Xbox 360 – The lo down

You know, I like all the current the home consoles right now, they are really quite balanced. However for those who are planning to buy a system and need a little straight information on each on you come to right place. The next three entrees will be devoted to a mini-look of the Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 (and your welcome); they won’t be technical or in depth but they will be all based on the opinion of a gamer who was all three and skilled in their use, yours truly. Let’s get started with Xbox 360.

Strengths: The king console in the states, their library of current generation games come 2^nd to none. Racing, Beat’em ups, Action, Adventure, Role Play, Shooter (home of Halo), you name it’s there. I dare say it’ll fit anyone who buys one, even little kids. While I never commend Halo to a child (not until your 13 young man) it’s no trouble download a simple yet fun game from Xbox 360 Arcade so they can have fun and learn the gaming basics – got to strafe before you frag after all. Which bring me to my next point; this console had the best online network on consoles – Xbox live. One could download game demos, TV shows, movie trailers, Xbox original games like Crimson Skies have video chats with friends, have limited connectivity to one’s PC to extent the 360’s media abilities, and of course, play against people online. Even when users fill up their current memory storage unit they can always buy more so they don’t have to erase anything important like south park episodes or your latest recording run-through of Burnout Paradise. Finally 360’s are quite affordable right now pricing at $250-$350

Weakness: As good as the 360, does have a few problems. The biggest is the ‘Red Ring of Death’; now thanks to God, I never had the problem personally with my machine but it has happened to many others (my condolences). When players would see this ring (which is 75% of a ring actually) it would mean the end of your machine, nothing would work. The worst part is that the number of 360 with the ring was surprising high. Fortunately Microsoft has been very supportive of this condition and extended the general warranty to three years for this problem as well as taken steps to make future 360’s would work property. Another issue I have is that while I’m paying for Xbox live (Gold membership baby) I seem to be bombarded with lag, ALL THE TIME! It’s like I’m give Microsoft money to waste my time, and that’s just sick! Oh well… when I do find a good, lag free game it does run well.

Overall: Xbox 360 is an excellent machine that runs well, has a good library of games and online options up the wazoo. It’s only place the 360 has little fan base is in Japan for some reason; but if you don’t live there then you don’t have a problem. I’ll say it straight – if you can’t find a Wii (or don’t like to excise) and still think the Playstation 3 isn’t worth it then buy the 360, you can’t go wrong.