Picture the scene. You've convinced your reticent partner that the Xbox 360 is the future of entertainment, able to show movies, pictures and play music. And games, though you kept fairly quiet about that. The killer app in your battle though was the 360's design - ta-dah, you said, in one move we can get rid of that ugly black box that you hated and instead run our hi-def digital future from this one off-white piece of loveliness. Convinced by this wire-free vision they gave in - after all, the 360 does look so much nicer than the original Xbox.
Sadly this was only a pyrrhic victory. Microsoft's announcement of an external HD-DVD drive for the 360 will ruin those clean lines in your living room. More seriously though, you have to wonder how many 360 owners will stump up for something that really should have been included from the off, even if it meant delaying the launch. And also, external add-ons - do they ever really work?
