Earlier this morning, I posted my first impressions of a handful of Xbox 360 titles. And as promised, I will spend more time discussing a number of those games in greater detail in subsequent posts. But first, I wanted to dedicate some space to discussing the Xbox 360 as a next-gen console (aside from the games).

 

Once the console has launched, we’re gonna hear a lot of complaints. I think some people will return to the argument that we’ve heard all along; that is, the Xbox 360 is more like an Xbox 1.5. After spending a day with the system, I can definitely see how one might come away with that impression. But I hesitate to make that claim myself. What makes the Xbox 360 innovative—what makes it next-gen—is the interface, the Xbox Dashboard. My concern is that a lot of folks are gonna miss out on this revelation because it’s subtle, and because, at its deepest level, caters explicitly to hardcore gamers—or rather, detail-oriented perfectionists.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is about choice. It’s about how you want to play and who you want to play with. Want to listen to different music? Just plug in your iPod and hit the giant “X” in the center of your controller. A few clicks later, and you’ve got the music you want to listen to in the game you want to play. Don’t have an iPod? Grab the music off your hard drive. Don’t have a hard drive? Stream the music from your computer.

We’ve all read about the new dashboard, about the “blades” and gamer profiles. But once you see it in action, you begin to comprehend how this sort of interface is really going to change the definition of gamer. The real Xbox 360 can only function when its hooked into the network, Xbox Live. If all goes according to plan, Microsoft has developed a system that will rank and categorize gamers like never before—and what’s so brilliant (or scary) is a user need simply to create a profile to initiate this process, that’s it. In effect, your Xbox 360 is always watching; it’s always cataloguing and taking notes. Theoretically, once it gathers enough information from you, if you do decide to make your experience Live, the system will have gathered enough information to group you with like-minded gamers, automatically. In addition, the options are there for you to fine-tune your preferences.