If you want to play the best games in 2007 then the Xbox 360 is the only console in town. The PS3 as a games machine isn't worth looking at till next year whole the Wii is ploughing a highly profitable furrow away from core gamers. But if you want to play the state of the art stuff now - Halo 3, Mass Effect - and especially if you want to play online then the 360 is the console to get. But there is a problem. And not just the fact that PS3 will eventually get its gaming act together. No, this issue is much closer to home - the hardware itself.
Microsoft would never admit it but the 360 is a hugely unreliable bit of kit. My launch machine lasted 6 months before the ring of death and out of 7 close friends who bought a 360 at launch (Dec 2005) only one still has a working console. The latest one to go was last week and my friend was hugely aggrieved to find that Microsoft wanted to charge him 85 quid to fix a consumer device that had gone wrong barely 18 months into usage. Luckily for him the shop replaced it but as gamesindustry.biz argue in their timely editorial, Microsoft need to wake up to the problems with the 360 hardware or risk losing the goodwill generated by Live and some exciting games. How is your 360 bearing up? Needed a replacement yet?
