First of all, I have to admit that XBOX Live really makes the 360 what it is. The achievement system is ingenious and would make me purchase the 360 version of a game every time over another version. The design of the hardware is nice and the controller feels good in hand. The games at this point in the life cycle are pretty nice and I see the 360 making it really hard for PS3 to win this generation at this still early stage (I am not biased and just care about the games not the system. It will take some major exclusives for the PS3 to catch up with the late start.)

The problems though are significant. Many of my friends that own 360's have had considerable problems with hardware failure. Mine has worked since I bought it, but never right. I always have to power up and down 3+ times (sometimes 5) for the system to actually boot fully and I am finally getting around to sending it back to MS and had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it done (I extended the warranty through MS). One of my friends, having luckily purchased BestBuy protection, has had 3 different systems and he didn't get his until recently. I have never had or heard problems like this before and I am typically an early adapter. I am also not cool with the XBOX live trickle content for pay thing which I can only see getting worse. The games come out shafted for content only to see the developer and MS extort you for more tidbits of content while you are already paying for the service. I think this will cause the games to get more and more shallow on original purchase content while costing the same or more. Do I want to end up pying $100 for the game plus all of the content? I sure hope not.

Overall, I think the 360 is a great system, but they need to iron out the hardware kinks better (especially after being out for more than a year) and make sure game content doesn't suffer for pay for play on XBOX Live.
First of all, I have to admit that XBOX Live really makes the 360 what it is. The achievement system is ingenious and would make me purchase the 360 version of a game every time over another version. The design of the hardware is nice and the controller feels good in hand. The games at this point in the life cycle are pretty nice and I see the 360 making it really hard for PS3 to win this generation at this still early stage (I am not biased and just care about the games not the system. It will take some major exclusives for the PS3 to catch up with the late start. )

The problems though are significant. Many of my friends that own 360's have had considerable problems with hardware failure. Mine has worked since I bought it, but never right. I always have to power up and down 3+ times (sometimes 5) for the system to actually boot fully and I am finally getting around to sending it back to MS and had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it done (I extended the warranty through MS). One of my friends, having luckily purchased BestBuy protection, has had 3 different systems and he didn't get his until recently. I have never had or heard problems like this before and I am typically an early adapter. I am also not cool with the XBOX live trickle content for pay thing which I can only see getting worse. The games come out shafted for content only to see the developer and MS extort you for more tidbits of content while you are already paying for the service. I think this will cause the games to get more and more shallow on original purchase content while costing the same or more. Do I want to end up pying $100 for the game plus all of the content? I sure hope not. Overall, I think the 360 is a great system, but they need to iron out the hardware kinks better (especially after being out for more than a year) and make sure game content doesn't suffer for pay for play on XBOX Live.