Anyone got an Xbox 360 yet?

Got my Premium one (the one with the wireless controller, DVD remote, live headset, and hard drive) for Christmas...and so far I love it...lemme count the ways:

1) The remote AND the wireless controllers can power the system on/off. No more getting my lazy butt out the chair to start gaming. (Unless I need to switch the disc, but that don't happen too often.) You can stop a game and go back to the dashboard without rebooting now also, right from the controller.

2) Being able to recharge my wireless controller's batteries WHILE STILL PLAYING, and even with the headset on.

3) The HD resolutions are absolutely amazing. If you're not playing games at 720p or better, you're not seeing what I'm seeing.

4) The online integration kicks major booty. The Xbox360 will set up and maintain a connection to Xbox Live any time it is booted up. (This can be disabled, also). Even if you're playing a game offline, you'll still receive messages, and notifications when your friends sign on. You can pause your game, enter a live voice chat, and continue that chat while you're stil playing. And if you ARE online (say in a multi-player game of Perfect Dark Zero), you can choose whether you're talking to your team or one of up to four separate private voice chat rooms.

Basically, its a voice-enabled MSN messenger built into the Xbox Live system, and always on. It also keeps track of people you have SEEN online, in case you want to add them to your friends list. AND, your achievements in any offline or online games are tracked PER GAME, giving you a total numerical score. You can view other people's achievements to make sure you stack up well, or if you're possibly outgunned.

5) If you have a Windows Media Center PC (which I do), you can stream audio, video, and pics (plus TV and Radio if you have the right capture card in your PC). Only downside is it won't play DivX files, but it will play most other stuff, including DVD's in your PC's drive. No stuttering. Very nice.

There's other little stuff, like automatic updates for backwards-compatibility with older Xbox 1 games (which some are still buggy), and built-in testing for network connections, not to mention MicroSquish's greedy way of paying for extra little games from Xbox Live.

But all in all, I love this friggin thing.

Unwarranted paranoia is a waste of useful brain resources...

The tracking of games you play online is THERE...not "They could"...It DOES. So what if they ARE tracking what games you play? Are you worried someone will call the cops on you for hacking your copy of Playboy Mansion??? Or worse, that you actually LIKE playing Dance, Dance Revolution? They're not gonna send the FBI to your door just because you found the secret base in Call Of Duty2. :roll:

And NO, the media center connection stuff isn't tracked by the Xbox, since it doesn't actually read the media files itself (or connect to any real shares on your computer at all). All the Xbox does is connect to the PC, and get a display session (google SUNRAY). The PC actually plays the content and displays the content. Instead of the output going to your local screen and speakers, the Xbox acts as a remote receiver for the streams. Kinda like Remote Desktop (or VNC to those of you familiar with it).

So, you can quietly go back to watching those girls on Dead Or Alive Volleyball jiggle and giggle in comfort that MS isn't watching you THAT closely.

I am one of the paranoid. I'm a security freak. My Xbox is not connected to the net, and when I ever get a 360, it will not be connected either. I only play online games with my secured PC. I think it's good to be paranoid. It used to be a lot worse. I used to be one of those guys who thought the government was out to get them. I didn't use credit cards for most purchases, paid cash whenever feasible. I wanted to stay under the radar as far as electronic trace-ability. The less they know about me, the better. And the funny thing is, I'm NOT one of the ones they need to worry about. I'm one of the good guys. I used to hack machines just to secure them for the stupid admins that didn't know how to.

But then I married a great girl who thought all of that paranoia was ridiculous. We got a joint bank account, she didn't care about any of that stuff that I was paranoid about. Over the almost 5 years we've been married, I got a lot more lax about the whole government conspiracy thing. I'm still very much anti-Microsoft when it comes to most stuff. They make a decent desktop OS, and a fun gaming system. They should stop trying to rule the world. We'll all be a lot more secure and better off if they do.

Ok, no more soap box for me today.