My Review of the Xbox 360

Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard of the Red Ring of Death (RROD) and other technical issues that plague the Xbox 360. Fortunately Microsoft opted to provide a three year warranty for the Xbox 360 to compensate customers for the technical issues. Although the warranty alleviates the financial impact the RROD would have on gamers, it still is a major hassle and normally takes a month to be repaired. The question is: Is the Xbox 360 worth the inconvenience? In my honest opinion, yes.

I bought my Xbox 360 in October 2007, so I've had it for nearly two years. During these two years of heavy usage (it is on about seven hours on weekdays, and all day on the weekends due to the many people who use it), I've had one red ring of death and a few other problems I'll get into more later. Compared to some of the stories I've heard from other 360 owners, I consider myself lucky.

Due to my previous experiences with consoles I consider it a given that they will break eventually. My PlayStation broke out of warranty, my Gamecube broke days before the warranty ran out (and is still running since the repair), and my original Xbox had constant disc read errors out of warranty. So I'm used to having my consoles break and having to have them repaired or the majority of the time: replaced. Looking at it from this perspective, I almost consider the RROD a blessing; I now have a three year warranty instead of a one year warranty for something that has always broken for me anyway. Now while my previous experiences have changed my perspective, I still believe that a three year warranty is worth two-three months of inconvenience.

Now let's move onto what the console offers in exclusive games. The Xbox has Halo, Crackdown, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Fable and many other great exclusives. Out of all Sony's exclusives I wish I could take just three: Metal Gear Solid 4, MAG, and SOCOM. One unexpected source of exclusives that I've liked a lot are the XBLA games. Great downloadable games such as Braid (timed exclusive), Castle Crashers (timed exclusive), Trials HD, and Shadow Complex have played a huge rule in keeping me satisfied with my purchase of an Xbox. In my opinion, Braid by itself was well worth buying an Xbox (soon it will be available on PSN soon, play it if you haven't already).

One love it or hate it feature of the Xbox 360 is its pay to play internet service: Xbox Live. Gamers who want to play online must pay $50 a year (I got mine for $30, retailers frequently have deals on Xbox Live) for a better online experience than PlayStation Network (PSN). Recently PSN has made improvements on its online, but since I don't have a PS3 I can't comment on them. I don't mind paying Microsoft to provide a quality online experience but I expect quality.

In my opinion, the Xbox 360 is a great product that isn't without its flaws. Marred by technical problems that come with some unexpected benefits, the 360 is the core gamer's console of choice this generation for a reason.