What can I say, the 360 is one beautiful gaming beast. The thing is sleek (not counting the big ass power supply), powerful and just the right size to squeeze into your entertainment center without raising any unwanted eyebrows.

Hooking the 360 up took a matter of minutes and then you just push that big ass button, sit back and watch the light show.

The thing I like best about the 360 is that it can be a completely wire-free experience. Between the debug unit and retail unit I received two wireless controllers, a headset and a wireless WiFi connector. I set the debug unit up in my loft with my office and the retail unit in the family room, a place once strictly verboten to gaming items. My wife, who can t stand video games, actually doesn t mind it s presence next to our cable box. I think this is mostly because it s down right pretty and there aren t any ugly wires hanging off of it.

A quick note about that moster of a power supply. This is the one Achilles Heel of the console. Not only isn't it big and ugly, and I mean big, but it's also poorly designed. Instead of putting the big box at one end or the other of the power plug, they sort of put it a third of the way down. What this means is that it's kinda too far to put next to the console and not far enough to let it sit on the floor. I'm sure this won't effect many people, there are ways around it being in the way, but it's just a stupid design.

The only other pet peeve I have about the 360's design is that it heats up like a mofo and then these fans kick in that are just shockingly loud. (At least on the debug unit, I didn't have any final retail code to play.) Like, so loud I first thought it was part of the game's sound effects. Granted I was playing at night with low sound, but still...

OK, back to the console.

I snapped the sleek little 360 wireless WiFi connector to the back of the downstairs console and just hide away the controllers when I m not using them. Moving the controllers between the two units is surprisingly easy, you just push a button on the console and the controller and they resync. It takes less than a minute, so it s no biggie carrying around a controller with you.

I was surprised at how much I like the new controller. The design feels lighter that current gen stuff and the minor tweaks to the shape really help make holding it a pleasure. The button layout is mostly the same as with the xbox controllers with one major exception. The black and white buttons, always a pain in the ass to find in the middle of intense Xbox games, have been converted into two small rectangles located over the triggers, making them much more intuitive to use. The controller also has that big-ass 360 button on it. Pushing this sends you immediately to the Xbox 360 menu.

I love the new menu. I know we ve all seen tons of pictures of the multi-tiered menu system on the 360, but it s hard to conceptualize just how well it organizes your 360 choices without messing around with it.

Once you bring it up you can quickly shuffle between the main categories and then select what you want to do. This is very important with the 360 since now you are dealing with gaming, online aspects of play, watching movies, listening to music and looking at pictures.

The console also easily supports multiple profiles, changing who s playing is as easy as a couple of button clicks. This is great for multi-gamer homes, which is basically all homes now adays.

One of the downsides of the more robust profile system is that it links harddrive saved games to the profile. Lose your profile and lose all and I mean ALL of your game saves. Fortunately, you can copy them over to a memory card.

Microsoft sent along both a tiny 360 remote control and the John Holmes version of the 360 remotes, which is about three times larger. So far neither seem to do a lot. I tried my hand at playing one of the casual games loaded onto the console and it didn t work. I suspect that we ll be seeing some Tivo functionality with the 360 down the line. This is totally baseless rumor-mongering, but the remotes do have both record and live tv buttons.

I also received a headset for the 360. Instead of trying to make this thing a stand-alone wireless device, you have to plug it into your controller. This isn't a biggie since you can plug it into a wireless controller as easily as you can a wired one.

The only other bit of accessories Microsoft sent along were two charge and play cables for the wireless controllers. Basically this turns your wire-free controller into a wired one, but lets you play games while it is recharging the batteries. I found the battery live on the controllers to be exceptional and wasn't too put out the few times I had to teather myself to the console with a recharge plug.

This is, by far, the easiest console to connect, use and enjoy. It s also, at least for another six months or so, the most robust.

When I look at the 360 I see a thing of great potential, but so far not a whole lot really using that potential. I don t for a second think that s going to be a problem in the long run. From what I ve seen, Microsoft has done a good job of building in the sorts of support that can really let game developers spread their wings and I know they re eager to do so.

Check back for more in-depth looks at the 360 s multimedia and interoperability capabilities, games and Live.

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