Xbox - 360 Console Review

 We bought the XBOX 360 system (3 of them!) at our children's strong encouragement. While not amused at the large price tag of this system we figured it would likely be well worth it since it was a Microsoft product and we consider Bill Gates to be the greatest PC engineer there ever was.

  Our sons wanted this system so badly because of Halo 3 and forza 2 games. Again, not being amused at the $60 price tag of the game, we thought it couldn't be that bad. PS2 allows you to load a game, take the disk out, and put it into a second console in most cases and it's not a PC by any means. We assumed since Xbox is a PC surely 1 game could be used by all. We were so wrong! Having already invested over $1,000 in consoles we were pretty much stuck buying 3 of the same games so each child could actually use their console, there goes another $360 for 2 lousy games (3 copies each for 3 kids to play the dang thing)

 Within 3 weeks the kids just "had to have" a stearing wheel to play forza 2. So off to the store we go figureing they would be around $30 each based on our previous experiences with PS2 accessories. I'm betting your laughing right now aren't you? Yes, you guessed it, sticker shock at the register again when the wheel came up $120 each! And out the door went another $360 in wheels.

 This doesn't even cover the area where you get your console home to discover you really should have rechargeable batteries and a charger, which of course do not come with it and adds another $20 to the tab (per contreoller). And I guess Microsoft thinks kids love to play alone and not with siblings or friends as the console only comes with 1 controller. There are 4 outlets for controllers though so by all means spend a few more bucks ($25-30ea) so your kids can play with their friends.

 In 4 months 1 of the consoles broke down. 4 months from the greates PC maker there is? Needless to say we were shocked and very disapointed. Microsoft mailed out a pre paid package for us to send the console back and stated we would get it back within 6 weeks along with a 3 month "xbox live" membership card. In all fairness we did get it back in 3 weeks however there was only a 1 month xbox live card with it which wasn't a lot of help considering it was gone for a month that had already been paid for.

 Now we sit awaiting the other 2 consoles to go bad. After reading about them when the first one went bad it became clear these are poorly designed machines as it seems everyone has had one go bad on them.

 Now the graphics are awesome, the variety of games available is great, and the online connection to others is fun. This is pretty much why it got any stars at all from me. Other then those features this is a serious money sucking black hole for a system and a serious disapointment coming from the great Microsoft.