The Xbox 360 box is compact with every component and cable neatly compartmentalized. When you first open the box, you’ll see the 360 laying sideways.

Took it out and stood it upright in its bubblewrap goodness. It looks a little lighter than it actually is and seems to weigh about the same as the Xbox. I much prefer the upright design.

Compared to the first generation Xbox controller which felt big and awkward, the Xbox 360 wireless controller feels and fits nicely in your hand.

The wireless controller comes with two AA batteries. You have to open the back of the controller which easily slide open and insert. Only takes a few seconds. Nice to see batteries included. Rechargeable pack can be purchased separately.

There it is, the infamous Xbox 360 power brick. I put a pen next to it so scale could be seen. This thing is a monstrosity.

Ugliest. Power. Supply. Ever.

HDTV component cable. A switch enables HDTV or standard composite cable. The yellow male input not needed for HDTV.

The installation
Hooking up and plugging in the Xbox 360 took a few minutes and doesn’t require reading the instructions. I found the ability to turn the power on/off with the controller a very nice feature. I’d heard about this before, but this really is a great idea.

When we first powered on the Xbox 360 we saw the familiar logo:

And then led to a garbage screen that looked as follows:

It took a couple power on/off cycles before the garbage on screen went away and was replaced with text.

I also noticed the very loud fan which I’ve read others complaining about. Fortunately that fan doesn’t stay on all the time.

The registration process involves setting the language, timezone and porting over your existing Xbox Live information (passport login details: email and password) so have those handy. It didn’t ask me for any network details which was nice, it just worked. Note, we used the existing Xbox WiFi adapter and just plugged that into the Xbox 360, so no additional network configuration required.

Now onto exploring the Xbox 360 Dashboard interface. I like the horizontal tabbed inteface. You just move right or left to see new menu items. We started out with one Xbox Live arcade game: the puzzler Hexic.

I was able to pick this up and play this until level 4 on the Marathon mode the first time out. It’s a somewhat addictive match the colors game. A good one to pack in for free.

Ahh, the gamerscore and Microsoft points
Gamerscore and Microsoft points are Microsoft’s answer to achievement tracking and in game currency. Gamerscore is a number generated by acheiving certain goals inside games which they call “achievements.” These can be anything from collecting items, passing checkpoints, getting a high score or even combined scores (like get 1 million points across all games). Gamerscore can be tracked on the dashboard and online via your gamercard and is denoted by a circled G.

Microsoft points are the currency used inside to purchase additional Xbox Live arcade games, dashboard skins and more. From what I see so far it isn’t possible to earn points for completing games or achievements, is it? That would be cool if you could, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Instead, you can purchase different amounts of game points from the dashboard or as cards with codes in retail stores. As for pricing, 5000 game points can be purchased for $62.50 inside the game. Compared to the 1200 1600 points for $19.99 that I saw at the store it is clearly one of those the more you buy the better the deal. I could also see it being much more convenient buying the points in world.

Most of the arcade games seem to be 400-800 points or about $7-14 USD and Microsoft says they add new content every month. Looking through all the titles I didn’t see anything for April yet, but I did find a title added on 3/29/06.

As written here before, I think the Xbox Markeplace would be an awesome place for small developers to be able to create and share games. Whether or not Microsoft will ever let that happen remains to be seen.

Was the Xbox 360 worth the wait?
I’m concerned about those early power on garbage screens and the excessively noisy fan, but the graphics at 1080i are stunning. Open up the marketplace to smaller developers, Microsoft, please.

Too early to weigh in on if the system was worth waiting nearly five months to be able to buy locally, although I did ask our kids who so far have gotten the most use out of it on a scale from 1-10 (best) what they thought. Our middle son answered 9 and the youngest 8 while our oldest child is like me: hasn’t played it enough to say yet. I do like the arcade, dashboard and online integration functionality I’ve seen so far a lot.

In fact, think I’ll go play some more before we head out bowling now. Hexic, I’m coming for you …

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