Hey. ShadowBrain. Shut up.
Seriously, RIGHT after I make a post about how this thread should not be about console comparison, all you have to say is "QFT hur hur hurrrrrrrrrrr" and a stupid pointless question you could have solved yourself by doing a liiiittle bit of research. But no, instead you ask us to do it.
MAN
Bird Person: I guess I'm the one that didn't do the research. I thought wired controllers were included with the Arcade, but I just checked and I guess they're not. Which tells me you didn't read my post.
I just gave you a bunch of reasons why you shouldn't just get the Arcade and buy a hard drive later. You'll want to start saving your games and downloading XBLA demos and games right when you get your Xbox, not having a hard drive will suck until you finally get one. Besides, if you're going to spend the money anyway, why not just do it all at once and reap the Xbox 360 Pro benefits?
Having said that, I'm all for you getting an Xbox 360 sooner, which I would guess is why you're so anxious to get the Arcade. I just think it makes sense to go for the Pro.
As for Ethernet, you're going to need to connect to the internet so you can download stuff from the marketplace.