I've been spending a lot of time showing off the Wii to friends and family -Wii Sports bowling has become the favourite - and their positive reaction appears to fully vindicate Nintendo's aim to appeal to everyone. All well, and good, but perhaps more of a surprise to me has been the response when I've hooked up another new bit of kit, the HD-DVD drive for the 360. Love at first sight is perhaps the best way to describe it. Not for the clunky hardware obviously - the HD-DVD drive, which requires yet another plug socket behind your TV, is hefty and obtrusive - but for the excellent picture.
I'd always thought HD-DVD and Blu Ray would be a harder sell with none of the obvious benefits that DVD originally had over VHS, but the high def formats are both mightily impressive to look at. I've seen both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray on the PS3 and it was hard to see any difference - though Blu Ray's greater storage capacity may help it in the longer term.
The HD-DVD drive is surprisingly quiet too, with the 360 running at dashboard volume levels rather than the normal game/dvd roar . Obviously the inbuilt drive of the PS3 is a neater option but if you can put up with more cables and boxes the 360s HD-DVD drive gives a great picture for a good price.
