Family Friendly Console
At A Glance
- Games and entertainment for the entire family.
- Family settings give parents control, online and off.
- Multimedia features for photos, movies, and music.
Xbox 360™ is all about the games and entertainment for all in the family. If you're young or old, you will find a way to entertain yourself with the most powerful console available on the market. What better time than this Christmas to indulge yourself with the power of Xbox 360?
The big changes since the original Xbox are the sleek design and, in my opinion, the best controller ever made. You don't need a credit card to get online, the Xbox 360 comes standard with an Xbox Live Silver account. This lets you do almost all of the things you can do on Xbox Live® except play multiplayer games, which is only available with Xbox Live Gold.
Furthermore, Xbox 360 is available in two models. Xbox 360 comes loaded with a hard drive and everything you need, where the Xbox 360 Core system is great for the starting gamer.
With both systems you can send and receive voice and text messages, view others' gamer profiles, build up a friend list and access Xbox Live Marketplace. In the near future you'll even be able to video chat with your family or friends all over the world with the upcoming video cam.
The best option for parents that comes standard with Xbox 360 is the family settings, the only console on the market that delivers a feature this extensive. The family settings allow parents to safely open the Xbox Live experience to their kids. This option allows parents to limit types of contacts and the content the kids are able to see on Xbox Live. Parents have complete authority over their children's friends list, this will show the online profile status only to selected people and this can be done for every child in the family.
With these options in place, parents are able to let their children enjoy the console without worrying about who their kids play or chat with.
However, this console is more than just a game machine. With Xbox 360 you can watch movies, play your favorite music or rip your favorite music to the Xbox 360 Hard Drive to play your songs while you game. Watch photos and so much more on your TV set. With the option to connect Xbox wirelessly to your Windows XP PC or to your PC loaded with Windows Media Center Edition 2005, you can watch video such as live or recorded TV, or your own home movies.
Plug in your Ipod, PSP, digital camera, or any other supported portable device to one of the three high speed USB ports. With your controller or the Xbox 360 Media Remote you only have to push the green Guide button and it comes alive.
With these options and the connectivity of Xbox 360, display your family pictures on the big HDTV in the living room, or show the movie you made of you and your kids on the trip to Disney World. This and so much more can be done with the friendliest family console ever, the Xbox 360. Xbox 360 fits in every room, as it can be placed vertically or horizontally and can be personalized with a cool faceplate to your liking.
In conjunction with your stereo or surround system, Xbox 360 will bring joy to your living room as it supports HDTV and Dolby Digital Surround sound. Crank up the volume and see it all crisp and clear in high definition.
People who haven't yet stepped into the high definition era can still enjoy Xbox 360 as it supports standard TVs with its 480i and 4:3 aspect ratio settings.
Next time, in part two of this article, we'll have a closer look at the Xbox 360 Dashboard and Xbox Live. Until then, enjoy the holidays!
Article by Cornelis van den Bosch, Xbox Users Group
