Xbox is great, though microsoft are still up to their tricks (Microsoft Xbox 360)

Member Name: whatanoldbag

Product:	Microsoft Xbox 360
Date:	24/01/08 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great graphics and sound, backwards compatible with old Xbox

Disadvantages: add-ons are expensive, as is price to purchase it in the first place

I bought our XBox 360 Premium package for £279.99 including Forza entertainment pack and free Fifa football game form Games stores jut before Christmas. My 16 year old loves it, and it is certainly the case that this is vast improvement on the old Xbox. We waited and waited to buy this due to the price of the games, but since they have stopped making old style 360 games you have to go there if you want to stay with it. It isn't cheap but it IS great. And of course, the price has dropped. My teenage son thinks the Premium pack is better value as you get so many useful things most of which you'd end up buying separately anyway. Least that was his argument for getting us to fork out the extra £100!

The same controllers work which is great, as we had 4, and the graphics are as good as any on the market - the football game is so much better than FIFA was on the Xbox - in particular the commentary is less annoying, as well as the graphics being far superior of course.

As a parent you can use the parental control feature to limit the kinds of games your kids can play, and the kind of on line things they can do, which is great as it means you don't have to be in the same room ALL the time! If you accessing the internet wired they give you a really short ethernet cable so the console needs to be like virtually married to the box you plug it into. As it's not convenient in our house we went wireless - much better.

I didn't realise until we had it that it plays HD - what a bonus! Oh if only I had an HD TV in the kids' room then.... It does play DVDs really really well- I went and rented and HD one just to see and "oh wow". Gonna do that again.

The new range of games are like being there - almost real! Amazing graphics, fantastic surround sound etc.

The slightly annoying bit include the expense of some of the extra bits - e.g the web cam attachment for £90. And the fact that you have to have a MSN passport to get on line with it. Then you can MSN with all your friends - but I hate the fact that old Bill Gates makes everybody use his products in this way. What if you were a user of Facebook or Yahoo messenger or something instead? The damn microsoft claws get you in the end. well they've got me LOL

Summary: Great fun, not cheap. But that's why Bill Gates is so wealthy LOL