Last week was not only notable for having Thanksgiving in it, it was also a rare week because Tuesday was the release date for the XBox 360. My friend Greg is always an early adopter for new gaming technology and frequently gets his consoles at release. Needless to say he pre-ordered an XBox 360, and it was delivered on time. Because we knew about the release months ago we had a set plan to spend the Thanksgiving weekend playing the new console and seeing just how wonderful it really is.

You might recall a similar event four years ago when I wrote up a review of that console. Because that article still exists and is live, I think I will start with some observations about the XBox 360 and how it differs from the original XBox.

Like the original XBox the XBox 360 is a monstrousity. The console's dimensions are similar to the original XBox, which firmly plants it as among the largest console machines of the last twenty years. Not only is the console of a large size, it actually goes above and beyond its predecessor because the power supply is external, and is of a large size in and of itself. I would say it is four times larger than the average laptop's power supply.

Unlike the original XBox the 360's controllers are pretty decent. They have a good shape and size, the face buttons are laid out well, the moving of the black and white buttons to the left and right shoulders are a great idea. The triggers respond well, and both the digital and analog sticks are very similar to the XBox S controller (the original Japanese XBox controller that was subsequently released in the US.) Unfortunately there are a couple of problems with the new controllers. The start button has been moved such that it is now near the face buttons. This results in accidentally hitting the start button if your finger slips off of the face buttons. The other problem should only be an issue for people with large hands. Greg had a problem with hitting the shoulder buttons while attempting to use the left and right triggers. I didn't have that problem but I have very thin hands that are slightly larger than average.

A nice feature about the 360 controller is that there aren't two worthless memory card slots on the controller like there are on regular XBox controllers. The Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast started that foolish idea of making the controllers larger than necessary to accommodate memory cards rather than having the card slots on the console itself. Another nice feature is that the 360 controllers are wireless. They have recharger packs that charge off of the 360's usb ports, or can use standard AA batteries. They are also quite accurate for wireless controllers, better than third party Playstation 2 or XBox wireless controllers.

All in all the controllers are quite good on the XBox 360. I slightly prefer the shape of the XBox S controller and definitely like the S controller's start and back button positions better. But I do like the new shoulder buttons far better than the S controller's black and white button locations. The controllers work quite well for first person shooters, platformers, and racing games. I expect they will be good for fighting games also, whenever a fighting game gets released for the system. I would rate them as the third best controller I've ever used behind the XBox S controller and the Japanese Sega Saturn digital controller.

Something that is a bit different from the original XBox is that the 360 is quite noisy. It has a three core CPU and a very heavy duty GPU. This generates a significant amount of heat. This is evidenced by the fact that the entire case has been drilled for air holes. Additionally there is a lot of fan noise from the cooling system. I didn't have a decibel meter with me but I would subjectively rate the amount of sound as being equivalent to the average PC. That is a lot of noise for a console system. It is definitely louder than the Playstation 2 with hard drive, the XBox, or a Dreamcast. In fact it is probably the loudest console ever. If you are running this system in a home theater setup, prepare to be annoyed.

In spite of all the cooling and noise from the cooling, the XBox 360 gets quite hot. With the unit in a stereo rack with over a foot of room above it and the power supply sitting outside of case, it did begin to generate graphical anomalies after a few hours of use. These anomalies are consistent with graphical errors seen on PCs when the videocard is getting too hot. I find this to be somewhat of a disappointment personally.

An interesting feature of XBox 360 is the console OS. It is the next generation version of the Microsoft Dashboard and XBox Live. Features like ripping your own music to the hard drive are still there and still kind of painful to use. It is better integrated into the games such that you can hit the center X button on the controller at any time to change XBox Live profiles or change music. Unfortunately it isn't integrated all of the way into the games I've played such that Project Gotham Racing 3 doesn't keep track of the fact that you previously loaded a saved playlist via the console and don't want to use the annoying built-in music in the game. There is also a tighter link between the game and the online portions so high scores and achievements are automatically communicated to XBox Live and other players can see what you have accomplished in near realtime.

One last thing that Greg and I both noticed on the 360. Because the controllers are white and matte finish plastic, they get dirty easily. I foresee if a household had a child that the controllers would look pretty disgusting in short order. The console itself will also show dust quite well because it too is white. In fact there may be a problem down the road with large amounts of dust getting into the console itself due to the many vent holes.

All in all it is a decent console in terms of power and usability. However, it does have significant heat and noise issues. Personally, I'm going to wait and see if they come out with a second revision that corrects at least part of the problem. There also aren't any "must own" games currently. I didn't really talk about games in this review due to the article being plenty long enough, but I expect to talk about a number of release titles in the very near future.