Last week, my Xbox 360 finally arrived. It even arrived on the day it was released in stores, even though I pre-ordered it through Amazon. I opted for 3-5 day shipping via UPS, and even though it shipped out on Wednesday, I got it two days later. I have to hand it to Amazon - that was way more than I expected. Great job! :)
Unfortunately, I misunderstood what cables cam in the box, and I needed to buy the HD VGA cable separately. While that did add an additional $40 to the total cost, it's worth it - as I said before, I can get a much better picture on my monitor than on my TV. For sound, I had an adapter that I could use - 2 RCA female on one end, and 1 1/8" stereo jack on the other (although it turns out that the VGA cable comes with this adapter as well, which is a nice touch). I did need to buy a 1/8" to 1/8" female coupler in order to connect all that to my speakers. This all works quite well, though.
Since I bought the Resident Evil 5 bundle, I got a copy of Resident Evil 5 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. There were also a variety of Xbox Live Arcade trials included on the hard drive, which was nice.
While I was setting up my Xbox, I opted to start my one month Xbox Live Gold trial. While I haven't done much online yet, I really need to hand it to Microsoft - they've set up a great online system with Xbox Live. You can see what all of your friends on your friends list are doing, see what games they have, and compare achievements. PLus, all online games have built-in voice chat (there was a headset included with my Xbox, which I think is the case for most/all Xboxes too). While it isn't free ($50/year through Microsoft, although Amazon is currently offering 13 months for $40), it's definitely worth it in my opinon.
My GamerTag is Adeese, if you want to add me to your friends list, or play online with me sometime. :)
The main problem that I have right now is that I don't have many games to play. :) That will change in time, of course. I'm most likely going to get a subscription to GameFly, which is basically the Netflix of games (you can have so many games rented at a time, for as long as you want; send them back in the mail when you're done, and the next game in your queue is shipped to you). This is much more economical than buying all of the games that I want to play, since many I would only want to play once and never again (which isn't worth the $60 that most new games cost). If I do end up liking the game, there is an option to buy the game outright so I don't need to buy it separately - that's a nice touch.
Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase - Microsoft has done a great job putting the Xbox 360 together. While the Xbox 360 has had its share of technical problems (with another potential issue on the horizon, unfortunately), hopefully the worst is behind us. I also hope that my console won't fall victim to either of these issues, but only time will tell. If nothing else, hopefully Microsoft has learned its lesson, and will build the Xbox 360's successor better to avoid these issues in the future.
