On the entertainment side of things, the Xbox 360 might be able to replace whatever it is you currently use for an entertainment system in your living room. The exception to this is the need for a separate high-definition DVD player. The Xbox offers terrific high-def game output, terrific high-def output of movies recorded on a networked Windows XP MCE PC, dead clean and expansive Dolby 5.1 audio output, but no high-def video output for DVD movies. It's weird and slightly dumb, so don't throw out your current component deck just yet. Aside from that oddity, the console performs admirably. Experienced gamers will love the way this baby responds through the controller to rapid input commands. I tried for hours and hours to glitch the wireless controller, but the thing would not lock up, slow down, lock the console or crash. It just works extremely well. I also tried a number of digital cameras (several Canon, Nikon and Sony point & shoot models), all of which were recognized by the console instantly, making it easy to read the storage media and display photos. I can't conceive of people buying an Xbox 360 mainly for this purpose (or as a music machine to use with your iPod or for streaming MP3s from your home network), but the functionality is there to be sure.

As far as I'm concerned, the bundle to get is the $399.00 Premium package which includes the console, one wireless controller, component video cables for attaching the Xbox 360 to an HD TV set, VGA adapter for connection to a PC monitor, removable 20GB hard drive, headset, a variety of console face plates, AC power block, and a free pass for a basic subscription to Xbox Live. For the spec-conscious consumer who has essentially been living in a cave for that past six months and missed all of the fuss and ants-in-the-pants over this, here's a list of all the important Xbox 360 technical specifications:

• Custom IBM Power-PC Based CPU
  Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
  Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
  VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
  128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
  1 MB L2 cache
  CPU Game Math Performance
  9 billion dot product operations per second
• Custom ATI Graphics Processor
  500MHz processor
  10 MB of embedded DRAM
  48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
  Unified shader architecture
  Polygon Performance
  500 million triangles per second
• Pixel Fill Rate
  16 gigasamples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA
• Shader Performance
  48 billion shader operations per second
• Memory
  512 MB of GDDR3 RAM
  700 MHz of DDR
  Unified memory architecture
  22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
  256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
  21.6 GB/s front-side bus
• Overall System Floating Point Performance
  1 teraflop
• Storage
  Detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive
  12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
  Memory Unit support starting at 64 MB
• I/O
  Support for up to four wireless game controllers
  Three USB 2.0 ports
  Two memory unit slots
  Optimized for Online
• Built-in Ethernet port
  Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g
  Video camera ready
  Digital Media Support
• Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
  Ability to stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras and Windows XP-based PCs
  Ability to rip music to the Xbox 360 hard drive
  Custom playlists in every game
  Built-in Media Center Extender for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
  Interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers
  High-Definition Game Support
• All games supported at 16:9, 720p, and 1080i, anti-aliasing
  Standard-definition and high-definition video output supported
• Audio
  Multi-channel surround sound output
  Supports 48KHz 16-bit audio
  320 independent decompression channels
  32-bit audio processing
  Over 256 audio channels

Cons: While the Xbox 360 is definitely smaller than the original Xbox, I expected the new model to be smaller still than the unit which was previewed in May 2005 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). It's still too big, especially considering the fact that it's supplied with a massive external power supply. I don't like the vertical position option—it looks unstable. All of the computing power inside the console throws fry-your-eggs-'n-bacon heat out the back panel, so adequate ventilation is an absolute necessity (do NOT stack anything on top of this baby and DO leave plenty of room at the rear so that the heat can dissipate properly). There's an HDTV/TV switch at the end of the A/V connection cable and if you don't set it to HDTV, you won't get surround sound output (with all the technology built into this thing, you'd think they could include automatic switching). No DVI/HDMI output, so forget about hi-def on your computer monitor. The majority of Xbox-compatible games are currently adaptations to accommodate the Xbox hardware. The really superb stuff which takes greater advantage of all the power under the hood won't start showing up until 2006. No integrated access to MSN Music or MSN Hotmail. DVD movie playback is the biggest disappointment. While all the games are high-definition and gorgeous, movies output only at a paltry standard 480p in standard 4:3 TV format. There's no high capacity optical media support (Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, both of which have shown up in force during 2006) so we can only hope for an inexpensive drive upgrade in a few months. Setting up multimedia streaming from my HP Media Center PC was a hit & miss affair which took almost an hour to get up and running—not an activity for the faint of heart. The iPod support is limited to prevent you from playing copy-protected songs.

Pros: This is the state of the art in console design, power and technology. The crown is Microsoft's to lose considering how strongly the Nintendo Wii hit the market and how poorly the expensive Sony Playstation 3 has been received. From Project Gotham Racing 3 and Madden NFL 2006 to the marvelous Star Wars: Knights of the Republic, Halo 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the gory Beyond Good & Evil, the gritty and realistic Call of Duty 2, and the visually and emotionally engrossing Psychonauts, the games look gorgeous and play beautifully even though most of them do not yet take full advantage of the Xbox's capabilities. There were 18 new titles at launch, but there are about 200 compatible existing titles available, with new titles being released almost every week. The odd-looking wireless controller is excellent, with a well-designed, non-fatiguing grip and hand position, along with (most important) superb and instantaneous game response. Wireless controllers have truly arrived and fully displaced wired devices. Network connectivity through either the built-in Ethernet port or the optional 802.11a/b/g adapter was flawless. Microsoft has the console installation nailed—even the most technologically bereft, all-thumbs newbie should have this one up and running in five minutes. It actually takes longer to get all the parts out of the package than it does to set it up. Forget about gaming for a moment—DVD movie playback on the unit's progressive scan deck is superb, with error-checking that easily handled my worst (nicked, scratched, abraded) movie discs. Tons of power under the hood provides an immersive game environment, especially for those people who can connect the unit to a beefy or otherwise good quality surround sound system. 720p and 1080i game play is marvelous. Mono, stereo and Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound audio output is clean, clean, clean, with no trace of hiss, cross-channel interference or other obvious annoyances. Original music CDs sound great. Buy now, prepare to enjoy, then get another burst of serious satisfaction when the Xbox 360-specific games start showing up in 2006. Microsoft has outdone themselves. This is a great game console and very good multimedia entertainment center. Highly recommended.