Is the Xbox 360 worth buying? If you have prerequisites like an HDTV and a Media Center PC the Xbox 360’s supportfor these items will make it well worth your time. If you want to just use it as gaming system, it’s hard tojustify the expense right now. Like most console launches, the titles aren’t that revolutionary. I think the best planwould be to wait till next year to make the purchase: the console will be cheaper, the selection of games will bebroader, used games will be available, you’ll know the Playstation 3’s features, the Xbox 360 games will be makingbetter use of the console’s power, Microsoft will have most of the bugs ironed out and you might be able to runLinux.
One of the main reasons I purchased the Xbox was its media streaming ability. Using the Windows Media Connect youcan access music and photos stored on your Windows XP machine. The software will also stream video, but not to the Xbox360 because Microsoft has decided to cripple it. This is an attempt to sell more Windows Media CenterPCs since you can stream video using them.
Playing music is easy enough. It was a lot more enjoyable navigating music stored on the iPod than on a XP machine. The iPod is neatly organized while Media Connect scrapes every directory you give it, listing every randommusic file and playlist it comes across. The interface is pretty easy to use, but I have a couple complaints. Adding asong to a playlist takes at least three button pushes. When you click “add to playlist” it takes you to the playlistand then you have back up to get back to where you were before. They should dedicate one button on the controller foradding the song and not make you jump back and forth. Also, you can’t save playlists that include music not stored onthe hard drive. The easiest way to manage playlists is building them on your PC or in iTunes for your iPod instead ofusing the Xbox interface. The Xbox does work really well if you want to play by album, artist, or genre though.
I haven’t experienced any problems that I would consider heat related. That being said: This console is extremelyhot. Heat pours out of the back out the machine even when doing menial tasks like playing MP3s. If you place a handacross the right side of the box you can feel the suction from fans. This is the largest intake and because of that Ithink standing the box up on carpet would be a really bad idea. The feet are short enough that I wouldn’t feel goodabout standing it up on a hard surface either. The power supply has been blamed for most overheating problems. It hasintake and exhaust ports that consist of two rows of holes in a 2 inch space.
CONTROLLER: Following the trend set by Nintendo, the Xbox’s OEM wireless controller is great. They added two shoulderbuttons, but unlike the Playstation, placing four fingers on the shoulder buttons doesn’t feel natural. This is finebecause the upper buttons are used for occasional tasks like switching view points; you spend most of your time withindex fingers on the triggers. The light on top of the controller indicates which number 1-4 the controller is assignedto, a nice touch. It would be nice to see the possibility of more players supported on a single console though. Thewired USB controllers can be used with Windows, but not the wireless controllers when connected with the “play &charge”. The obvious conclusion is that: the play & charge is just a power cable and doesn’t add any sort of USBfunctionality. I think the headset connector is identical to the original Xbox: 2.5mm jack like cellphone headsets, Ialso have a 2.5mm RCA cable from my digicam that would work. There are two slots next to the headphone jack that havetwo metal contacts each which aren’t used by the headset.