360 Lip Stand

The Xbox 360 was launched in North America yesterday, which is nice. It sounds like a cool piece of hardware, but I'll wait at least six months before getting one, if at all. The launch titles seem decent, particularly as console launch titles are usually fairly anemic, but there's nothing on that list that makes me want to fight through the crowds for hours to get one. I'm not a sports gamer or a car gamer, Quake 4 I finished last night on the PC and there's no way I'm playing Call of Duty 2 without a keyboard and mouse. That leaves, well, basically nothing.

This situation will change though, as it did with the original Xbox. When I got mine, I sat down and spent months belting through a bevvy of top-notch titles. I knocked over Knights of the Old Republic, Crimson Skies, Sands of Time, Halo, Splinter Cell, Burnout 3: Takedown and more, and most of those were rented at a weekly rate. The fun to dollars ratio was enormous, and there was no lag between playing great titles. Play, enjoy, finish, next. Wait six months and then go wild, that's my recommendation.

Apart from the games, I've heard very good things about the new Xbox Live. A lot of the friend list and chat stuff has been enhanced, allowing you to see whether your friends are online, what game they are playing and even what level they are on and their current score. It's also possible to switch games while voice chatting and not skip a beat, which is very convenient for those with friends on Live. Personally, I only played with the original Xbox Live system with a free three-month trial coupon, and never used the voice chat stuff. I didn't feel like spending fifty bucks on a headset just so ten year olds could call me a bitch. The system does sound all pretty swanky though, although it's essentially the same stuff I've been doing using Google Talk and Ventrilo on PC, and I can't really think of any particular games that would sell me on Live... but we'll see.