by Gabriel the Gamer on December 21, 2005
Intro & Bundles
The next-gen console wars have begun and Microsoft has fired the first shot. With at least a seven month edge over both Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft is out extra early with their brand spanking new Xbox 360 to seize control of the market. Now, Microsoft has been very keen to take control of the gaming market ever since the release of the original Xbox in 2001. Even though they have had over 4 billion dollars in losses, they are riding out the market with iron determination.
Their second console, going by the name of the Xbox 360 (most likely because Microsoft feared looking less technological compared to Sony’s third console, the PS3), is a beast of a machine. Coming with an IBM PowerPC based "Xenon" CPU, a custom ATI R500-based "Xenos" GPU, and 512 MB of ram all tucked neatly underneath its hood, the Xbox 360 is no joke.
The Bundles
As many of you may have already heard, the Xbox 360 comes in two major bundles; The Xbox 360 Core System and the Xbox 360 Premium. Here is a comparison of both bundles:
|
Core System |
Premium System | |
| Detachable Hard Drive |
No |
Yes |
| Controller |
Wired w/9ft cable |
2.4GHz Wireless |
| X-Box Live Headset |
No |
Yes |
| Cables |
Standard A/V |
Component HD-A/V |
| XBox Live Membership |
Silver |
Silver |
| Trial Gold Membership |
One Month |
One Month |
| Ethernet Cable |
Yes |
Yes |
| Multimedia Remote |
No |
Yes (Initial Shipents Only) |
| Price |
US$ 299.99 (AED 1100/-) |
US$399.99 (AED 1475/-) |
Today we will be testing and reviewing the premium bundle. As can be seen from above, the Core System doesn’t offer much. Not coming equipped with a Hard Drive, an HD-AV cable, or a wireless remote, its offerings are scant. Since the Xbox 360 has undergone many internal changes it requires emulation to play the original Xbox’s games and the only way to emulate the original Xbox games is through a hard drive, which the Core System does not offer.
In reality, the Core System is not saving consumers much money at all. Buying a wireless controller ($50), Component HD-AV cable ($40), an Xbox-Live Headset ($20), and a 20GB hard drive ($100) separately will put you up $200-$210- over $100 more than the premium system! In addition, the Premium system has chrome plating on its DVD media tray and eject button while the Core system has a plastic exterior that goes along with the rest of the case.
Whats Included
The initial shipment of Xbox 360 premium units comes with a media remote. The remote has the usual amount of buttons such as play, rewind, forward, etc. It also has 4 directional navigation buttons, an “OK” button, and Y, X, A, and B buttons. In addition, it has a Media Center Start button, a power on/off button, and a DVD media tray open/close button. The remote runs on 2 AA batteries. In white plastic that is identical to the Xbox 360’s, it is a nice addition to the Xbox 360 experience, although not an essential one.
Next up is the Xbox 360’s controller, which is very similar to the Xbox Controller S. There are of course the 2 joysticks, which for some reason did not move as easily as we would have liked. You also have the expected X, Y, A, and B buttons, a D-Pad, a back button, a start button, the RB and LB shoulder buttons, and the RT and LT trigger buttons.
The feel of the controller is a definite step up from the Xbox’s controller. Rumble effects are great and bring games to life. Although the design remains similar to the S Controller, the Black and White Buttons have been replaced with 2 shoulder buttons and the start and back buttons have been moved towards the center of the remote around the Xbox logo.
Ahhhh, the Xbox logo, how could we forget? As an actual button, the Xbox logo is used for setup purposes. On pressing the logo during a game, it will bring up the Xbox guide, a small side screen which gives immediate access to messages, music, and friends along with information of how much battery power is left on the controller. Pressing and holding the Xbox logo turns on/off the console. Unfortunately, the controllers do not come equipped with a rechargeable battery pack, but instead run off of AA batteries and Microsoft is kind enough to include two Energizer ones. There is an official accessory that handles this, however, we would have preferred it to be bundled with the premium pack.
Setting up controllers with the Xbox 360 requires pressing the connect button on both the console and the controller and waiting for them to pick each other up. Depending on the remote number you are (1,2,3,4), a green LED will be lit around the Xbox 360’s power on/off button and around the controller’s Xbox logo.
The HDD attaches to the top or left side of the console, depending on how your orientation is set up. The only part of the HDD that plugs into the system is a small side connector. A cool feature of the 360 is that it can actually sense whether it’s laid down or standing up. We don’t recommend repositioning the Xbox 360 while playing a game. When we tried to do that the DVD media tray emitted a rather nasty sound.
The Component HD-AV cable can send signals in Standard AV or HDTV. To switch between the two signals, a flick of the button on the cable is required. Also included is an optical connector for 5.1 surround sound.
In an effort to reduce the Xbox 360’s size, Microsoft decided to move the power supply outside of the box, so what you are seeing is the mutated beast that was born: The Xbox 360’s Power Brick. Although massive and bulky, we’d still prefer this beast instead of a larger Xbox 360.
The Experience
The main navigation system for the Xbox 360 is the dashboard. There are four vertical tabs in the dashboard that are Xbox Live, Games, Media, and System.
The Xbox Live menu gives access to information on your Xbox Live account. In order to view this information, you must be signed in. If not, the option to sign in will be given to you. In order to sign in to Xbox Live, a HDD or Memory Card is needed. Once logged on to Xbox Live, your profile picture, name, reputation, gamer score, and gamer zone will all be displayed in the main box or card, on the screen. The Xbox Live message center is where you can receive and send messages, chat invites, or game invites to fellow Xbox 360 friends. If logged in, a message screen pops up on the bottom of the screen during gaming to inform you which of your friends have signed on/off.
All in all, the Xbox Live “experience” on the 360 was a very fun one. Integrated deeply into the 360, Microsoft has introduced many new innovations such as 15-second audio messaging or, when the Xbox 360 camera becomes available, video messaging for Xbox Live gold members.
The next stop on the dashboard is the Jungle Green games tab. Again in the top right corner of the screen is your gamers’ card. Listed beneath it are Achievements, Played Games, Xbox Live Arcade, Demos, and Trailers. In the Xbox Live Arcade, you can download mini games via Xbox Live. Demos are basically demos you have downloaded from Xbox Live and trailers are game trailers also downloaded via Xbox Live.
The next tab is the blue colored Media section. As we have become used to, your gamers’ card is displayed in the top left corner. There are selections for Music, Pictures, Videos, and Media Center.
The music section rips CDs to the hard drive and allows you to play them, streams music from computers or mp3 players, or plays music from CDs. The video section plays movies that are stored on the hard drive. The Media Center button connects the Xbox 360 to a Windows Media Center or Windows XP based PC on a network. From here you can stream live-recorded TV, watch On-Demand movies, listen to music, and watch photos stored on your PC.
Last comes the Settings tab. Purple in color, the tab has 6 main options: Console Settings, Family Settings, Memory, Network Settings, Computers and Initial Setup. Console Settings is the main option for settings. Inside Console Settings there are many options available for changing. The highlights are choosing between display resolutions of 480p, 720p, and 1080i, changing audio from analog to digital, and choosing between all remote channels (so that you can use your Media Center PCs’ remote with the 360) or just using the Xbox 360 Media Remote channel.
Family settings allow parents to choose what kinds of games they want their kids to play. Memory manages files on the hard drive or on a memory card, Network Settings sets up the 360’s network, Computers allows the user to choose what kind of OS the user is running (Windows Media Center or Windows XP), and Initial Setup runs you through the setup process seen when first firing up the Xbox 360.
Games/Conclusion
As expected, the Xbox 360’s graphics are top-notch. Even though the graphics might not be a really huge leap if you’ve played the latest PC titles, they are without a doubt a huge leap for consoles. One of the largest differences in graphics on the Xbox 360 when compared to older consoles comes from the arrival of anti-aliasing on consoles. Although some games such as Perfect Dark Zero seem to not use full anti-aliasing, other games like Project Gotham Racing relies heavily on it.
Lighting effects are the most impressive part of the Xbox 360. Everywhere you look in games like Perfect Dark Zero or Project Gotham Racing, intricate shadows and glints take full advantage of the Xbox 360’s horsepower. Ownership of a High Definition TV only sweetens the deal. It is staggering how much better it looks when compared to component video. High Definition opens up a whole new world for the Xbox 360’s graphics. Many games are dependant on it too.
On the games side, we have to say the Xbox 360 still doesn’t have any killer titles- just a handful of strong ones. Although games such as Perfect Dark Zero are impressive and fun, they are no Halo. Kameo is also fun, but a bit cartoony, and although Call of Duty 2, is a strong title, it’s still not what we’re looking for. Looking at the list of launch titles, we’ll most likely have to wait for games like Epic’s Gears of Wars to change this pattern. One thing worth mentioning is that the unit can get extremely loud while playing games and the reason for that is the noisy high speed fan that the 360 uses to keep things cool.
Backwards Compatibility
Backwards compatibility is one of the biggest issues for the Xbox 360. As we’ve mentioned, the Xbox 360 has undergone many hardware changes compared to the original Xbox so it requires emulation to play games from the original Xbox. For the most part, emulation worked very well. Since the Xbox 360 supports HD, games from the older Xbox are given a nice treat by scaling them to a higher resolution and adding some anti-aliasing to the mix. These changes are, surprisingly, very noticeable and really increase picture quality.
For the most part, backwards compatibility works great. You can either download an update via Xbox Live or download the patch and burn it to a CD. After installation of the patch is completed, we popped in Halo 2 and fired up the Xbox 360. We were initially met with a load screen with a percent counter. After this, Halo 2 worked like any other Xbox 360 game. Performance was generally better than the original Xbox and we hit very few problems.
Our major concern regarding backwards compatibility is the number of titles it supports. Since the Xbox is nearing the end of its life, some of its strongest titles such as Battlefront 2 are coming out. Unfortunately, many of these games are not supported at the current time. However, we are confident that Microsoft is working on fixing these problems and we should be seeing support for these games very soon.
Conclusion
Well, one launch down and two more to go. All in all, the Xbox 360 is an impressive piece of hardware. Microsoft has really succeeded in pushing forward the technology in game consoles. With High Definition, wireless remotes, and state of the art technology, the Xbox 360 is a definite winner. However, we suggest waiting it out until the PS3 and Revolution are released, and then choosing the best console. Of course, not everyone likes to play the waiting game and if you simply have to have the latest greatest then the Xbox 360 offers exactly that at the moment.
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