xbox 360.. changing the face of gaming

Well this is the unit that has changed most of my game play habbits. I used to play the majority of my games on my PC. I would play my PSP and DS as well but the majority of my game time was spend in front of a PC. This always seemed to be the best platform for me as it was something that I knew and it seemd the best games were always first to the PC. Or course the consoles have been ccatching up over the years but they were never my first choice.

The xbox 360 changed all of that for me. Let me preface this by saying that the PS3 could do the same thing but since it is not out yet I can not be sure.

I am now looking at more titles for both the PC and xbox and opting for the xbox title instead. The reasons are simple -

1. The game will be playing the same for everyone. I will not have to spend time tweaking the settings to get the best of both worlds (game smoothness and quality looks). You just pop in the game and start playing.. The platform is always the same so the developers can optimize it for the hardware.

2. Finding other players to play with is quite easy. The whole live system is a great way to play online and build up a friends list of people to play with. This is not as easy on the PC and I mostly relied on my friend who is currently stuck in a world of poor performing PC. This has made it hard to play the latest titles as well as not always having the same taste in titles.

3. The achievments.. This is an xbox live system that gives you points for things that you do both in game and online with others. This seems like a trivial little thing but it really sucks you in. These points are shown on your gamer card and you can compare things with other friends that you are playing with. It can be quite fun and gives you that little extra sense of accomplishment.

I will be talking about this more but thought I would throw this little bit up to make you think about how this or any of the new next gen consoles can change how you are playing games. So far the xbox 360 gets t wo tumbs way up from me.