John from Gizmodo here: Running this story concurrently with Gizmodo but I'll add a bit about gameplay at the end. Read on, MacDuff.

Well, folks, it's on. The XBox 360 officially exists, it works, and it rocks. I left a little early because I knew I was just going to sit there and play Call of Duty 2 all day and that wouldn't have been good for anyone.

First impressions: the next four years are going to kick ass. The XBox 360—presumably the rest of the new consoles—will keep us in our living rooms long past dinner-time, bed-time, and colostomy-bag-changing time. The XBox 360 games I saw, Dead or Alive 4, Project Gotham Racing 3, Condemned: Criminal Origins, and the like, looked excellent. Photo-realism was the real draw and some of the more cartoony games like Kameo lost something in the translation. Cell shading looks nice and smooth, but that's about it. PGR 3 featured incredible detailing on the cityscapes and cars and your humble correspondent felt blood and stool on his leg while fighting Jerry in CoD2.

XBox Live has an odd new Anime interface that eschews the "brain in a jar" look of the XBox Dashboard. The Live features, including IM, voice chat, and match gathering, are all easy to handle and the ever present Live window pops up with a click of the silver Live button. A cute feature we already knew about—iPod support. Plug in your Nano and get rocking, was the suggestion, and we're assuming that almost any USB-enabled MP3 player will appear as a music source. Any USB keyboard will work with the 360 so you'll be able rag folks in Avatar mode.

I am starting to see a need for Windows Media Center Edition. The built-in extender features turns the XBox into a living room media center for the oldsters. HD content looks flawless and the movie download services are waiting in the wings for late night sessions of gaming/watching "Hard Bodies 2."

Is all this news? Not so much. This was a get to know me event, something that happens around the world for us journalists to hang out in apartments nicer than ours and play video games. There's another event later this evening, which one of our wonderful editors will attend, so that's nice. Otherwise, people, get ready. This shit kicks ass.

The Games

Played DOA4, PGR3, Condemned: Criminal Origins, a little Kameo, and a lot of CoD 2. I got a headache so I kind of wussed out after about 3 hours but I'm sure others at Gizmodo/Kotaku will be able to fulfill your every desire soon.

Gameplay was tragically great. This was high-end PC quality sans ghosting or lag. This is Alienware box in the livingroom stuff, with excellent missile graphics and fog. As I said before, the cartoony games were a bit of a letdown. Kameo was for kids, mostly. A little fairy runs around kicking people. DoA4 was nice, lacked some of the action of CoD 2. PGR3 definitely had it going on. The cars, city detailing, and gameplay were excellent. The shifting was smooth and each gear was indicated by a chirp in the handset, allowing an almost tactile experience.

On the whole, the games are very nice looking on the surface. The Live interface is integral to the experience and the games like DoA4 will have little pre-game avatar environments where you can meet up with friends, chat, watch games in progress, and plan matches. In the version of DoA I saw, you were a little ninja that could talk with others and then set-up a game. The environments are skin-able, so you can be in a Halloween room, play room, or whatever.

It's too early to give you the skinny on long-term play. I can foresee some hotshot multi-player players who will smoke us all. Spectator modes are also quite nice, so you can watch the top five or so players in the WORLD play together. Stats and data are extensive. Whenever you play a game, you get points. You can pick your opponents based on their skill level/gameplay time. Coolness.

Otherwise, I'm thinking this thing is so cool that it would be worth it to go sign up for one of those free XBox 360 spams. You know, the ones that offer pre-order instructions or whatever for $100. Yes, it's worth the agony of losing $100 to Nigerian scammers even if it means you'll feel that much closer to the 360.

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