I've got an Xbox 360!

A spur of the moment purchase. I've been helping Dads connect Xbox 360s to wireless and wired networks for their children for a while now. Usually the boy (so far) is there to actually steer the user interface with the controller, but yesterday I was on my own. Wow, did I find it difficult! Still I finally succeeded. I discovered that the new Xbox 360 Arcade version (without the hard disk) had been bought the day before at Sainsbury's supermarket for under £100. So I bought one as well.

Initial impressions were not good. I connected it to an old TV with the supplied cable and SCART adapter. The picture wasn't great. Should be better with a LCD HD flat panel TV though. It has an HDMI socket but no cable. The next thing to notice was the noise. The fan makes it difficult to hear the sound through the TV at normal levels, hopefully it will be drowned out when you start gaming or use a surround sound system. Then I couldn't get the wireless controller to connect at all. I just kept pressing the synchronise buttons on the console and the controller until finally they found each other.

Going through the Xbox user menu or Dashboard did not make it easy and obvious to set up. I attached an Ethernet cable into the loose (!) socket at the back and then repeatedly testing the Xbox Live connection until it finally passed all the stages, then eventually adding my details to register my name, gametag, etc. I downloaded a game (DOOM) onto the supplied 256Mb memory stick and was able to play it!

Then I tried the game I really wanted to play, Halo 3. I bought it pre-owned for £13from Blockbusters. Hey, I wasn't going to pay £50 for a game to play on a £100 console. An impressive start but wow, is the control system difficult to use. I spent most of my time looking at the floor to see where I was going or at the sky trying to see who was shooting at me. And having seen 'checkpoint reached' frequently, I was amazed to find that the game hadn't been saved at all.

More things to learn I guess in this console business. I'm also going to look at the Media Extender possibilities and integrating the Xbox 360 into Windows Home Server.