Xbox 360 Multimedia Review

I was excited to see that my Xbox 360 came with a USB slot. Naturally I figured this meant that I could use a USB memory card and save my games on storage devices I already had instead of having to buy a special over priced memory card that would only be used for my Xbox 360. I was also hoping this meant I could use my Xbox 360 to play movies and TV shows in different formats. I like to covert my DVD's into smaller formats and put them on USB flash drives or a simple memory card and a USB converter so that I have all my media in my pocket.

Unfortunately, Microsoft went out of its way to lock you out of using the Xbox 360's full potential. This machine has great potential but Microsoft is too greedy and wants you to have to buy extra hardware to make it what it should be. You can link your computer to it through windows media center but if you want to watch a movie it has to be in WMV format which is a total pain in the butt that they could have made much easier.

Music isn't a problem but it shouldn't be when there are only really 2 formats to choose from. The Xbox 360 does play mp3 files but the coolest thing about the Xbox 360 music playback is that it allows you to insert the music into the game without cutting out the sounds of the game itself. This is a great feature because we could always just mute the TV and blast the radio but now the sound is totally integrated into the game for a more authentic experience as if your own personal music collection is part of the game's original soundtrack. I like to make custom playlists for certain games to really personalize the experience. Nowadays games have pretty cool soundtracks that you can nod your head to, but back in the day (before games used real radio music and only used odd sounds that kind of sounded like music) we could have really used this technology.

With all the potential right there but untapped at due to selfish corporate gains especially coming from the world's richest man's company I'm not sure I can rate the Xbox 360's multimedia integration without rubbing some citrus in the wound but I'll still try.

I'd have to give the Xbox 360 a 2 out of 10 for multimedia integration.