The gaming bug in me has been awakened by the arrival of my wife got this console as a prize from a campaign her team won in the office, I always used to skip buying my favorite games on my PC since the gaming configurations keep my PC ram and processor and graphic card for just gaming, so Xbox 360 came as a blessing for me.
Box Content: Xbox 360 Pro console contains Xbox 360 console, a brick charger, Component HD AV Cable, Ethernet cable, A gaming headset, media remote, one wireless controller, 20 GB HDD, manuals, warranty card, alkaline batteries for remote and wireless controller, I also received two free games along with the console, Viva Pinata and Forza Motor racing 2.
Console Details: Xbox 360 pro console Horizontally or vertically, its white in look and has chrome finish on sides, on the front panel you have disc loading tray and two slots for memory units (sold separately), a protected slot having 2 USB ports, on the back you have a power connection slot, a Ethernet port, extra USB port, HD AV cable connectivity port, digital output port (used for digital audio cable).
Configuration: I have a Philips 32TA800 LCD TV which is HD ready, setting up the console HD AV cable to my televisions composite video ports, connected audio output to my Artis S6600 5.1 speakers, I set my TV display to 1080i setting (1920 X 1080 resolution = 2,073,600 pixels) Then I set the cable option to HDTV mode (it has TV mode as well for playing games on normal TVs), I began my console set up after powering it on (gaming profile), the gaming experience was & # 39; AWESOME & # 39 ;.
It had 5 dashboards blades, Market place, Xbox Live, Games, Media and System these dashboard You can not have much effort to navigate through them, you may have an option for configuring family settings for games in case you have a child at home and you would not want your child to play certain genre of games.
Console performance: I have initiated playing all 6 game titles I have with me (Viva Pinata, Forza Motorsport racing 2, WWE RAW Vs Smackdown 2008, Army of Two, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Halo 3), game play clarity on HD mode is & 39; Amazing & # 39 ;, I checked the visual quality on normal TV mode, where the video quality takes a little hit, still playable in case one a not have a HDTV or HD ready TV. I did not experience any game lag during The game play and with the console are top notch and flawless, playing with wireless controller is fun, you just need to pair the wireless controller once to the console and controller buttons and joysticks are easy to use, you wont end up paining your fingers once you are done gaming, with a great audio and visual clarity the game play is immersive, you can also play your own soundtrack in the background while playing a game, this feature is game based.
Beyond Gaming: Xbox 360 pro does not just play games, it has windows media center connectivity option to connect your windows based Xbox, you can dump your existing DVD player for Xbox you can also view DivX files on Xbox, it allows mp3 playback and movie playback from USB devices as well, surprisingly it would not be a VCD, you can connect your mp3 player, or Ipod, digital camera to play music or view photographs on Xbox, it also offer song ripping option in case you load tracks to Xbox hard drive from a music CD, with the media remote you can operate multimedia features easily and even record your live TV in case your PC is equipped with TV tuner card is connected to a set-top box.
Xbox Live service: Microsoft offers free silver membership to online service for Xbox 360 Xbox Live, I connected to this service by connecting the console to my laptop by sharing my wi-fi connection through my router in my other room, I got 1 month download game demos and participate in live gaming events, download Xbox arcade games, you can also share your gamer achievement score unlock various challenges in a game.
Support & Warranty: Xbox 360 console has been criticized to be a noisy console, heating up fast and the most famous RRoD (Red ring of death) problem most consoles have reported to encounter, but I have observed that my console has no problems with regards to over-heating or being too noisy as I have played games at a stretch for 4-5 hours, in terms of warranty Microsoft offers 3 years warranty against RRoD problem with console replacement and 1 year warranty for other issues. of buzzing Xbox forums on Xbox website which offer lots of tips and tricks to play games from members across the globe, other discussion topics on Xbox.
Why Xbox?: Its very difficult to choose between Two major gaming consoles Xbox 360 & PS3, Nitendo Wii is still not officially released in India, its available through gray market, PS3 is gaining popularity slowly and has less number of game titles as of now which cost almost all 3000 bucks and above, Xbox 360 has an impressive line upside of gaming titles with backward playing compatibility of few Xbox games, apart from that a windows based PC is bound to connect seamlessly with Xbox than PS3, both PS3 and Xbox 360 has their pros and cons, but I am happy with the performance of Xbox 360 games are available in a range of Rs 999 to Rs 2510.
Why gaming consoles: We all like to play games and spending money on a PC to upgrade graphics card, memory and storage turns out to be an expensive affair which is not affordable every time, Sony PS 2 is the largest selling console till date and is still alive and kicking with a huge library of game titles and new games still being churned out for console, it also happens to be the mostest sold cons in India, so consoles stand to gain a top hand due to extended shelf life they enjoy, the flip side to console gaming is expensive game titles, unlike more pc games and pirated game ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Xbox 360 also has Being hacked, the hardware has to be modded, but it voids the warranty, PS3 is still not cracked. (I personally would not encourage hacking your console to play pirated games), so with gaming consoles extending their capabilities to Become a complete multimedia device, it sense sense to invest in a gaming console.
