Xbox 360 As Media Center Extender

MEDIA CENTER PC NEWS

November 23rd 2005

Xbox 360

Microsoft Xbox 360 Reviews
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The Xbox 360 has hit the streets in the good old US of A and the opinions are starting to appear on the web. Quite apart from the amazing gaming visuals, a lot of reviewers are getting pretty excited about the Media Center Extender feature of the 360 and are writing in gushing terms about Microsoft having bridged the gap between the console, the PC and the home entertainment setup. MediaCenterPCWorld.com has been ploughing through the internet chatter to bring you the highlights.

Matt Slagle at the Associated Press leads the bandwagon. He likes just about everything the Xbox 360 has to offer and is positively frothing at the mouth about the 'digital hub' idea. "Microsoft has done more than beat rivals to market with a powerful, flexible video game machine. With Xbox 360, the company that helped turn personal computers into household devices has created a machine that may someday replace them." Strong words indeed, but we can't help feeling that the Xbox 360 has a long way to go before it will let you run a word processing application.

PC Magazine has run a full review of the Xbox 360's Media Center Extender prowess and decided that it came up just a little short of being a 'must have' feature. Still, they offer the idea that it might be the carrot that convinces your wife / girlfriend that you should spend a few hundred dollars on a new games console. "We'd say you could safely allocate $100 of the cost to media-play features, maybe $200 if you're big on HD," they suggest. "The drawbacks, while many, are mostly minor compared against the ability to show media in high definition."

On his CNET blog, Dan Ackerman has been pleased to discover that all this Media Center Extender fun isn't just for owners of an XPMCE machine. He writes about how he used Windows Media Connect (think of it as Media Center Extender’s little cousin) to view photos and stream music from a normal XP Pro PC. "If you don't have an MCE system, it's a good start and a painless way to get your MP3 collection pumping through the living room surround-sound system," he writes.

Joystiq have looked at yet another side to the Xbox 360's interconnectivity - it's ability to talk via USB to just about any device with portable storage and media playback. They picked on the fabulous PSP for their demo and say "it works great".

However, lest we forget, the Xbox 360 is a games console and IGN brings us back to Earth with a bump on that front. "For all its pre-release promise, at launch the Xbox 360 will have to stand up on its games," they sagely prophesise. "It's going to sell out, straight through the holidays most likely, but in truth, I cannot honestly say I'm impressed by the launch titles."

The Xbox 360 has a few months to get it right before the PS3 launches and spoils the party. For the future of media convergence we hope it does.

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