to remain immersed. Xbox 360 gets the nod here, although some detail is lost to black crush in darker areas."

That's what Digital Foundry says. I just beat the game and it had some bad frame-rate dips and hitched up badly on Xbox One. It seems to hitch up a lot when recording game clips (which it did automatically whenever I would kill a synthetic) so that might just be a One problem. Also it completely crashed 2 times; just had to reload though. My opinion is (and you alluded to this) that the game relies so much on atmosphere that comprising that would make the game not as enjoyable. Not sure how much that is compromised on the old consoles though.

So take that as you will. The game is a long haul for sure so you get your money's worth.