Xbox 360: The E3 Bombshell

I'll preface my first gaming post by saying this: I'm an old school PC gamer-- old school enough to go back before the original PC took the gaming marketshare crown from the Apple ][ and Commodore 64/Amiga. I tend to prefer PC gaming as it affords me a high degree of tweaking/modding, I like the keyboard/mouse interface as a minimum standard and I like the immediacy of sitting right in front of the screen. I still bear Microsoft and the Xbox franchise some minor ill will for diminishing the former glory of the PC gaming market.

With all this in mind, the Xbox has scored a slam dunk this E3. Forget the Mii-alike avatars. Forget the media content and Netflix deals. Even forget the option to run from the hard drive. Those are the icing on the cake. The real meat here is that the update will handle standard widescreen monitors from 17" through 22" at native resolution.

I no longer have to invest in a different type of setup-- I can re-use the monitors I already have. Good HDTVs are expensive, but a $250 monitor isn't a bad way to go.

And let's not forget the games. The Xbox franchise has been hammering nails in the corpse of the PC for a long time, but it's polishing the hammer for the console market too. Let's be blunt-- The Wii competes for gamer time and dollars, but isn't playing the same games as the other 3 platforms. The PC is just the Xbox's poor stepsister from Microsoft's standpoint, so that leaves Sony. Sony is quintesentially Japanese. I own a PS2 primarily for Japanese Console RPGs-- the greats from SquareEnix, Bandai Namco, Atlus and the like. These are quirky and fun and things I can't do on a PC. Final Fantasy X was the king of that generation and the FFXIII franchise looks to be the king of the current generation. The loss of the main FFXIII game's PS3 exclusivity is an Epic Fail. It means that people (like me) with limited budgets on the fence as to which console is better for Japanese games will tend to go with the non-Japanese contender.

While there is still some pretty good exclusive PS3 content (Little Big Planet arguably the biggest now), Sony now has to move units based on more games that are non-exclusive. Luckly it holds the ace of being a great BluRay player in its sleeve.

The real news here is for the PC market. With Microsoft putting more genres of content squarely into the Xbox arsenal, it gets harder to resist. The ability to use existing/inexpensive high quality monitors is the cherry on top.