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Steve Lawson Gives Awarts-and-All Assessment of Microsoft's next- Generation Games Console, the Xbox 360rosoft's Next-Generation Gamesconsole, the Xbox 360

Posted on: Friday, 9 December 2005, 06:00 CST

By Steve Lawson

DID you get one? If not, chances are it will be the beginning of next year before you lay your hands on a 360As was the case with Sony's PlayStation Portable, demand far outstrips supply.

Whether that's been a deliberate marketing ploy or not we'll never know, but the shortages have left many gamers - and retailers - understandably frustrated. In September I reported on playing the 360, and raved about its gaming and digital mediacapabilities.

Now that it's finally here, I can only reiterate what I said then. This is truly a next-generation product, pushing gaming beyond existing boundaries and placing itself firmly at the centre of your digital lifestyle. The console's ability to link withdigital cameras, iPods, PSPs and Windows Media Center PCs make it a flexible entertainment hub.

Once High Definition TV takes hold in the UK and game developers get into their stride, we'll see amazing things from the 360. However, the console's ambitious global launch hasn't been trouble- free.

In America a small percentage of customers report Blue Screen of Death crashes, believed to have been caused by the 360's huge power adaptor overheating. Others found the Ring of Light - the circular control button on the console's facia - glowing redinstead of green, indicating hardware failure. Three of the games reviewed here were promotional disks and eachsuffered frequent "Unreadable disk" errors. These are not final retail versions - I only mention these in the interests of balance. And, infairness to Microsoft, my retail copies of King Kong, Condemned and Call of Duty 2 (see review) all play flawlessly, as do DVDmovies.

So, if you haven't got yours yet, let's hope fresh supplies come through fast; if you have, you have better things to do than read this

Source: Daily Record; Glasgow (UK)

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