My Xbox 360 has got to be the most amazing and most used gadget I have ever had the pleasure of owning.
This is my favorite gadget – Period…!
The graphics are gorgeous and true next generation (they might not be as good as some high end PC’s but for an 8th of the price they are spectacular).
Plug it into a HDTV and you’re in for a treat – the only way a 360 should be played.
Playing an Xbox 360 without a HDTV is like Knight Rider without KITT – it makes that much difference. If want help on which HDTV click here…
The 360 looks good, plays excellent, sounds amazing but the crème de la crème is Xbox Live (more on xbox live further down).
The accessories are also pretty neat; the wireless controllers fit nicely in your hands, the buttons are well placed and you get a very reasonable 25 hours use out of one charge.
You can also get charge kits so you always have a battery spare.
The headsets are much better than the original Xbox and you can also get a wireless version – now this is pretty cool, looks ace, it fits and holds very well (basically a small rubber ear piece goes over your ear) – the only problem is when you need to charge, you can’t use it which is very annoying.
Xbox Live
An interesting collection of demos, music, trailers, arcade games, movies, TV shows, video and audio chat – all of this is a delight to use due to brilliant functionality and accessibility – making the xbox 360 holder of the best online gaming experience ever! Period!
To get online you need an Xbox live silver membership, which is free and allows you to do all of the above except play games online, to play games online you need a gold membership which costs £40.00 per year.
The future of gaming is online and Microsoft have nailed it. You may have felt, in the past, games were a very high price for maybe 10-30 hours of enjoyment before you undoubtedly will leave them to gather dust on the shelf.
Well with online gaming you can now get your more than your monies worth.
Quality online games like Halo2, Call of Duty 3, Gears of War, PES6 or Rainbow Six will keep you hooked for months, even years. Nothing comes close to the feeling of owning a real person via online gaming – it gives you such a buzz and keeps you coming back for more.
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live also offers Xbox Live Arcade – this basically offers loads of new and retro arcade games to download. Old favorites like Streetfighter 2 or Smash TV and new gems like Assault Heroes or Small Arms can be downloaded for a small fee (you can download trial versions for free). You might think this is a bit of an after thought – you would be wrong, many of the games are ace, new ones are released all the time and all games offer achievements to boost your personal gamer score.
The Verdict 
The 360’s whole package is what makes it my personal preference in the console war (lets hope Sony sort out the Playstation’s online experience to make the PS3 a worthwhile adversary).
The best places to go for an xbox 360 and accessories are Play.com and Amazon.com.
