The new slimmer for summer Xbox 360 Review!

At E3 this year, Microsoft stood up and officially announced the release of their new console, the Xbox 360. I guess we should say the “new” Xbox 360, or maybe attempt number 4? With the promise of a bigger hard drive – because nothing separates a nerd from his cash like gigabytes – built in Wi-Fi, Kinect ready and “Sleeker, Smaller and whisper quiet” gaming. However, the promise that had most of us giving dubious looks to the each other was the imminent release date. They were promising on shelves and ready to take home in a little over a month.

For those of you new to planet earth or maybe just to the computer industry, let me explain about the relationship Microsoft, has with release dates. It’s like owning a cat; you can set a dinner time for it all you like, but the furry outdoorsman does whatever he likes whenever he likes. The only thing you can be sure of is when it gets hungry and saunters home no matter how late it is you’ll open a can of Kitty-Kat with quarterly review figures chunks in rich shareholder sauce. Why? It’s because for some inexplicable reason you love the little fellow.

Having said all that, I’m a strong believer in credit where it’s due Microsoft have managed it, spot on no messing, well done. Although a multi-billion dollar company releasing a five year old product in a new shiny case should not really be a great challenge. So July 15th is upon us, midnight approaches and the strange gaming tradition of the Mid-Night launch is mere hours away. All consoles are in, pre-orders sorted and eager fans with fistfuls of cash have been told their time is nigh.

I do have a confession. I didn’t buy a “new” Xbox 360, mostly because I already have an Xbox 360 (more on this later). Not a new 360, although the so-called “new” 360 is just called the Xbox 360. However, my house mate, who also has an Xbox 360, again not the new one, came to the conclusion that the new model would be a worthwhile investment.

Before we open the box - a curiously larger box than we traded in for a supposedly smaller console, but hell I’m not a physicist – let’s get this naming convention sorted. The “new” Xbox 360 is called the Xbox 360! It’s pretty hard to keep a review coherent when the company keep recycling the exact same name, and for legal reasons it can’t be changed. What’s with this numbering/naming system of recent years?

Let me posit a scenario: you release a game or console, for sake of argument let’s call it “First Draft.” People buy, some like it some love it, but it’s not perfect and it has a habit of hacking up fur-balls on your carpet. You change and tweek it a little and re-release it as “Second Draft.” Same thing, a little better in places and it promises to stop messing up the carpet. This lovely money-making dance goes on as you release “Third” and “Fourth Draft,” still trying to iron out the kinks. Finally, all kinks sorted like they should have been in the first place and out comes “First Draft”?!?! What are you trying to achieve? Would you be hoping in a few years time that people would have forgotten about the first four attempts? People aren’t stupid, consumers aren’t going to look back in ten years time and wonder why people hated “First Draft,” when it’s worked so perfectly the first time round. You can’t pull the wool over our eyes on this one!!

So the Xbox 360 is here and ready to be opened and revered. After removing the weighty beast from its cardboard cage, even I have to admit that the console does look very shic. It’s worth mentioning that the latest Xbox 360 is black. Oh so black - the console’s black, the cables are black, power supply, screws, even the pre-existing black controllers has had a redo so even the analogue sticks match. We get the point that Microsoft are pushing “black is cool,” and that your Xbox will now match your nice flat screen but it seems like they’ve tried too hard. It’s almost a silent act of contrition and a plea for forgiveness for that little social faux-pas with Kinect. I’ll let you think about it.

At this point you’ll have your brand new Xbox which will match your HD ready T.V. Right? Wrong. Yeah, they match in colour but that seems about all. No HDMi cable? Not even a component one? Yep, the Xbox 360 comes with neither, just a bog standard scart lead. It’s not the end of the world I’ll admit, it just seems like another “credit crunch” omission. So if you don’t have one lying around already you’re not going to get the most out of your new console.

Along the path of the first evolutions of the Xbox, lots of people complained about the noise it makes; it wasn’t even a standard loud hum, more of unpredictable cackle. If you put a game or DVD in it, things just got louder and more anxiety-inducing. In comparison, the new Xbox is as quiet as a kitten’s purr. It’s very impressive, even playing games on it doesn’t increase the sound output noticeably. The built in Wi-Fi is also well worth mentioning; it’s nice to see they’ve not skimped here, it’s a strong, reliable signal and online gaming works perfectly.

Plugged in, online, HDMi set (although a non-black cable has frankly has ruined the whole aesthetic look. Just kidding, who cares?), game of choice in, controller in hand, what’s new? Nothing, it’s still an Xbox 360, it does everything your old one does but without so much noise. In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting any software changes, none were promised and it would have created more problems if there were. The two other hardware upgrades that come with the new Xbox 360 is the 250 gig hard-drive which comes as standard and the Kinect port. 250 gig isn’t all that big but it’s all you’re going to need on your 360. I can’t give the Kinect port any credit or demerits at this point because no one knows how the Kinect will be received. If it’s as revolutionary as people are claiming then it’s nice and handy and it means you don’t need to plug it in to a power supply, unlike those who have yet to upgrade to new “Back in Black” Xbox. But if it’s a pointless gimmick then you get no points for having a dedicated port for it. You might as well have put a floppy drive on.

While games generally dodge the price comparison bullet, consoles get no such special treatment. You can pick up your new Xbox 360 for roughly the same price as an Elite which in the UK it’s around the £200 mark. This to me is fairly reasonable as it’s still a little less than a PS3 Slim and it comes with all manner of guarantees that this breed won’t suffer from hardware senility. Lots of places are offering a trade-in system, old Xbox for new Xbox, and again some fairly good deals to be had; you’re looking at less than a £100 with a trade. That all sounds very good but here comes my major problems with this release. Any handshakes to Microsoft executives for fair-play prices are instantly replaced with disgusted looks and head-shakes as they shamelessly try and squeeze every penny out and suck you dry.

I’ve mentioned the lack of a HDMi cable and most of you would have shrugged and used a spare one, but the chance to rip-off consumers doesn’t end there. Hard-drives aren’t compatible. So keeping your old one, with all you save files on is pointless. I can’t say which company we got our upgrade from, but they sell games and don’t like pluralisation. Now if you’re buying a new Xbox 360, you are one of two types of people; either an existing fan or a new comer. Well guess what, it doesn’t matter which category you’re in, you’re going to get ripped-off big corporate style.

Existing fans will, as expected, be trading in their old 360s for the new ones. So this un-named company was offering to transfer your data from the old hard-drives to the new ones, free of charge. Thanks muchly. Then Microsoft stepped in and said “No,” because I imagine that would mean no one would buy their £15 data-transfer cable. Let’s ponder the implications here. The only people who would have cause to buy one of these ( I’m assuming hand rolled) cables are fans that already have an Xbox 360 and probably have had for quite some time. They’ve lived through the red-ring crisis and self-melting motherboards and still stand by Microsoft, and are willing to pay more of their hard earned cash to finally have an Xbox 360 that’s reliable. On behalf of us all, thank-you Microsoft. We’ve stood by and put up with all your early attempts, short comings and corner cutting and you’re still actively stop us saving a little bit of cash and force us to pad your up-sales. &%$*!!

Next rip-off on the list, memory cards. You got one? Why not put your saves and profile on that and just plug it in to the new console? Simple answer really, it won’t work. There’s no port for them, there never will be. Congratulations you now own a piece of obsolete hardware that can never be used again. Apparently this is to push the use of USB sticks as memory cards, and yes you can use this method to move some of your save files/profiles across, but I can imagine anyone with a large hard-drive would find this pretty tedious. Although remember, if you traded in your old one to get a new one, this won’t work either. So if you want to keep everything on your hard-drive you can’t trade in your old Xbox, so you’ll have to pay the full whack for the new one and buy a data-transfer cable, and then you’re still left with another now useless Xbox.

Here’s the deal : the new Xbox 360 will be reliable and stick around for a long time, it’s quiet and the hardware upgrades are nice, but if you’re not too bothered that your Xbox isn’t colour coordinated with your T.V., don’t run out and get one now, they’re just there to suck a little more money out of you with promises that this one will actually work as it’s supposed to. If you’ve got the money and don’t want to have to worry about the old gal breaking every time it makes a weird noise, go for it, it’s a good reasonably priced console, especially for first time buyers. My advice is if you’re happy with your current Xbox; stick with it. As the saying goes “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” you might want to make the leap in a few months when the Kinect comes out, or just wait till your current one has one of those senior moment and then replace it.

Being hardware it's unusual and difficult to score, however if a score was to be required to settle any questions then this would be the mighty magic number;