Xbox 360 Premium

I've had a lot of fun with my Xbox 360 over the past year or so.The system lends itself well to that, with a good amount of exclusive titles like Crackdown, Gears of War, and now Halo 3.It also has a bunch of extra functionality through Xbox Live and the ability to connect to your computer.It is not without its faults, though.

For instance, I have had to send my 360 back to the manufacturer 3 times now.Fortunately, Microsoft has extended their warranty by quite a lot to deal with the flaw that plagues some systems, but the problem still exists.The newer revisions of the console don't seem to have this quite as bad, but it's something to think about if you are looking into buying a used or refurbished system.

The Xbox Live service makes it easy to connect yourself to other gamers to play competitively, cooperatively, or both.If you like internet gaming, you'll love it.It's 50 dollars per year of service, but that's an incredibly low cost for what you get.Free of charge, you are still able to use the Xbox Live Marketplace, which allows you to download demos of a large number of games, as well as download and watch movies or smaller games, at a cost.At first, the idea of paying essentially for a rental that I downloaded was strange to me, but I warmed up to the idea after I found out that I could download movies in HD.

Another often-underutilized by gamers tool is the ability to connect your Xbox 360 to your LAN, allowing you to use your 360 to stream movies and music off of your computer.It doesn't sound like much, but when you get used to using it, it makes a world of difference watching those videos on your television instead of your computer monitor.

While not as technically spectacular as the Playstation 3, the Xbox 360 displays graphics that are good enough that most people won't care all that much about the difference.

All in all I look at the 360 as a system for gamers who want to go the extra mile to get the most out of their system.If you are looking into getting a 360 just for fun games without internet or LAN connectivity, you may reconsider buying a Wii.However, if you don't mind pulling your own weight and looking into everything the Xbox 360 can do for you, you'll find a lot more than you may have thought in this system.