Where the 360 falls short

If you look at the long list of things the Xbox 360 can do, you would think it would be the ultimate home entertainment package. It’s close, but it falls far shorter than it should.

The 360 does a lot of things right. You can play some of the best games on the market today, you can stream Netflix, play nearly any video and audio format you could want plus DVDs and so on. On paper, it’s perfect.

The flaws come in when you listen to the box. The 360 has a loud fan that kicks in instantly and doesn’t let up when you do the simplest task. For a media device this is a problem, for a gaming device you can live with it. (Update: The fan issue has been resolved in the latest revision of the Xbox 360. Can’t knock them for that anymore.)

Microsoft points. For some reason Microsoft is really into this whole “points” based monetary system. You would think having a simple dollar value to products such as video downloads, game downloads and so on would be obvious, but instead Microsoft forces its users to purchase points that buy the goods in the virtual store. Without a one-to-one conversion rate it serves to confuse customers and leave them with loose points that serve no other purpose than to make Microsoft more money than they would without the points scheme.

iTunes. This one isn’t Microsofts fault, but without a connection to the iTunes media content, those of us who have invested into an iTunes library have less value in the Xbox 360s media capabilities. I can’t fault them on this one and it’s not going to change any time soon.

Blu-ray. This one would require either an add on or a revision to the console, but adding Blu-ray playback would make for a more compelling device today with HDTVs etc. It serves as a decent DVD up-converter and those of us who invested in the HD-DVD add on have that going for us. In the end though, this is a handy cap to the system.

I know what you’re going to say. But the PS3 does nearly everything on your list. This is true, but it falls shorter in the gaming side of things. There are some decent games, but the 360 just has more to offer on that end of things.

I wish the 360 was the one set-top box to rule them all, but as of now it is not. It is a good start though, just wish it would stop squealing.

Yeah, what he said