Xbox 360
Okay, I SWORE I wouldn't do it - I swore I wouldn't fall into the frenzy and buy one. As a testament to my success at not falling victim to the frenzy, I didn’t have one until the 23rd – I waited a whole day. I admit it, I was one of the idiots who waited until the end and then had to pay too much on eBay. The cool thing is that I won my bid at 4:10pm on the 22nd, and it was at my house at 10:50am the next day. The person that sold it to me should get a customer service medal.
The Xbox 360 really 3 devices in one – a gaming machine, a full fledged media extender and DVD player. So my media extender and DVD player were summarily dismissed from my home theater. Pretty cool, I add gaming to my setup and get to have one less device stacked up.
The wireless joysticks are great. I didn’t try to run them on AA batteries, I went straight for the rechargeable kit that also allows you to play while it recharges. I played both plugged in and wireless, and noticed no difference in the response. The joysticks have built in force-feedback as a way cool added bonus.
I hooked my Xbox up to my 50 inch Samsung DLP TV from a couple years ago. The TV only runs 720p (the new ones from Samsung run 1080p, I wish I could justify buying one). But 720p gaming is stunning, non-the-less.
A buddy of mine & I played with it yesterday evening, and we loved it. We started with Perfect Dark (a shooter) and loved the look and gameplay, but 40 year old nervous systems just don’t work with 12 separate control items and so we moved onto racing - Need for Speed something or other (This Time We go Extra, Extra Fast and are Extra, Extra Naughty or something like that), and it is unbelievably real.
HD gaming in the living room – I can’t go back to the old way, I won’t!