I have had my xbox for almost two weeks now. Thought I would share my experiences so far.

stranger in a strange land

In the name of full disclosure, the first thing to say is that I am not a console player upgrading to a new console. Rather I am a long-time PC gamer who is giving consoles a try. That means that I am new to the console hardware as well as the console games.

It is also worth noting that the reason I am not a console gamer is because I havent enjoyed the console experience in the past. I dont like playing in the living room and I prefer the mouse/keyboard to the "controllers". I also prefer more serious games such as FPS shooters and turn-based strategy games as well as MMORPGs. All three are just better on a PC.

As a person new to the console world, I am familiar with video games but not with console conventions. I compare games, like Call of Duty, to the PC version (if there is one) not to a previous console version. Moreover I have no controller skillz - the A B X Y buttons represent both a learning curve and a real coordination issue for me.

Listening to podcasts comparing the PS3 and Wii and Xbox, Ive noticed that the reviewers always compare the systems to previous consoles. Since this is a pretty different viewpoint from my own, I thought it was worth noting.

the price

After doing a lot of shopping around, ended up buying my system on eBay. The retail prices are not discounted at retailers so buying used was the only way to lower the price. (There were a lot of systems for sale too.)

Im generally fine with buying used hardware but I read a lot about quality problems with the Xbox so I knew that I was taking a risk. Even a year after launch there are still a lot of systems that overheat and something called the "red ring of death."

There is a lot of hay made about how expensive the PS3 is but I did not find the Xbox exactly free. My system cost almost $700 without taking games into account. That price point is not a small decision or an impulse buy.

day 1 -- antici-pation

After a long wait for shipping, I got the system and hooked it up. The hookup was both easy and not so easy.

I initially installed it in the living room, connected to our 42" plasma TV and stereo. The shared video/sound cable was barely able to reach between the two but it worked.

When I turned on the system, I was (literally) blown away by the sound of the fans. Wowza. After spending a lot of time making my PC quiet, this thing sounded more like a blender than a part of my stereo system.

I can understand that the hardware generates a ton of heat and needs serious cooling but still. How about a heatpipe with a soft fan? The system is definitely loud enough that I would never consider leaving it on unless I was playing a game. Which seems fine but actually lead to problems (see below).

Since the system was in the living room, I didnt have any way to connect it to the network. My HTPC uses wireless ethernet with 128-bit WEP security. The Xbox does not include wireless ethernet and I didnt have a cable that could reach to the office so no Xbox Live (which also lead to problems later).

But I was able to hook up the system, it powered on without incident and I was off playing games.

the first games

My system came with three games. I tried Madden NFL 06, Burnout Revenge and Project Gotham Racing 3. Burnout and PGR3 both got very high reviews but I didnt really like any of these games initially.

As I have written about before, some games keep me glued to the screen forgetting to eat or sleep. Other games make me feel guilty about not doing something useful or even fun. I hear my mothers voice: "Turn off the TV and go outside and get some air!" Such was the case here.

Revenge is a true "kids" game. The experience got me thinking about what makes a "kid" game. My definition is that a kids game is a game which perpetuates ideas with no resemblance to reality. Often this is fantastical violence but it can also be cutsy stuff like Mario. Some kids games are fun and others are lame.

Either way, Burnout wasnt my kind of game. In this game, physics has no resemblance to reality. The point is to drive around crashing into other cars but only those cars explode - your car actually goes FASTER by crashing headlong into other vehicles. It looked good but, uhhh, dumb.

PGR3 was better but Im not really a car guy. The first mission was really easy but I quickly got to a race that I just couldn't win -- until I changed cars. I soon put it away.

Years ago, I used to like sports games like baseball and football in the arcades so I was looking forward to Madden Football 06. Unfortunately Madden is insanely hard. Even with the manual, I had no idea how to play or what I am doing on the field half the time. For instance, when I want to pass, it hands the ball to my running back. And when I actually wanted to pass, I struggled to find the correct button with my nine thumbs. To top things off, I just dont know any of those plays so I just do what Madden tells me to.

Madden might be an excellent football game but it really came up against my lack of console controller skills. The learning curve is steeper than Everest. Some of this is my lack of experience but the EA could have really helped me by including some kind of training modes in the game. Sheesh! A mode where you just practice offense or defense plays without playing a game? Oh well.

After my initial purchase excitement, my initial games were a let down. I found myself going back to Day of Defeat for fun.

day 3 --profiler

Ive continued to give the games a try and have started to notice frustrating things about the Xbox itself.

The Xbox uses a user profile to keep track of the games you play. The original owner had created his own profile ("Bob") so I created one for myself ("Silver9"). Unfortuneately, everytime I started the system, it automatically selected Bob not Silver9. This got very annoying and the tiny manual that Microsoft includes with the system only covers hardware connections; there are no instructions about the system software.

Eventually I figured out how to delete "Bob" but the system still didnt remember that Silver9 was last playing the game. Every time I started a game, I still would have to go to the menus and reload my profile.

I rented a few games from Blockbuster to try: Deadrising and NBA Live 07 (not to be confused with NBA2K7 which looks almost identical to the untrained eye). The profile issue got even more annoying with NBA Live because there is no way to load a profile once the game starts! You have to remember to do so before loading the game CD. A minor annoyance but a pretty basic UI one.

I wasnt expecting much from Deadrising. Im just not into zombies or the mall but I can imagine that the combination is a super hit with teenagers. After a bit though, this became my favorite Xbox game. The save game system was really frustrating and I died a lot but I liked the story and wanted to learn more.

Im a huge basketball fan so I was looking forward to the NBA game. NBA Live was a nice contrast to Madden because it starts with a tutorial mode - just a guy on the court shooting baskets. This let me practice the controller and was very cool. The games themselves however were VERY hard, even on the easy level. I struggled to control my guys, especially passing to the post and freethrows. I cant tell if this is a game problem or just my poor controller skills again but the game got terrible reviews and eventually realized that I had rented the wrong NBA game - I was looking for the 2K version.

After the first week, things were working pretty well. The system didnt have any defects and looked pretty nice on my TV. Although I should note that changing from 480p to 720p made no noticeable difference to me.

day 10 -- its time for the office

As I have mentioned, Im not fond of playing game son the TV so I had a strong interest in getting the system to work on my PC monitor in the office. Since removing the video cable from my TV was a real pain, I ordered a second cable and waited for it to arrive.

When the VGA cable finally arrived, I moved the Xbox into the office so that I could connect it to the network. This was a less than perfect experience.

I was able to connect to my 21" widescreen monitor without a problem but sound was a problem. The Xbox does not include a headphones jack. You can buy expensive USB headphones but come on now... I managed to jurry-rig the sound cable to connect to my Klipsch PC speakers but the connector is so large, it wont allow me to connect both speakers so I get sound but only the left channel.

Using the VGA cable also made the system resolution different. With the included RGB cables, I just told the Xbox to use 480p or 720p etc and the TV figured it out. But with the VGA cable, you have to choose PC-type settings and there wasnt one that matched my 1600x1050 monitor. Not a big deal but a niggle.

I also connected an Intercooler because I had read so much about overheating systems that self-destructed. It seems quieter than before but it is an odd device. The Intercooler actually adds three fans that blow into the existing system fans... Not sure why/how that works.

Eventually I hooked an ethernet cable from the Xbox to my router and tried to connect to XboxLive. Bad timing for me because it turns out the Xbox Live system was down for 24 hours of maintenance (although it took a Google search to figure that out). All I knew was that I ran the setup test several times and it kept failing the MTU test with no error message. Nice.

At this point I also got more annoyed with that whole profile problem. Since I was close to my PC I consulted Google for answers and what I learned was rather annoying. Turns out the Xbox doesnt remember who played last because it doesnt have a battery or NVRAM. Not only does it forget your profile but it actually resets the clock, which messes up your save games! I had wondered why the system kept thinking it was November 2005, even after I had reset the clock.

Since I dont ever plan to leave the system running 24x7 and I plan to move it between the living room and office, this little design decision is very annoying. Every PC has a tiny clock on the motherboard and the system can save data on the hard drive. Not including either provision in the Xbox is a tiny annoyance that is gonna REALLY bug me.

day 11 -- patience grasshopper

After waiting a day I tried XboxLive again. This time it passed the MTU test but failed the next one, the Xbox Live test.

This time I got an error message that said to check www.xbox.com/support so I went to my Powerbook and pulled up that URL in a browser... The page was in Japanese. Is that some kind of Microsoft-Mac joke? The entire page was in Japanese with no English links. I tried to reload the page several times with no luck. Eventually I switched to Firefox (instead of Mozilla) and I got the English page.

Even getting to the English website wasnt much help as there was also nothing on the website except a helpful note that says the system is up by may experience intermittent errors. So I experienced those "intermittent errors" for a while and then gave up.

day 12 -- mynameistaken.com

On the third day, I was finally able to connect to XboxLive and register. On the one hand, Im trying to be patient but on the other hand, this is not a launch product. Microsoft has had a year to get their system working smoothly and my very first experience with Xbox Live is a 3 day outtage which doesnt inspire confidence.

Fortunately the registration process was pretty straightforward (although you might actually need a PC to get a Passport account to use first). The process would have been a HUGE pain if the Xbox did not support a keyboard but it does. Happily, it took my Logitech G15 with no problem although the GUI is clearly not optomized for keyboard input (for instance the arrow keys dont navigate screens so you need still need the A and B buttons).

Unfortunately I ran into a problem with my screen name. There are only 4 million users but both of my preferred names were already taken! Wow do I have bad timing. I like to reuse the same names across multiple games but Silverfyre and Silver9 were both gone so I had to think of a new name. I can live with that but it was disappointing.

What I didnt realize is that the new screen name was actually a new profile on my system! All the achievements and experience I had accrued while playing with the first profile were lost. Because of this, my advice is to hook up XboxLive immediately.

Overall the registration process was smooth and once I got on Xbox Live, I immediately started to download demo's. Demo's are a PC thing that have finally made it to consoles. Demos are terrific. Instead of paying Blockbuster $8 per game, the demo lets me try it for free. LOVE IT. I also like the idea of Xbox Live Arcade and I tried a few of those demos.

Unfortunately I had already rented Tomb Raider and Dead or Alive 4 before I got the demo thing working but that's cool. Tomb Raider is like an easy FPS and was kind of fun. DOA4 on the other hand was completely inscrutable to me. The game got great reviews but it doesnt include any tutorial (and Blockbuster doesnt include a manual) so I was totally lost.

Day 14 -- go wireless

Feeling brave, I decided to install the wireless ethernet adapter and move the Xbox back to the living room. As with a lot of hardware configuration, this was a hairpulling experience.

The Microsoft wireless device is USB and costs $99. Forget that! I looked at a wired bridge that could connect to my router wirelessly before picking the Linksys WGA11B for $25. The price was nice but configuring the little walkie-talkie biatch was an irritating triple-whammie. The process was very unclear as were the directions and the included software didnt work.

The default device is a wide-open wireless network with default SSID and no security. Not.

For its part, the Xbox detected the adapter no problem but would not let me enter my WEP key. I use a 26-character key but the Xbox would only let me type in 9 characters even though the screen actually tells you that you can.

Since the Xbox didnt work, I had to connect it to another PC on my network and run the setup utility.

My first problem was getting the setup program to find the device. I fiddled with the X-II switch and had to reconnect it several times before setup found the device.

The second problem (which required another trip to Google) is that the setup utility on the CD does not work! It asks for a password but doesnt except your answer!! Instead you have to download another version of the utility from Linksys (the new version has the same 1.05 version ID to boot). With the working setup tool, I was able to configure P1 to use my network settings on my WRT54G router. Then I hooked the WGA11B back to the Xbox and I was off and running.

The whole config process took about an hour of cursing but seems to work fine now.

the first two weeks

By adding network functionality and a hard drive, the next generation of consoles offers the potential to close that gap with PC gaming. Consequently, I have been very interested in testing out the next-gen consoles and seeing if any of them can replace my game PC.

After two weeks with the Xbox, I have tried a number of games and networking and things have gone well. There are a few annoyances and a few annoyances that could/should have been fixed but there have been no show stoppers. Overall I have been pleased with the Xbox360.

The Xbox is a nice system and much improved from the previous generation. The graphics are great. The controller and networking work great. Most of all the system appearance and branding is a huge improvement. The new system design looks darn good in my living room and the white/silver look is much more friendly than the previous black/green junk.

I was very glad to see it uses at keyboard already but with only 1 USB port, connecting a keyboard and mouse will be a problem without yet more hardware. As I have mentioned previously, these two input devices would allow consoles to compete with MMORPG's as well as online FPS games. With the network features, the Xbox also has the potential for casual game users that want to play cards or scrabble or Tetris online (in other words, it has some appeal to the other members of the house).

The one negative so far is that I havent found many games that I would pay $50 for. Part of that is my tastes and part of that is the relatively low number of great games. (I played most of the big games, like Call of Duty and Oblivion, on the PC.) I hear that Microsoft will be coming up with a number of exclusive titles over the next six to nine months, so I look forward to trying those.

I havent tried online play against friends yet, so that is yet to come. But I expect it to be comparable to PC play, like Day of Defeat, which I have loved for years now.