Review: Xbox360 - Wrapped in Criticism, Still a Hot Package

As we near Christmas, one item is on the top of everyone's gift list: the Xbox360, Microsoft's new offering in the world of video game consoles. Due to limited production numbers, these consoles are virtually impossible to find in stores, and not just because its another new tech gadget. I was fortunate enough to receive one for free through a promotion run by Pepsi Co. and Microsoft, so I didn't have to worry about the incredibly short supply (as of the time of this writing, EBGames.com reports that orders placed after October 26 may not ship until after March 2006).


The stuff you know

With the 360, Microsoft planned to release a multi-faceted unit: a next-generation gaming powerhouse, a multimedia hub, and an online communication device all rolled into one sleek machine. Not surprisingly, the 360 is smaller than its predecessor (the original Xbox could have easily doubled as a small coffee table), but packs a lot of power for its size. The 360 is powered by a triple-core PowerPC processor, each core running at 3.2 GHz. The system has 512 MB of GDDR3 memory shared between the system and its custom-designed ATi video chipset. Both of these high-end architectures are air-cooled using direct airflow over two fairly basic aluminum heatsinks. The sides, top and bottom of the case have a grill of air holes to help ventilate the 360. The console is available as part of a $399 "premium" bundle (which is the standard kit) and a $299 "core" bundle (for gamers who don't want to play over Xbox Live or store media on the console). The "core" package includes a wired controller and composite A/V cable, so you can hook everything up and be playing in no time. The higher-end package, which is considered to be the standard model, includes a wireless controller (powered by two AA batteries, included), component A/V cable for high-definition televisions or older sets with only composite A/V jacks, a headset for communicating with fellow gamers via Live, and a media remote for playing DVDs, music, and navigating the 360's menus without a gaming controller. The 360 in both packages has the ability to use the wireless controllers, and both versions also work with the media remote or more advanced Media Center remote right out of the box.

I feel this deserves its own paragraph, no matter how short. The power supply for the Xbox360 is external, much like what you would find on a laptop computer. This one is, however, large. Quite large; in fact, it has rightfully earned its nickname of "the Brick." It also need to be adequately ventilated, as it generates heat just as any other computer power supply does. Keep this in mind when you're running cables and getting your Xbox360 set up.

To try to encourage (somewhat limited) customization of the Xbox360, Microsoft built it with the ability to remove and reattach the faceplate. Now you are able to swap our faceplates and change up how your 360 looks depending on your mood or decor, just like your cellphone. Microsoft released several faceplates at the same time as the console, each with an MSRP of $19.99. 3rd-party companies have already jumped on the opportunity to make and release their own custom designs, as well as decals to further decorate the sides of the concave case.

The 360 was even designed to be backward-compatible with many of the original Xbox's games, including "Halo" (which practically defined the Xbox) and its sequel "Halo 2". In fact, I've spent more time playing Halo 2 and the recently-released "Stubbs the Zombie" than I have on the one 360 game I own "Perfect Dark: Zero" (click here for my review of PD:Z). In addition to its own titles and the growing list of original XBox games, the 360 can download "arcade" games from the Xbox Live Marketplace, ranging from classics such as "Joust" and "Gauntlet" to virtual pool and puzzle games (the non-Core 360 comes with a web game called "Hexic" preinstalled on its hard drive).

However, I try to report on things that matter to gamers, not the tech/geek-heavy stuff like hardware specifications. With that in mind, let's just get into the meat of what the 360 is like when you're behind the controller.


The stuff you want to know

From the moment you get the Xbox360 hooked up, its apparent that this is designed to not only be a gamer's dream, but an integral part of your living room and multimedia setup. Although most sites show it standing on end, it also has attached feet for laying on its side, which is much more useful if you'll be putting it on a shelf in your entertainment center. The console can be turned on using its power button on the front of the console, or by pressing and holding the "Xbox Guide" button in the center of your game controller (both the wired and wireless controllers work). The media remote included with my console also has a power button on it, as well as an eject button, putting these basic controls on par with other media devices such as DVD players. Around the console's power button is what Microsoft calls the "Ring of Light", and it has a counterpart on the game controllers. This light acts as a multi-purpose indicator. As the console turns on, the lights in the ring spin around, fade in and out, and just basically tell you that things are running. Once the 360 is loaded to the dashboard, the Ring of Light will indicate how many controllers are detected. Each quadrant of the circle corresponds to one of up to four controllers than can be used (either wirelessly, or connected to one of the 360's 3 USB2 ports). Likewise, the indicator on the controllers will indicate each player's player number (so if you're player #1, the top-left quadrant of your Ring of Light will be illuminated). This is incredibly handy, as it also addresses the matter of which quadrant of the screen belongs to which player in split-screen games. What I thought was really cool about these player indicator lights is that, on the 360 console itself, the quadrants are relative to the position of the console: if you have the 360 standing upright with only one controller connected, the top-left quadrant illuminates to indicate that there's just the one controller, and is player 1. If your 360 is laying on its side, though (and again with only one controller, for comparison), the indicator light is still the top-left! It isn't too terribly important, but I think its a nice bit of continuity and foresight on Microsoft's part.

As for the controllers themselves, I've already stated that the "Core" bundle ships with one wired controller, while the standard package ships with one wireless controller. History has shown that wireless connectivity of any sort, be it networking or controllers, can be flaky at times, and any "hardcore" gamer tries to avoid using such devices because of the delay that can occur between a gamer's reaction/response and the signal being received/interpreted by the console. There have been few exceptions to this rule, namely the Nintendo Wavebird wireless controller, which had an impeccable reaction time, but was fairly bulky. I've always followed this unwritten rule of video gaming, but I'm overjoyed to say that Microsoft has done a remarkable job with their wireless controllers. I've used their wireless controllers exclusively at home, and have yet to notice any delay, no matter how minute, in the reaction time. I've used the controllers on the kiosks at retail stores (I presume they're the wired USB2 controllers), and there's no difference in performance at all. Even if the kiosk controllers are wireless, I still feel like the 360 wireless controllers are just as responsive as my wired Xbox controllers. What's really mind-blowing is that these amazing wireless controllers are actually smaller, slightly, than the Xbox's S-type controllers, and retain the same comfortable feel. To help reduce the notorious wireless lag, MS implemented a system in which each wireless controller has to synchronize with a 360 console before it can be used. This synchronization helps to narrow the spectrum of "stations" the console's receiver has to monitor for active controller signals. Basically, its a preliminary handshake between the console and controller, so the console knows exactly how to communicate with the controller at optimum efficiency.

The wireless controllers run on 2 AA batteries, but those can be replaced with optional rechargeable battery packs. At $11.99 a piece, your decision to buy one should be heavily considered. If you're a casual player, these may not be the best option for you, considering that a pair of rechargeable AA batteries would cost you less. However, the battery pack from MS boasts a whopping 25 hours of continuous gameplay (I've been using the same battery pack for 2 weeks straight without recharging), and have an added bonus: using the optional Play & Charge Kit, you can plug your wireless controller into your Xbox360 (or any computer with a USB port) and recharge the battery pack while you play. That's right; you get continuous, uninterrupted gameplay if your battery starts to run low. What's more, your Xbox360 will warn you when the charge starts to run low, so you know to plug your controller in before it dies on you. You may be asking what happens if you let the battery pack run dead anyway; I can assure you MS planned for such an event. If, for whatever reason, the signal to/from your wireless controller gets interrupted, your game automatically pauses and prompts you to reconnect your controller (turn it on, plug it in, whatever you have to do). This, of course, won't help you much if you're in the middle of an online battle, but it certainly won't cost you the match if you're busy trying to beat the last fighter in "Dead or Alive 4" when your controller cuts out on you. Priced at $19.99, the Play & Charge Kit is quite a good deal, in my opinion, and includes a rechargeable battery (so no, you don't have to spend $20 on a stupid cable to recharge your $12 battery).

If you absolutely refuse to trust these wireless marvels, you do still have the option of the wired controllers. For the Xbox360, Microsoft threw away the proprietary plug used for the Xbox's controllers (they were actually a reshaped USB port/plug) and went with good old USB2, with standard ports and plugs. The wired controllers look and feel just like the wireless ones; they just have a cable running out of them. The benefit to these controllers is that, with a small download from Microsoft's website, you can use the wired controllers on your WindowsXP-based computer. Microsoft's intent here was to create a common controller that could be used for both Windows and 360 games, as part of their ambitious XNA project. Unfortunately, there's a drawback to the wired controller, as well. The Xbox360 only has the three USB2 ports (two up front, one in the back), so if you choose to exclusively use hard-wired controllers due to their lack of signal loss, you have to forgo having four players on one system. The wireless connectivity does support a full four players, though, and the system can manage up to four players using a combination of wireless and wired controllers, so you're not completely shooting yourself in the foot.

...I still won't trust wireless LAN for my gaming, though. Call me old-fashioned, call me hardcore, or call me cheap; I just can't convince myself its worth throwing down $99.99 for a simple USB2 Wi-Fi adapter, especially with the signal loss inherent to Wi-Fi networks. It helps that the Xbox360 wireless ethernet adapter supports 802.11a/b/g networking, but I personally feel that its overpriced. I spent $9 and ran a 25ft ethernet cable from our office (where the router is) to the living room (where the 360 is, of course), and I'll never have to worry about my ping shooting up because of any metal or concrete in the walls separating the two rooms. But I digress...

When the 360 powers on, you're taken to the Dashboard, which is similar in function to the dashboard on the original Xbox or on the Sony Playstation 2, accessible when no game disk is present in the drive. Even if there is a disk in the drive (which will cause the 360 to auto-load that game), you can quickly access the dashboard via the Xbox Guide button previously mentioned. In the Dashboard, there are 4 main menus, or "blades": Xbox Live, Games, Media, and Settings. You can navigate between each of these using the remote, or using the directional pad or left joystick of the game controller. Each blade's title is pretty self-explanatory -- the first one covers features that utilize Xbox Live, like the Xbox Live Marketplace, friend lists, and messages. The "Games" blade covers access to your game statistics, accomplishments which contribute to your Xbox Live "Gamer Score", and games that you have stored on your hard drive. "Media" contains controls to access and play music stored on your 360's hard drive, as well as photos, videos, and music stored on a Windows XP or Media Center PC, on an external USB drive, iPod or other audio player, or your digital camera. You can also access the music player by pressing the Xbox Guide button on your controller or remote. Streaming music from your XP/MCE computer does require an established Windows Media Player music library/playlist; it doesn't just go searching through your "My Music" directory. Lastly, "Settings" covers all the system settings and controls for your Xbox360. The dashboard as a whole has visual themes than can be changed just like themes for Windows, and the hard drive comes with around 10 themes to get you started, most of them based on previous or current Xbox/Xbox360 games (Halo, Kameo, and Gun, among others). More themes are, of course, available for download via the Marketplace.

The Xbox Live Marketplace is a new feature added with the release of the Xbox360. Via the Marketplace, users can spend "Marketplace Points" (virtual currency purchased with real currency) on all sorts of file downloads for their 360. There is a section dedicated to the "Arcade" games already mentioned, as well as sections for downloading game trailers (which are free) and other videos, dashboard themes, and gamertag images. Not all of the Marketplace content is direct from Microsoft, though; there happens to be a healthy (and growing) base of gaming community contributors. One of the first 3rd-party contributors were the gents at Penny Arcade, releasing a Penny Arcade-inspired theme and two gamertag image packs.

One thing that has been a point of controversy and speculation is also a feature I think is pretty cool. Via your Xbox Live GamerTag, people on your Friend List can see what you're currently doing on your Xbox360. Say, for instance, you're in the mood for some multi-play "Call of Duty 2", and you want to see which of your online friends might be online and interested. When you pull up your friends list, you can select each profile and see if they're currently on their system (as long as its connected to Live). Furthermore, the read-out will tell you if they're already playing CoD2, or if they're maybe playing "King Kong." If they're using their 360 for multimedia purposes at the time, the profile will tell you if they are listening to music, watching a movie, or viewing pictures. It doesn't say what song they're listening to, what movie they're watching, or how indecent the pictures may be, just that its the feature they're using at the time. Some people fear that the Xbox360 is revealing too much information to your peers, but I personally have yet to see any evidence to suggest that there's anything malicious with the way things are working as of yet.

In all-too-general terms, the Xbox360 makes (compatible) Xbox games play better. You don't get the added features that are native to X360 games, like custom playlists, but all the features included in the original game work, and work well. The only noticeable difference is that the old black "Xbox" screen that first shows up when a game is loading now has a white background (but same green X). As for the 360's native games, everything I've seen so far indicates that even these launch titles are graphically amazing, particularly when compared to the same titles on other consoles (in cases where the title is cross-platform). "King Kong", for instance, is multi-platform, but it looks absolutely stunning on the Xbox360; the jungles are lusher, the details of Kong and the T-Rex are the closest to photo-realistic I've ever seen in a console game. The dynamic lighting is absolutely top-notch, as well.


What you probably don't want to know...

The Xbox360 isn't without its problems, though. Just like any high-powered computer, it has problems with overheating. There have been reports all over the internet from Xbox360 owners complaining about their 360 crashing randomly, apparently from overheating. For anyone looking at getting an Xbox360, let me make this one thing painfully clear to you: heat is bad (and the Xbox360 spews a lot of it, trust me), but you have to help it ventilate. Don't put the 360 on carpet, as that will keep air from flowing into the case. Don't keep the console in an overly-restrictive area, as that again limits the amount of airflow. Another thing to keep in mind is that the power supply generates a considerable amount of heat on its own, and has vent holes and feet to help it get cooler air into it. Don't rest the brick on carpet, and don't position it right up against the 360, either, as the two can cause each other to heat up more. If you have problems with your Xbox360 crashing, try repositioning the power supply first, as most sources indicate that the bring, not the console itself, tends to be the cause of most heat-related 360 crashes--the brick will just shut itself down if it gets too hot. One gamer on the web apparently had a great amount of success in preventing heat-related crashes by suspending the power brick in the air using string; other web-posters have since confirmed that this idea works very well. I can honestly say, though, that I have yet to have any problems with my 360 crashing. I've had it standing up, laying down, and in an entertainment center cubby hole, and even playing PDZ for hours on end has yet to cause it to have a problem. So please, don't worry too much about overheating. Just be reasonable when you set up your system. If all else fails, the console comes with a 3-month warranty, which can be extended to an additional 2 years.

Another problem that's been reported on the internet (yet again, I haven't had to deal with it myself) is that the console can occasionally scratch concentric rings into your game disks, DVDs, and music CDs. Apparently, this happens if a disk is spinning in the drive, and the console is bumped, jostled, or moved. All I can say is, don't bump, jostle, or move your Xbox360 while you're also playing it. However, if bumping, jostling, and moving are absolutely unavoidable, there are steps you can take to prevent damage to your expensive disks: one article on the internet covers details on how to apply 3 foam pads to the interior of the disk drive to keep a spinning disk from scratching itself. Unfortunately, to accomplish this tweak you must open the Xbox360's case, which immediately voids the warranty. We can probably expect MS to include a fix of some sort in 360's that ship later, but in the mean time, just be careful. Yet again, this could/should fall under Microsoft's 3-month extendable warranty.

As I've indicated previously, the Xbox360 comes with a 20 GB hard drive (the Core bundle lacks this drive) on which it stores game saves, ripped music, etc. However, I was a little surprised when I powered on my Xbox360 the first time and discovered that the system told me I had 12 GBs of free space. Where in God's name had 8 GBs gone? I went through the contents of the hard drive and found some things that are included by default on the drive. As is MS's style, they like to include video and audio files (like they do on Windows) to help you test out your system and see how things work. To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled by the music selection (about 12-15 songs, some artists I knew of, some unknowns, all new music I hadn't heard), so I deleted that off the drive. Then I ran across the video files: a trailer for the game "King Kong", and 4 videos from MS detailing some of the behind-the-scenes work done on the Xbox360. I actually watched them all, beginning to end, before deleting them. Then I continued my Quest for the Lost Gigabytes. I had to remind myself that MS included ~10 dashboard themes, and maybe twice as many gamer tag icons. I left all those in place, although I don't plan to use even a fraction of the default options (I've decided to go with a Penny Arcade-themed dashboard). These themes and icons still don't account for all the missing drive space. Today, however, I ran across an interesting article that explained everything quite nicely. From XboxAddict.com, "From the beginning, we’ve all known that the HDD is necessary for playing backward compatible games from the Xbox, so the emulator is also included in the HDD, along with some reserved space to download compatibility updates for more games as they become available (Burnout 3 anybody?). Space is also reserved for title updates and patches, probably not too dissimilar from what we’ve seen with Halo 2. Says Microsoft: 'Some space on the HDD is set aside to increase overall system functionality, including things like the Xbox emulator to enable backwards compatibility and console and title updates to allow for continued innovation and expansion of the console experience.'" Also, on Xbox.com (Microsoft's Xbox/Xbox360 site), Todd Holmdahl (Corporate VP of the Xbox Product Group) indicated that the first Xbox360 systems incude an "early version" of the Xbox emulating software. "An early version of the emulator that supports Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 offline is included on Xbox 360 Hard Drives right out of the box as a special bonus to devoted fans of the franchise. However, to play Halo 2 online, or to play any other titles on the launch list, the full emulator update is required." The required software updates can be pulled directly from Xbox Live, burned to a CD from Xbox.com, or can be ordered on a disk from Microsoft (via Xbox.com) for the cost of shipping. Apparently, the hard drive also includes a music database so you can rip music from your personal collection without having to be online to receive song titles, etc (or having to enter each track's title manually). iTunes and other programs work similarly, although they access an online database when ripping tracks from a CD. Presumably, the database preloaded on the 360's hard drive automatically updates itself when connected to the internet, so it stays current with newly-released music. With all this content preloaded--an extensive database of music album info, Xbox emulation software, reserved space to handle updates and patches, etc--its no wonder that they found a way to cut my 20 GB HDD down to 13 GBs (after I deleted music and videos). Heh... this coming from the company who once told us that the typical computer user would never need more than a gigabyte of hard drive space. Thanks, Bill!

There is also a lot of argument over whether or not the Xbox360 is truly a "next-gen/HD" console. The 360 includes a standard dual-layer DVD drive (like all other DVD drives/players), instead of going with an HD-DVD drive as was previously speculated. Sony's PS3, now scheduled for release sometime next year, is expected to come with Sony's Blu-Ray drives (disks that are capable of holding up to 50GBs of data) as a standard feature; current dual-layer DVDs can only hold ~8.5 GBs of data, and the proposed HD-DVD format is supposed to have a maximum capacity of 30GBs. The decision was made, no doubt, because there hasn't been a final decision on which format will become the standardized format for the next generation of high-definition multimedia. Obviously, there's no chance for the 360's standard DVD drive to compete with the PS3's Blu-Ray technology, but it may not have to. First off, Blu-Ray technology is supposed to be unveiled next year as well, and as history shows, new high-tech gadgets always cost an absolute fortune. The first DVD players were in the $1k range, and the first DVD burning drives were similarly high-priced. Also an important matter to keep in mind, the original Xbox used the same dual-layer DVD drives (for reading DVD movie disks). No Xbox game ever used more than a third of it's disk's full capacity, which is absolutely astounding when you take into account games like "Doom 3" and "Half-Life 2", both of which pushed PC hardware to its limits when they came out (hardware still isn't available to really let "Doom 3" run the way it was designed to; fortunately Id software made the game quite scalable). So with the 360, we can still have games that are ~3 times the size (higher-res textures, larger maps, etc) and it should still fit on the same disks. It makes you wonder what Sony is planning on using their 50GB disks for...

After setting up my Xbox360, I decided I wanted to change some settings; in particular, I wanted to change the dashboard theme. I pulled both user manuals out of the box, removed them from their plastic wrap (yes, the console is that easy to set up) and set about trying to find information on customizing the Xbox360's layout. After a half hour of searching, I gave up. The manuals contain no information whatsoever on how to adjust visual settings on the 360, and mostly just cover setting up the hardware. All in all, I was pretty disappointed with the lack of information supplied with the Xbox360. Granted, I managed to find how to access nearly every feature in the 360 either by just poking around the Dashboard, but there are still things I'm trying to learn about, and the web is my only helpful source.

One last thing that I have to admit I'm not fond of (and I've actually experienced this first-hand) is the way the Xbox360 synchronizes data with Xbox Live. For example, my wife loves to play "Hexic"; since we got the console home, she plays it at least once a day, for prolonged periods of time. However, I didn't get an ethernet cable run to get the 360 on Live until a day or two ago. During the time that the console did not have an internet connection, she managed to get some remarkably high scores, even breaking the 1-million-point mark at least once, which would put her in the top 25-30 "Hexic" players on the Live leaderboards. Unfortunately, when we got the 360 onto the internet and connected to Live, the console did not synchronize the top scores it had gotten while offline onto the gamer profile online, so her 1M score is now completely lost. She doesn't look forward to trying to regain that status. To be fair, though, the console does keep track of any predefined Achievements for the game, and uploads those to your gamer profile when it can, so you don't get shortchanged on your Gamer Score (the total number of points you've gotten from earning Achievements).


So, what are you waiting for?

I've had my Xbox360 for a couple of weeks now, and I've yet to be disappointed with any facet of its operation. The 360 game I have is fantastic (again, check out my review of PDZ), and my small collection of original Xbox games all play wonderfully through the 360's backward-compatibility. The few problems that have been reported seem to be few and far between, and easily fixed. All I can say is that Microsoft really pulled it off with the Xbox360; they were the late-coming underdogs in the last console race (Sony PS2, Nintendo GameCube, and Microsoft Xbox), and did quite well for themselves, but this time around, they really pumped up the "wow" factor. That, combined with their early entry into the "next-gen" race (360, PS3, Nintendo "Revolution") and Sony's recent blunders with their music department and its distribution of illegal rootkits disguised as Digital Rights Management, and Microsoft has a very strong standing going into the HD era of multimedia. So go, reserve one at your nearest retail store. Just don't try to find one on eBay; they're selling for far more than any reasonable person should be willing to pay.


[Update on disk scratches]
On 360Insider.net, there is now a story detailing one man's battle with the Xbox360's issues with disk scratches. Matt had never bumped/moved/jostled his Xbox360, but it repeatedly scratched his disks. He called tech support, and a representative told him to try laying it down horizontally (he had it positioned vertically, as all the advertisements show it--it looks damn cool that way). Immediately, it stopped scratching his disks. The customer service representative told him (get this) that the Xbox360 isn't designed to play games in the vertical position.

I'm going to sit here, quietly, whilst that sinks in.

That's right, apparently the 360 isn't designed to play games in the position its always advertised in. It seems that the DVD drive lacks any stabilizers to allow for vertical play, or to prevent disks from scratching when the console is up-right. The worst part is that, as of posting this information, Microsoft refuses to fix Matt's system to play disks in the vertical position, and has no plans to add in any stabilization system in future shipments of the Xbox360.

Now, as I try to be the voice of reason, its quite possible that this is a fluke case; this is the first report I've read on this problem, and many Xbox360 owners have come out to say that their consoles work fine standing up. Also, as we all know, frequently customer representatives aren't the most informed employees in a company (lord knows I've seen more than my fair share of this in dealing with Pepsi Co. over my free console). Its easy to understand that the console works better when laid flat, but it may not be a re-occuring issue with all the Xbox360 consoles.

More information on this particular matter can be found at the link I provided above.