Xbox 360 a star waiting for a breakout hit

Tom Loftus Columnist • E-mail

The buzz surrounding the Xbox 360 reached "Elvis is Alive" levels months ago.  No surprise for an industry where game designers strut like rock gods and star players have groupies  — albeit few actual groupies of the opposite sex. A whole new generation of game consoles is upon us, and Tuesday's launch is the starting shot.

But while the Xbox 360 has the potential to be a superstar, this Elvis is not quite ready to headline in Vegas.

Don't get me wrong. Microsoft's new game console has all the trappings of stardom, starting with looks. With its creamy-color, smooth fronting and hourglass figure, the machine looks like the SexBox 360 when compared with its bulky predecessor.

And if we're talking chops, the Xbox 360 has them. A custom IBM PowerPC processor and 500 MHz graphics processor combine to create graphics that can be near cinematic in quality. The Xbox 360 also plays DVDs, interacts with various multimedia devices, hooks up to the revamped online gaming hub Xbox Live and supports high-definition video and 5.1 channel surround-sound audio.

But the Xbox 360 needs some hits — i.e., great games — to earn credibility. Do that and this reviewer will scream louder than any teeny bopper on the Ed Sullivan Show. (More on that later.)

Pretty and pricey
Booking the Xbox 360 for an unlimited living room engagement ain't cheap. For $300, gamers get the bare bones: Console, wired controller and AV cable. The $400 bundle, a no-brainer in terms of savings and functionality, includes a wireless controller, headset, detachable 20GB hard drive for saving game data, a free month-long subscription to Xbox Live and backwards compatibility with certain original Xbox games. (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)

Odd Andersen / AFP - Getty Images The Xbox 360 has a vaguely modernist style that's more South Beach than living room drab.

The console is the same, whatever the bundle, and what an aesthetic improvement it is over the original. Its hourglass shape may evoke a rather elegant bong to some players, but nevertheless, it represents a bold step by Microsoft. Truth be told, however, the vaguely modernist style would work better in a South Beach pied-a-tierre or in the lounge of JFK's old TWA terminal than in a typical living room. Set against my living room's black and silver electronic boxes, the Xbox 360 stood out like, well, a PC.

But at least the look is clean with the memory card and USB ports neatly hidden behind beige flaps. While the front evokes lightness, the back is another story. The power cord required to power the Xbox 360 looks and feels like a medieval weapon.

One potential negative with the 360 hardware is the DVD disk tray, a piece of plastic easier to break than a wishbone. Why such flimsy construction for the one moving part that will receive the most use is a puzzler, especially considering that the rest of the 360 feels solidly constructed.

Parental controls
Setup is a breeze. With Tivo-like "bloops" you jump from one Easter egg-colored setup screen to the next. Connect the Xbox 360 to the Internet either though one of its three USB hubs, an Ethernet hub and it takes just minutes to create your gamer identity and set up an Xbox Live account. (One discordant note: While you can buy a wireless antenna separately, a next-generation gaming console should have Wi-Fi built in. Sony and Nintendo both say theirs will.)

Beyond setting up a gamer identity and confirming your television resolution, the most important part of setup may be controlling the content for the little ones. Don't want your kids to access "M for Mature" games or R-rated DVD movies? You can restrict their access to what you deem appropriate and create a password using the various buttons on the controller. Then the only one playing "Grand Theft Auto: Poughkeepsie" will be you ... or at least until your kid figures out you used the dog's name as the password.

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