Overview

The Xbox 360 has changed since its launch in 2005.

That much is transparently clear from the updated version that debuted in 2010.

The Xbox 360 S is smaller, sleeker and quieter than the previous model and designed to banish the infamous 'Red Ring of Death' hardware failure that forced Microsoft to extend its warranty on the system.

Likewise the arrival of Kinect, which has gone on to sell over 10 million units, has transformed the machine from solely the preserve of hardcore gamers to a casual gamer friendly environment.

While some of the novelty of Kinect may have worn off, if anything the games are improving – finding new ways to take advantage of what is still fascinating technology.

But Microsoft is and always has been a software company first and foremost and, fittingly, that's where the Xbox 360 has changed the most. The NXE update of 2008 binned the old 'blades' system for an interface that was more welcoming to multimedia content and 2011 has seen another major update to the console's operating system. One so substantial, we've felt it necessary to update this review to reflect what a different machine it is.

Whether it's the old model or the new one, the Xbox 360 has now comprehensively changed from a machine primarily about playing games, with a modest selection of online content attached, to a fully featured entertainment and media hub.

The majority of forms of digital entertainment are catered for, there are extensive social networking features available and a new TV tab aims to replace traditional digital boxes with IPTV and catch up services.

The new dashboard, based around the Metro design language that also features in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7, is a far busier interface, but it's reflective of the huge amounts of content now available within the walled garden of Xbox Live.

Getting to it all has always been the challenge and Microsoft has made admirable steps towards making that a straightforward process.

Features

You'd think that the most significant change for the new widely touted 'Xbox 360 Slim' would be its size, but surprisingly, it's not.

At 270mm in height, it's sufficiently shorter than the 310mm tall old 360. But it's only a measly half-a-centimeter slimmer (and fatter than the PS3 Slim) and, would you believe, it's actually slightly deeper than the old 360, too.

Just to make it easier at a glance, here are its dimensions beside the older model, and the PS3 slim just for some extra comparison:

Console: Height/Width/Depth/weight

• Xbox 360 250GB: 270mm x 75mm x 264mm, 2.9kg
• Xbox 360 Elite: 310mm x 80mm x 260mm, 3.5kg
• PS3 Slim: 290mm × 65mm ×290mm, 3.5kg

As you can see, its profile is not much 'slim' but more 'light'. It's the lightest of the current-gen consoles by a fair amount, although it's worth noting right now that the PS3 Slim's extra heft also counts for the system's internal power supply, which disappointingly remains external (albeit smaller than the previous power brick) in the new Xbox.

Instead, the more significant changes are in the console's aesthetics and hardware configuration. First of all, that matte plastic has been swapped for a super sexy gloss black.

Where the old console's bubble-like roundness wouldn't look too out of place on the Tomy Toys page of your Argos catalogue, the new console dons sharp edges and harsh lines that almost resemble a stealth fighter (fittingly so given its new quieter operating volume, but more on that later).

And then there's that grill on the side – a surprisingly large and aggressive opening that's more like something you'd expect from a third-party case mod than the usually reserved standard skin. Consoles usually hide away their tightly-packed insides but the new Xbox flaunts it, giving you a good look at the system's case fan.

Touch-buttons

The power and disc eject buttons are no longer the clunky things they were before. In fact you don't press them at all – they're capacitive touch buttons that respond to no more than a gentle prod.

The console makes a funky beep sound to acknowledge your touch, but it's thankfully a more calming chime and not that horrible microwave-style bleep of the PS3.

The console's cleaner appearance is also partly thanks to the omission of the proprietary memory stick ports – MS updated the 360 recently to accept any USB stick as usable memory; a move which pretty much rendered the notoriously more expensive native memory cards redundant anyway.

The two front-loading USB ports remain, tucked neatly way behind a little flap which sits in line with the new bigger and more responsive controller sync button.

The console actually now has five USB ports total instead of the previous three, but those additional ones have been tucked away on the back of the console.

The new disc drive is considerably smoother and quieter than before. Now, we know some of you will, right off the bat, question MS' decision to stick with a disc tray rather than the admittedly sleeker slot-loading drive like on PS3 and Wii. Honestly speaking we would have preferred a slot loader too.

Anyhow, the new drive has none of that Aiwa tape deck-like clunkyness to it. We always wondered what part of the old Xbox could possibly make such a loud 'ker-chunk' sound as the drive closed – that teeth-gritting sound is no longer present here.

We tried moving the console while a disc was spinning inside – something that resulted in a severely scratched disc in the old console. The result? We're certain the result was even worse!

Clearly Microsoft has been unable to find a solution the intense centrifugal forces that bend the disc and make it touch harmful nearby surfaces in the drive. The console does in fact have a sticker on the front which warns against moving it while a disc is spinning. Does this make up for the flaw in our eyes? Not a chance.

On the backside

Flip the console round and you're greeted by a few new ports, too. As we said before, there are three USB ports back here instead of one. You'll now be able to plug a digital optical audio lead directly into the console for your 5.1 surround kits, instead of having to go through external ports on the AV lead.

Click to enlarge

Most interesting though is the 'Aux' port, which is basically where Kinect, Microsoft's new motion-sensing gadget releasing in November, will be plugged in. This port will both operate and power the device. Users of the old console will plug Kinect in via a USB adapter and draw power from a wall socket.

Video is delivered to your TV either via standard HDMI or the proprietary Xbox AV port, which is the same size as before so all your old AV cables will work, which is handy for anyone upgrading from the old console because, ridiculously, the new Xbox comes with no HD video leads whatsoever.

All you get in the box is the standard composite lead, which only does SD – and poorly at that. Everyone else will otherwise have to add the cost of an HDMI lead to their bill before they can see the crisp HD resolutions this machine is capable of.

There's an Ethernet network port back here too, although we'd like to think anyone grabbing the new console will make use of the now built-in Wi-Fi capability.

Finally, Microsoft is no longer bending you over a table with its £70 proprietary Wi-Fi adapter necessary before. Just turn it on and you're wireless right out of the box.

Noise and storage

Compare the noise of the new Xbox 360 to the Elite and the PS3 Slim:

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Sound recordings were made six inches from the front of each of the three consoles. Results should only be used by way of comparison.

White noise

Perhaps the biggest improvement over the older console is actually an intangible one – the system's operating sound. The quieter disc drive is coupled with a single larger internal cooling fan instead of three smaller ones as before, resulting in a stealthier console.

This is made possible by using a slimmer, more power efficient 45nm CPU with integrated GPU. With less power being generated by the processing chip, the console is able to run cooler, with a quieter fan. The difference is night and day.

When there's no disc in the tray the console is totally inaudible. Fire up a game and the drive's rapid read speed still inevitably makes sound, but it's more of a gliding 'whoosh' than the whirring sound of the motor.

Take a look at the video clip above to get some idea of how the noise of the new Xbox 360 compares against the original model and also the PS3 Slim.

Storage

Instead of the fat top-loading hard drive of the old console, Microsoft has now hidden a more compact hard drive case in a slot accessed on the underside of the console (underside when stood vertically, that is).

To extract it you must remove the hatch covering and pull on a flimsy tag on the top of the drive, which does not seem like a good idea to us at all. If there's one thing on this new Xbox we can see breaking, it's this tag.

New controller

As with the other Xbox 360 consoles, the new 250GB model comes with one wireless controller. Aesthetically, it's slightly different to the one that shipped with the 360 Elite.

The grey trim is replaced with glossy black, while the round silver Xbox button is now glossy silver rather than matte and the thumbsticks are black instead of grey.

Interface

Connect your Xbox 360 to Xbox Live (and with wireless now fitted as standard, you've no excuse not to) and you'll be prompted to download an update to your console, which contains 2011's sweeping dashboard refresh.

While the Metro-based design is too busy to be considered truly handsome, it's borne of necessity. There is an enormous amount of content available to connected Xbox 360 users and the new dashboard does a great job of presenting it all in a logical fashion.

We had gripes with the NXE system that debuted in 2008, because of the jargon-heavy nomenclature of the various menu options. But now you're presented with nine tabs across the top which are visible at all times and have logical titles.

The only potential confusion could come from the division between 'video' and 'tv', the lines of which are being blurred with every passing day. But while the 'tv' tab is the least populated at launch, as on-demand services such as iPlayer, 4oD and Five On Demand arrive on the service, that division will seem much more logical as another way to sort and subdivide the astonishing amount of media available to you.

The 'video' tab is the preserve of movies and the forthcoming YouTube application.

Similarly at launch the apps tab provides a number of redundant links to features that can be accessed elsewhere, such as the Zune Video and Zune Music marketplaces, both of which are also in their relevant tabs, and Sky Go which sits in the 'tv' tab.

While there's unlikely to ever be as wide a range as Apple's app store, if Microsoft is canny it'll have apps that are cross platform compatible with Windows Phone 7 equivalents. At the moment though, this is arguably the biggest unknown on the Xbox 360 – less a case of anticipation as just waiting.

Games have actually been made more awkward to get to. While the disc in the tray (still the priority for most users) can be accessed from the first panel on the home screen, if you have an extensive selection of titles downloaded from Xbox Live Arcade, you have to navigate four tabs over to view them all.

Microsoft clearly feels that gamers will be more prepared to explore the interface than casual users, but the problem could easily be solved by a customisable home tab, something that feels more and more like a glaring omission the longer you spend with the dashboard.

Of course, the Guide button menu, activated by pressing the silver Xbox motif on any controller, remains largely the same as it always was and the savvier gamers may find that this is the most efficient way to get at what the console was originally designed for.

For everyone else, it would be easy for the amount of available content to become overwhelming and for that, Microsoft has included Bing-branded search functions. As an attempt to promote its ailing search brand, which currently claims less than four per cent of UK searches, it's likely to be a busted flush, but as a means to sift through the movies, games and music on Xbox Live it's a godsend.

If you're a huge Batman fan, simply searching for Batman will bring up all Batman related content available on Xbox Live.

That means games, movies and even original soundtracks from the Zune Music marketplace. If that scattergun approach is too much, searching specifically for 'Batman games' will prioritise downloadable content relating to those and even full games on demand. It's impressive stuff and a brisk education in just how much there is for sale through your Xbox.

If you're not keen on navigating using the Xbox pad that, while brilliant for twin-stick shooters or precise racing games, still suffers from a doughy directional pad, you can use Kinect for either gesture or voice control.

It's pleasing that it's no longer ghettoised in a separate menu, but in practice, Kinect control largely feels like a novelty. Sweeping between the different tabs and using a hand cursor to select the various panels is absolutely as efficient and precise as Kinect has ever been.

There has clearly been plenty of time spent tuning it. But unless you don't have a controller to hand or simply aren't as accustomed to their use, it's still a less efficient way to navigate the dash.

It's a similar story with voice. While you can bark the name of any of the tabs and be whisked there, you can only 'say what you see'. Memorising longer phrases in an attempt to dig into secondary and tertiary layers of the interface bears no fruit, meaning you'll have to insert pauses into your speech patterns.

Also, given that many Xbox 360s have a microphone in the shape of an Xbox Live headset, the fact that voice control is limited to Kinect owners feels like a cynical, artificial restriction.

Voice control's only real triumph is when it comes to Bing searches. From anywhere on the dashboard, saying 'Xbox, Bing' and then a search term will perform a near instantaneous search. It recognises a remarkable number of phrases too, meaning you can say actor names, obscure game titles and even the odd profanity and it will do an impressive job of obliging.

What the dashboard does offer you though is freedom of choice. Whether you're most comfortable with controller, gesture, voice or some combination of the three, the entire interface supports it and that's to be applauded.

Xbox Live

Whereas previously an Xbox Live Gold subscription was seen as a tax on online multiplayer gaming, now that the service has spread to social networking and television, it feels like you get much more for your £34.99 a year.

And even if you only have a free 'Silver' account, it's still worth connecting your Xbox 360 up.

Naturally Microsoft isn't going to prevent you from spending money, so the marketplace is fully open to all Live users. What's more, the BBC has maintained its position that the iPlayer must be free to download on all systems, meaning more frugal Live users will still get to enjoy Auntie on demand.

For subscribers, the reward remains the best online gaming experience around. Friends are managed in a global list and chatting or playing games together is made as simple as possible.

If you're in a multiplayer session, simply bringing up the guide, selecting a friend and clicking the invite button is usually enough to have you playing together in a matter of moments. It makes a mockery of both PS3 and PC multiplayer, which are almost impossible to co-ordinate without an external form of communication.

The new dashboard brings several welcome new additions to the Xbox Live experience. Beacons are a new system to notify friends that you are keen to play a particular game without having to manually invite them all. Add a beacon, select the game you're interested in playing together and set an optional message and the Xbox will inform all of your online friends.

Even if they miss the notification, when they hover over your avatar in the friends list, a speech bubble appears showing the game and your plea for companionship. With the new dashboard's integration with Facebook (which also allows you to post your unlocked achievements to the social network) you can announce your play-date on your wall.

Another new feature is one that will be most useful to more social gamers, or those who own two Xbox 360s. Previous restrictions on profiles have been lifted, meaning an Xbox Live profile is now no longer tied to a single device. This means downloading your profile at a friend's place has been made immeasurably easier.

Working in tandem with this is a new cloud storage facility. This appears as just another storage option along with your system's hard drive and memory sticks, offers 511MB of space per profile and works absolutely seamlessly. There's no noticeable delay as games are saved to it and is a godsend for anyone who has reason to play on more than one console.

Of course, even if you only have a single system, you can always use it to back up your most treasured save games in case of natural disasters, USB drives in the wash or the intervention of the vengeful god of hard-drive failure.

As a service, Xbox Live Gold is absolutely worth a monthly outlay of under three quid for anyone who regularly plays games on the system – it's stable and still easily the most convenient way to play with friends, which given the often hostile online environment is usually preferable. The addition of new or updated apps and, crucially, television services means it's recommended for consideration by casual users as well.

Verdict

In the Xbox 360, Microsoft has successfully extended the lifespan of its console well beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected back when it was launched in 2005.

Granted there have been hardware updates and the arrival of Kinect, but neither has sustained the machine's longevity as much as the services that are provided.

The NXE could be seen as Microsoft dipping its toe in the multimedia waters, but with this most recent dashboard update the Xbox 360 truly is a one-stop-shop for every conceivable piece of entertainment content you could hope to be pumped to a living room television.

We liked:

The hardware on the Xbox 360 S is now a device you'd happily have nestled underneath the TV in your living room. It's slimmer, sleeker and most importantly nearly silent – ensuring it won't be whirring away during the quieter moments of a film or TV show.

Xbox Live is still the leading online gaming platform and it now boasts more instantly accessible content than ever before and a search engine capable of filtering results intelligently and with the minimum of fuss.

The new dashboard is cluttered, but it's as elegant a system as you're likely to find for arranging the sheer bulk of the content now available.

We disliked

There's little customisation of the new dashboard beyond a new background. We'd like to be able to arrange our most used apps and contents on our home page for easy access.

Voice control requires stilted speech rather than a natural flow, meaning it takes some getting to grips with. Also, why can't we use voice control on the Xbox Live headset we've been using for six years?

Verdict

In light of the recent software updates, the new Xbox 360 is probably the most complete and convenient box that you can stick under your telly. Not only does it play the latest video games, but it offers a huge amount of other content in one slickly designed interface.

As more and more content fills the system, it's only going to become more essential. What's more, the lack of a Blu-Ray drive now seems almost inconsequential, with the Zune Video Marketplace filled with 1080p content that can be discovered and streamed or downloaded in a matter of moments.

The only sticking point will be the requirement for Xbox Live Gold for an increasing amount of what's presented on the dashboard. Still, as long as you are the comfortable with the concept of subrscribing at all it still comes off as a reasonable deal and is by no means mandatory to take advantage of marketplace content.

Whether you're a gamer or not, it's time to start seriously considering the Xbox 360 as more than just another place to play the latest Call of Duty or FIFA game.

Just what is OnLive?

After over a year of forcing North Americans to do the guinea pig work for us, OnLive has finally granted Great Britain access to its ambitious cloud gaming service. The platform could, in theory at least, pave the way for how we consume and play videogames in the future.

The firm says its on-demand service is now more robust thanks to the work of the good old US of A, but can it really compete with the likes of PS3 and Xbox 360? More importantly, can the UK's broadband architecture cope with OnLive's lofty demands?

OnLive works rather differently to a traditional games console stuffed full of various high-end components and screeching heat fans, streaming all of the actual computing involved in your game of, say, Splinter Cell to one of the company's faraway servers, which it says it upgrades every month with the latest graphics cards and RAM sticks.

Basically, you're playing a game remotely via the internet. When you aim your silenced pistol at a nasty henchman's bonce and pull the trigger, the command is sent over to OnLive's server den, which does all the computer work and then sends back the result of your gunshot via images down your broadband pipe.

The advantage of farming out the hardware bit is that you can run OnLive's library of titles on a number of different devices that would normally never be able to the cope with that calibre of game without 300 quid's worth of heatsink strapped to their sides.

PCs, Android tablets and iPads all support the OnLive platform, with the latter even supporting custom touch interfaces for some games, such as Ubisoft's excellent god sim From Dust. There's also a dedicated Games System, which you can buy to play the service on your TV.

Check out our Hands on: OnLive video to see what we think about the service:

The Games System hardware

Inside the shoebox-sized starter pack, which costs around £69, is a tiny Game System, Xbox 360-style Wireless Controller, all the power adaptors you need to get it going, plus USB, Ethernet and HDMI leads.

Setup is straightforward and guided by a minimalist, Apple-style leaflet inside the box. Plug the box into your television via HDMI, connect it to the power mains, attach an Ethernet cable from your router – unfortunately there's no Wi-FI, but you can set up a bridge – and OnLive will be ready to put pretty pictures on your TV screen.

It only takes about five minutes to set up your free account and get started, and then you're left to navigate the platform's main Dashboard to purchase games, spectate other players' activities or watch Brag Clips (more on those later).

The Wireless Controller feels sturdy and includes every button and trigger you could possibly need for today's top games, although it's perhaps not quite as comfortable as the similar Xbox 360 joypad.

Face buttons carry the same naming convention as Microsoft's controller (A, B, X and Y), and the pad also boasts a pair of triggers, left and right bumpers and a D-pad on the bottom left of the controller.

Unlike Microsoft's controller, though, the OnLive peripheral houses a number of inputs along the bottom for controlling video, including buttons to play, stop and fast forward.

Does it work?

Now, so far you're probably thinking this all sounds like a nice idea, but will it actually work on your old BT Broadband connection? The answer is: probably. On a 50Mb Virgin connection, the OnLive technology really is impressive – we played various online sessions of first-person shooter Homefront and almost forgot we weren't holding a PlayStation 3 controller.

On the right connection, games start up quicker than you'd be able to walk to the television and fiddle with a DVD, and OnLive really starts to feel like the future of gaming.

However, on the less speedy 3Mb connections that most of the country has to make do with, the 2011 on-demand gaming scene can be a completely different experience (if your old pipe's good enough to connect in the first place, that is).

Those lower down the broadband chain might find that while less reaction-speed-reliant games such as Lego Batman work fine, titles in the vein of Assassin's Creed that require quick movements of the analogue sticks to keep the camera pointing in the right direction feel sluggish. It's a bit like playing when you haven't activated Game Mode on your brand new 400Hz OLED TV.

Outside of lightning-quick connections, there's also a noticeable – but not huge – drop in picture quality compared to the lush visuals outputted by the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

At times, graphics don't look as crisp as their console counterparts, and some distortion can also be apparent when your broadband throws a wobbly, especially on HD televisions. Lower-resolution PC monitors seem to hide this better.

The good news if you have to make do with a single-figure connection is that OnLive includes a five-minute drop-out feature that means you've still got a chance of rescuing your game if your connection drops.

With such a pioneering platform, it's probably acceptable that not everyone's going to get perfect service from the off, and it's certainly likely to improve along with Britain's internet infrastructure.

If you're worried your connection might not be up for the job of efficiently streaming a 16-man Unreal deathmatch from 100 miles away, the beauty is it won't cost you a thing to try. OnLive is free to sign up for and you can easily jump on and have a go on a few game trials on your PC or Mac.

Social gaming

The thing that really impresses us about OnLive most is not its ability to magically put Prince Of Persia on our iPads, but its exciting interface and platform, which includes some features that the big console manufacturers could really do with nicking – if they have the technology to even implement them.

The first is simple but incredibly impressive: when you start up your little box, a flashy boot-up screen will illuminate your telly, depicting a giant globe built entirely out of little video screens, eventually settling on the same gameplay windows that make up the backdrop of OnLive's menus.

Those squares of video aren't just placeholders – they're real-world users playing away in real time. The Arena is the showcase for this baffling and brilliant innovation, enabling you to browse a wall of live gaming, picking any box you like to stretch the video to full screen and watch another OnLive user playing a game live from their living room.

It's very, very impressive stuff and from here you can leave your spy victim a thumbs up message, add them as a friend, or simply enjoy their half-pipe skills in Skate.

The Arena has more practical benefits for the game-playing experience too. If you're considering handing over your hard-earned cash for a title you're perhaps not too sure about, you can highlight the Arena tab and bring up every user with open privacy options who's playing that game right now. (You can also trial the title for 30 full minutes, as is possible with almost all OnLive games.)

You don't have to own the title as you would on an Xbox or PlayStation in order to spectate, of course – the hardware doing all the work is in some warehouse God knows how far away.

Another head-spinning feature comes via those video input buttons on the bottom of the Wireless Controller. Press the tiny record button on your pad and OnLive will instantly record your last 10 seconds of gameplay, attach it to your profile and upload it to the service's YouTube equivalent, Brag Clips.

That means the next time you pull off a mental Virtua Tennis shot or expose a game-breaking glitch in Batman: Arkham Asylum, you can record it on video and share it with the world.

The Brag Clips interface looks identical to the Arena – basically, a giant wall of video all playing at once, like the end scene from The Matrix Reloaded. From here, you can arrange the clips by highest rated, most viewed or most recent.

It's no surprise that at the moment a lot of the popular Brag Clips are saucy scenes from Duke Nukem Forever, but there are some hilarious Homefront kills and Red Faction glitches to be discovered.

The games

Around 120 games are available on the service at the time of writing, the newest including big hitters such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution and DiRT 3. The most popular games at the moment appear to be sandbox titles such as Just Cause 2 and Saints Row, and these work well with both varying internet connections and the comedy Brag Clips you'll be keen to stick in your user profile.

At the moment, OnLive is running a promotion that means UK users can purchase their first game for just £1, after which you'll have to shell out as much as £35 for some games. That's disappointing considering how much you can pick up their boxed equivalents for.

Renting options, however, are far more tempting, with three-day (£3.49) and five-day (£4.99) passes available – you could easily finish Warhammer 40k: Space Marine in that kind of time.

There's also a PlayPack Bundle, which gives you access to 100-plus games for less than a tenner a month at £6.99. While the newest titles aren't included, there's plenty to give you your money's worth.

As a whole, there are undoubtedly some quality titles on the service at the moment, but there are also glaring holes in the portfolio that need to be addressed over time (and we suspect they will be).

For the UK market, there's no football game on the platform right now, and a lot of the big titles gamers will be searching for this Christmas – Call Of Duty, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim – will only be available on the traditional home consoles.

That said, we imagine OnLive's business model is extremely attractive to games publishers, so it's probably only a matter of time before the gaps in its service are aptly filled up.

OnLive gaming also needs to progress. Shooters such as Homefront, as we mentioned previously, cope very well with the doubled network task of streaming both game and shooting-your-mate-in-the-face data. Other types of game, such racing and sports, suffer from reduced picture quality and lag at times.

The service as a whole isn't exactly bursting with online players either, but then again there aren't many titles available yet that offer multiplayer. Once again, we suspect this is something that will be fixed over time.

Verdict

It's clear that the cloud is going to be a big feature in all of our lives, and that includes our virtual worlds as well, and as connections get faster and more robust things will get better and better.

OnLive is impressive enough to convince us that cloud gaming will play a part in how we consume videogames in future – but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll take over from the traditional method of sticking a disc in a box in front of the telly just yet.

We liked

It's a remarkable system to witness in action and the social features that make up its flashy interface are very exciting indeed.

The user interface is well designed, and it is clear that this has been built with a community in mind, and our cynicism over the latency issue has been greatly reduced as we spent time trying out the games.

For older games and those less reliant on super speedy reactions, the lag simply isn't a major factor, unless your connection is truly ponderous, prone to dropping out, or your ISP decides that OnLive is actually a P2P connection and throttles the speed.

Once the games library starts to fill up – especially with OnLive exclusive titles taking advantage of its superior hardware and iPad options – we can see the platform really taking off as an alternative to traditional out-of-the-box thumb waggling.

We didn't like

There's a part of us that's left feeling that it's not the gamers – the ones who'll care about the slight reduction in image quality and miniscule response lag – but the mainstream populous who OnLive should be aiming at.

The newer games are currently run on 'optimum' settings, which can mean that the super-high end graphics you are used to from your computer are simply not even attempted.

At the moment, there are parts of England that don't quite have the broadband connections to run every game at its top-notch capabilities. That said, we do urge those curious to give OnLive a go for free on their PCs before dismissing it entirely.

Verdict

OnLive is an impressive glimpse into the future of gaming. It's not perfect, but it is far from the laggy-monster we feared. For casual gamers this is a very real option.

Have you felt the sting of Sunday afternoon envy watching F1 drivers frolic in their hydraulic simulators like giddy children on priceless corporate bucking bronco rides? 'I could probably go quicker than that' you whisper through gritted teeth, 'if only my dad had spent all his money on karting licences instead of bourgeois nonsense like mortgages and food'.

But until Red Bull Racing spot you executing perfect doughnuts in Homebase car park and decide to offer you a racing contract, the closest you'll get to the pro race driver life is getting a decent force feedback steering wheel and loading up an unforgiving racing sim.

Logitech's Driving Force GT is such a wheel. Decent. It'll work on PC or PS3, and the Gran Turismo logo on the front hints it's better suited to the latter, where expectations are lower.

Right enough, there's convincing force feedback, but compared to the superlative G27 in Logitech's arsenal it hardly compares. Gear shifting is the Driving Force GT's real bogey, though. Lacking paddles, the wheel-mounted buttons feel stiff and unsatisfying and the flimsy stick offers little relief.

It's capable then, but at £100 it's not worth the money and dangerously close to the greatly superior G25, also in the Logitech camp. Consider only if you want cross-platform driving.

Kinect review: Overview

The Nintendo Wii made waves when it came out in 2006.

It wasn't because of an exciting array of incredible launch titles - there weren't any. And it absolutely wasn't due to the Wii packing dazzling HD graphics - it doesn't.

It was all down to the motion-controlled gaming interface which put players inside games for the first time.

Playing a tennis game suddenly became about swinging and hitting a ball, instead of using your fingers to hit the right buttons on a control pad in the right order. Gaming was revolutionised.

Four years and 75 million worldwide Wii sales later, Microsoft and Sony have now both released their high-tech answers to the Wii-mote, and they couldn't be more different.

While Sony's PlayStation Move uses the PlayStation Eye camera to detect and measure the location of high-tech and spatially-aware handheld controllers, Kinect has no physical controllers to speak of at all.

The idea is that your body is the controller. It's up to the Kinect games and apps to use the camera and microphone to work out what you're doing and what you're saying, and to interpret your commands in the appropriate fashion.

How it works

The Kinect sensor contains an RGB camera and a depth sensor to track your movement. It measures the positioning of 48 key joints in your anatomy and by tracking the movements of these joints, it can work out exactly what position your body is in. What's more, it sees in 3D by overlaying the input from the RGB camera with the depth sensor.

Meanwhile the built-in multiarray microphone monitors the room for your voice - yep, Kinect even allows you to control your Xbox 360 using voice commands alone.

It's almost too good to be true, isn't it? These are the hopes and dreams of every 6-year old child come-true. It's the sort of technology we only dreamed about while watching '60s TV series' like The Jetsons as kids.

But this isn't fantasy. This is real. And so what we nervously want to know is - does it really work, and is it any good?

Kinect review: Features

Kinect has a colour, and it's purple.

While all Xbox games thus far have come in those distinctive green DVD cases, Kinect boxes are purple. So from now on, purple means 'Requires Kinect Sensor' and green means normal 360 game.

Some games which don't require Kinect, but have Kinect features for those who have it, will come with a 'Better with Kinect' sticker on the box.

It's Microsoft's way of avoiding confusion in the market place. So there'll be no trying to work out if something is Kinect compatible or not. If the box is purple, it's a Kinect game.

How much?

The Kinect Sensor will set you back £125 on launch. It comes with a free copy of Kinect Adventures - a title with lots of mini sub-games like Wii Sports, designed to showcase the various capabilities of the Kinect sensor.

Now, it probably won't have escaped your notice that £125 is rather a lot of money. After all, you can pick up a brand new Xbox 360 console for about £140. Meanwhile, a PlayStation Move controller costs about £40.

However, despite this, we don't think Kinect is necessarily bad value for money, and this is why.

Kinect can detect up to six people in a room, and supports two active players at a time. So that £125 brings with it two-player gaming from the word go. That compares favourably to the £127 you'd have to pay for the equivalent PS Move setup (with PS Eye, two Move controllers
and two navigation controllers).

The main downside with Kinect is that if you have no friends and just want to play on your own, you're going to have to fork out the full £125 regardless. While this is a pain, the single-piece nature of the device doesn't allow it to work any other way.

Setting up

There are two different ways to, erm, connect Kinect to your Xbox 360. If you've got one of the new, slim models, there's a proprietary connection on the back which you can plug Kinect into directly. This also supplies power to the sensor.

However, if you're stuck with an older model, you can still plug Kinect in by using one of the two USB ports on the front and you'll need to plug it into the wall for power using this method, too.

Ideally, the Kinect sensor needs at least six feet of space between you and it, to work properly. And really, you're going to need another five feet or so either side of you in order to have room to move around freely. And we're talking bare minimum, here - you wouldn't want to have any less space than that.

This is obviously a bit of a handicap as there'll be plenty of keen Xbox gamers out there who just don't have the room for it.

We found that positioning the Kinect Sensor on top of the TV instead of below and in front helped a bit in this respect. That way, the camera has more to look at, and you can make the most of the room you have if you've got limited space available.

And it's as easy as that. Once you've placed the Kinect sensor, you switch your Xbox on and you're taken through an easy peasy set-up process.

Interface

Kinect comes with its own menu system, accessible from the Xbox 360's dashboard. Inside this menu, you are able to access all of the Kinect-compatible entertainment features that are available to you.

What's more, you can browse to these features without using the Xbox 360 controller.

The Kinect experience begins as soon as you switch on your 360. At the sign-in screen, if you wave at your TV, Kinect will recognise your face and sign you straight into your own Xbox Live account. Once you're into the Xbox dashboard, another wave at the TV will take you to the special new Kinect dashboard menu.

In this menu you can access all your Kinect-compatible content including whatever game you have in your drive, Sky Player, Last fm, Zune music service, etc.

You can navigate using your Xbox controller, but what Microsoft really wants you to do is use hand gestures. And this is the point where you find out if Kinect is for you or not.

You interact with the Kinect dashboard and with most Kinect games in mostly the same way. If you hold your hand out in front of you, a hand icon appears on the screen. You then move your hand so that the icon moves to the option you want to select and you hold it there for a couple of seconds.

A circular progress bar around the hand icon depicts the time you need to hold your hand in place. We found it to be a slightly tedious experience.

Some games, such as Dance Central, use a point-and-swipe sort of system which seemed a lot more intuitive and less of a hassle. We found the point-and-hold system just a bit awkward, it was hard to actually get the hand icon to stay on the option we wanted and once in position, holding for a second or two was just a bit of a pain.

You get used to it after a while, but frankly, we can't see why anyone would want to navigate an Xbox menu by holding their arm in the air, instead of just pressing a few buttons on the controller.

There's a certain novelty aspect to it, of course, and while we didn't allow ourselves to go back to using the 360 controller, we certainly wanted to at times.

Voice control

Possibly the most Star Trek-like feature of Kinect is voice control. When using media services such as Sky Player or the Zune music service, you can control your Xbox using your voice alone.

You get the Xbox's attention by saying "Xbox". A list of commands then pops up from the top of the screen. If you're playing music or watching a video, these commands typically include
pause/play/stop/rewind/fastforward/faster/slower. We'll discuss how well this all works on the next page.

Microsoft Kinect: Performance

There's no denying that there's some fantastic tech inside Kinect. It's an impressive system, but in order to really enjoy it, you may have to readjust your expectations with regard to what it is and what it isn't capable of.

If you're expecting to play a game and have your on-screen avatar do exactly as you do with your body, quickly, completely in sync and with no lag - you're going to be disappointed. You just can't do that in most games.

Kinect is less about having your exact real-world movements appearing on screen in real-time and more about using your body as a controller.

Take a game such as Fighters Uncaged as an example. It's a 3D Beat 'em up title where you control your fighter by performing fighting moves. But there's a significant delay between you unleashing your kicks and punches, and them being mirrored on screen.

Jump!

If you let rip with a heaving uppercut, you'll have already finished swinging before your avatar will mirror your move.

It's the same for all games. In the River Rush minigame in Kinect Adventures, you have to lean and jump in order to avoid obstacles. But your character doesn't jump perfectly in time with you - there's a split-second delay.

Across the board, with all games and apps, this delay is dependant on how fast you move. A slow, gradual movement, for example, has almost no noticeable lag at all. The faster you move, the more pronounced the lag is.

It also doesn't matter how high you jump or whether you tuck your knees in or anything like that - your on-screen avatar will just jump in the same way each time. It won't mirror your exact movements.

And that's because with most games, your movements merely trigger a pre-animated action in the game - rather than the avatars exactly mimicking you.

The first few times we played with Kinect, this bothered us a lot. It prevented us from having the kind of fun we envisioned having when Microsoft first announced the product.

But if you can get over this issue, it's not all doom and gloom.

The better news

With many games, this lag issue is actually totally irrelevant anyway.

Dance Central, for instance, from Harmonix - the makers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band - is all about skill, precision and timing. You must perform the right dance moves in time with the music and dancers on screen, in order to get a good score. Lag doesn't come into it because you're mirroring the dancers, rather than the dancers mirroring you.

Equally, there are plenty of health and fitness-themed games such as The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout. They're all about balance and body position rather than quick moves, flying kicks and punches.

Imagine a Yoga game where the on-screen tutor analyses your posture and tells you how to perform Downward-facing dog a bit better. Kinect is just as much about this kind of thing as it is about the hardcore action titles.

And so what it's done is make the Xbox a much more appealing console for casual gamers. This is something PlayStation Move does not offer.

Accuracy

It does take a while to get to grips with Kinect. Ignoring the lag issues with some games, the other major battle facing you is to get the hang of a new kind of hand-eye coordination.

Some people find it hard enough to catch a ball or donk a pingpong ball in real life without messing up. With Kinect, you've got to do those things on behalf of your on-screen character. You've got to transplant your thinking into the body of your avatar, timing your movements on its behalf, which is more tricky that it sounds - especially when you have to factor in the lag.

When it came to games such as Kinect Adventures throwing obstacles at us, we found ourselves wanting to wait until that obstacle reached the screen before performing the appropriate manoeuvre, rather than waiting until it reached our on-screen character. This meant we were often too late to perform the jump or sidestep.

Again, this is something which improved over time. But still, again it represents a barrier between you and the game. We wanted to feel like we were inside the games we were playing. But in general, you don't get that feeling at all - you're still just controlling a character - who isn't you - on the screen.

Once you've got the hang of it though, Kinect is perfectly accurate enough. If you mess up, you generally feel like it was your fault rather than the game not working properly.

Confusion

There were a few occasions when Kinect got rather confused. The most frequent issue we encountered was when someone stepped into view of the Kinect sensor when someone else was gaming. Occasionally Kinect would then lock on to the wrong person, which caused obvious problems. There were also a few issues with voice control.

Voice control - does it work?

Controlling something like Sky Player with voice commands is good fun and works almost perfectly.

The voice command 'Xbox' lets the console know you're going to talk to it, and the on-screen options (which bare some resemblance to the original Monkey Island command menu) pop up quickly. The Xbox more often than not did exactly as we asked it to, it's really good fun. Kids will love it.

However, that's not to say it's a perfect system, because it's not.

As you can imagine, the likelihood of someone saying the word 'Xbox' while you're fiddling with your... Xbox, is quite high. So unsurprisingly, it wasn't an uncommon occurrence for someone in the room to say "Xbox" only to trigger the Xbox's voice command feature by mistake.

This would be easily remedied if there was any kind of individual voice recognition system, where you could tell the Xbox only to respond to a specific person's voice. But unfortunately that's not possible - not yet.

Our second problem with voice control is that while it technically takes almost no effort at all to say "Xbox.... pause" when the naughty bit in Wild Things comes on, it's still a lot quicker to just grab the controller and hit the pause button with your finger.

For this reason, we can imagine many people simply abandoning the voice control system completely.

Equally, we can also see a just as many people being so fascinated by this feature that they never want to go back to their controller.

Kinect review: Verdict

Kinect has had a bit of a rocky ride up to now. There's been plenty of criticism - including from us at TechRadar - but you know what? We think Kinect is actually pretty good.

The problem is that the people who'll be most interested in Kinect from the off are the hardcore gamers who've had their 360s for ages. They've got a mountain of games, and they're looking for something new.

But Kinect is not necessarily for that type of gamer. Sure, there are plenty of Kinect games aimed at that hardcore audience, but we think Kinect is a product designed to bring the Xbox 360 to a wider audience.

Kinect turns the Xbox 360 from a console predominantly aimed at young men, to a family machine with infinite possibilities.

Games such as Kinectimals are a prime example. That game is not aimed at anyone other than young children, and for them it's fantastic. Equally, there's going to be a raft of new Kinect titles coming out to cater for other untapped demographics.

We liked:

Voice control works nicely, and we never had a problem with games or apps misunderstanding what we were saying.

We also love the way Kinect is opening up the 360 into a much more well-rounded console. Microsoft is going to sell a lot of consoles to a wider range of people off the back of Kinect, and so if it gets more people involved, that's a good thing in our book.

We didn't like:

We don't like having to hold our arms in the air in order to select from the Kinect menus. It's annoying and we much preferred the point-and-swipe method employed by some of the games.

Space is also a major negative - there'll be plenty of budding Kinect gamers out there who won't be able to join in due to not having enough space in their living rooms. We suspect this will be more of a problem for European gamers than North American ones.

Lag is also an issue, and while you can get used to it, Kinect doesn't quite feel like the finished article while these delays exist. It's also a bit more expensive than we'd like, but it's hard to criticise this simply because Kinect is such a unique product.

Verdict:

We like Kinect a lot. But it's not a perfect product by any means, and many hardcore gamers out there are going to be disappointed by it.

However, we think it's an impressive piece of technology, and in the months and years ahead we envisage it spawning some truly revolutionary games.

For the moment though, the launch titles seem a bit weak and that £125 price tag looks just a bit too much.

Overview

The Sony PS3 Slim is the latest incarnation of Sony's opinion-dividing PlayStation 3 games console.

It's essentially the same console as before, but with slimmed down components and a new, smaller chassis. The key improvements in the new PS3 are the 120GB hard drive, up from 40GB and 60GB in previous UK versions, and it's also 36 per cent lighter, 33 per cent smaller and it consumes at least 34 per cent less power (it's probably even more efficient than that).

So why is this such a big deal for Sony?

The answer is that the PS3 Slim represents a new age for Sony's gaming arm – one that could well herald the start of a new profit-making era.

The vast majority of PS3 consoles sold to date (Sony has shipped over 24 million of them so far) have been sold at a loss - even the original 60GB version which retailed at £425 made a thumping loss per unit.

However, new manufacturing procedures have changed this recently, and a redesigned 45nm Cell processor along with other similarly small and power efficient components have reduced Sony's manufacturing costs significantly.

IN THE BOX: You get the console, a DualShock 3 controller, power cable, AV cable and USB cable - but no HDMI cable

So coupled with the fact that the PS3 Slim is selling for £250 in the UK – only marginally cheaper than the bigger, fatter PS3 original – you can see that Sony can finally expect to start making a return on its investment. And it's about time.

But really, the questions are: should you care about that? And should you buy the new PS3 Slim?

Continue reading our PS3 Slim review to find out.

Design

The first thing to note about the PS3 Slim is undoubtedly the design. It's split opinions in the office so far, and although this reviewer thinks the design is an abomination, others think it's actually nicer than the original.

The differences are: the design is very similar, but one third smaller. So it actually looks like something of a smaller brother to the original PS3.

Instead of a nice glossy finish, what we have here is a dull matte, flimsy plastic casing that neither feels classy nor sturdy.

Gone, too, is the sexy chrome trimming, with the silver 'PlayStation 3' writing being replaced by a lacklustre 'PS3' logo embossed on the top of the case.

The on/off and disc-eject touch-sensitive buttons are also conspicuous by their absence, and they've been replaced by real buttons that give way when you push them. How boring is that?

You've still got two USB ports round the front, and round the pack there's the usual HDMI, AV multi-out, optical-out and ethernet ports. The kettle power cable has been replaced by a slimmer two-pin cable.

The problem with the PS3 Slim is that it looks so cheap. Sony has taken the opportunity to strip out all of the cool, aesthetic design features from the original, in what can only be a cost-cutting measure.

We're not totally against this, although we'd have liked some more of these savings to be passed on to us - the PS3 Slim is still £50 more expensive than the newly-priced £199 Xbox 360 Elite.

Consider also that the PlayStation 2 spent the vast majority of its life selling for $199 in the US and £199 in the UK. Nearly three years into its life, the PS3 still costs £250 – that's a lot of money in the scheme of things.

Performance

Once you get over the new-look design, and despite the slimmer, more power-efficient innards, the PS3 is still essentially the same beast.

Once you've turned it on, the differences end. The interface is the same. The controller is the same – although you do get a DualShock 3 controller instead of standard SIXAXIS – and the user experience is the same.

We did some very basic real-world benching and found that the PS3 Slim does actually boot a couple of seconds slower than our original 60GB PS3, although in practise that makes zero difference. The time it takes to load games and play DVDs are exactly the same.

Fan

One of the main gains you'd expect from a more power efficient PS3 would be that it would operate a lot more quietly. After all, with less energy being wasted as heat, the fan doesn't need to work so hard and thus pumps out less irritating white noise.

While we didn't measure the exact volume of the PS3 Slim's 17-blade fan, 95mm fan, it did seem to our trained ears to be slightly quieter when playing games. However – the PS3 has always been pretty quiet. Compared to the Xbox 360, the PS3 can be considered an extremely stealthy console.

The main noise actually comes from the disc drive. When you're watching a DVD, the spinning disc makes a lot more noise than the cooling fan. And this hasn't changed much – if at all. It's still loud enough to be annoying during those quieter scenes.

Home cinema

Of course, as before, the PS3's major trump card is its built-in Blu-ray drive which gives you the power to play back Blu-ray movies in glorious full HD 1080p.

The major new home cinema feature inside the PS3 Slim's new components, though, is its ability to bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio to a receiver over HDMI. This will seriously please the audiophiles, but for the rest of us it'll make almost no difference at all.

One slight disappointment with the PS3 Slim is its performance as a CD player. The original was a pretty decent CD and DVD spinner – but the Slim's thinner Blu-ray drive has proven to be a bit of a let-down.

Our colleagues at Home Cinema Choice actually measured the audio jitter of the slim – which returned a figure of over 460ps – a world apart from the original PS3's 138ps.

The audio in DVD playback was also disappointing from a perfectionist's point of view – with a measured high frequency response of -6.14dB. Will you notice this if you haven't got a top of the range hi-fi set up and a perfect set of ears? Probably not.

Still, though, the PS3's ability to upscale DVDs remains. The console uses its Cell processor to upscale DVDs to 1080p high definition, so even your DVD movies will look fantastic on an HD display. The Cell's enormous processing power can also be used to clean up fuzzy, blocky or grainy parts in DVDs or downloaded movie files.

Media and gaming

The PS3 is also compatible with a wide array of file formats which means you can play almost any media file – picture, video or music – without a problem. Popular DivX and Xvid video formats are supported out of the box so playing your digital movie collection is pretty straight forward.

And you can do that in two ways - you can copy them to a USB storage device and plug it in, or you can stream them from your PC over your home network either wirelessly or via Ethernet.

All media can be accessed in this way, which means if you've got a lot of photos, music and videos on your computer, you can view them on your PS3 as though they were stored locally.

Gaming

As a gaming device, the PS3 is arguably slightly more powerful than the Xbox 360. So technically, in terms of graphical fidelity, the PS3 is as good as they come.

However, three year's into its life cycle, the PS3 still lags far behind the Xbox 360 as a gaming device, and that's because of the games available.

The Xbox 360 launched over a year before the PS3, and so was able to build up a large catalogue of games before the PS3 even made it into one living room. And even since then, the Xbox 360 platform has seen more games launched.

And that's before we even mention the differences between Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network (PSN). Comparing the two services is like comparing a fine wine to a bottle of Lambrini. For multiplayer gaming then, the 360 has it.

But the PSN on the PS3 is catching up, with big updates expected very soon.

The PlayStation 3 does, of course, have plenty of gaming exclusives of its own. Series' such as Metal Gear Solid will only ever be available on PlayStation consoles, and then the much-mooted Gran Turismo 5 will be launched on PS3 this Christmas.

Back compatibility

You also need to remember that other than the original 60GB model, no PS3 is compatible with PS2 games. So beware if you're thinking of ditching your PS2 and upgrading - you'll need to hang on to your old console if you still want to play all your existing games.

So if gaming is your main consideration when buying a console – and it seems likely that it is – your best bet is just to look at the games available for each platform and make a decision from there. Who knows, maybe you'll realise that what you've wanted all along is actually a Nintendo Wii?

Verdict

The jury is out on whether you should buy the new PS3 Slim. If you've already got a PS3 in either its 40GB, 60GB or 80GB flavours, it's almost definitely not worth upgrading to this slimmer 120GB version.

Unless you're desperate for more storage, there's not much here to justify spending another £250 on the newer model.

However, as a games console and media device, the PS3 is an unbelievably powerful contraption. It's an unrivalled living room media machine, and a powerful games console.

We do have serious concerns about the price, though - £250 is a lot to spend these days, especially when you can get the 120GB Xbox 360 Elite for less than £200.

We liked

Even though we don't like the aesthetics of the design, the smaller size is great – at last, here's a PS3 console that isn't so big that it dominates any room you put it in.

Other than that, it's business as usual. We loved the PS3 before the PS3 Slim came out, and we still love it. The Blu-ray drive is great as ever, but what we really love is the ability to stream almost any media file format from your PC or memory stick.

We also like the fact that you can use almost any Bluetooth device with the PS3. You can use any Bluetooth headset to chat with your friends. And you can use Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to navigate the built-in web browser.

We disliked

Yeah, we think the design is ugly. But hey, you might like it – some do, some don't. But even if you do like the look of it, it's impossible to appreciate the general cheapness of its build. The original PS3 felt bullet proof. The new one feels like it might break if a moth landed on it.

Considering the reduced manufacturing costs associated with the PS3 Slim, and the horrible, cheap plastic it's encased in, we'd have expected a price closer to £200 – so cost is another big drawback.

Conclusion

Over all, the PS3 Slim is a phenomenal piece of kit. It's amazing that something so small can do so much. And so if you've just bought a new telly, that extra £50 you'd have to spend over the cost of an Xbox 360 Elite will be worth it just for the Blu-ray player.

The Xbox 360 was the first mass-market hi-def entertainment system to hit the market, and now three years later it's hit a price point truly accessible to every household - credit crunch or not.

A few months ago Microsoft reduced the price of its console's three SKUs - Arcade, Pro and Elite - with almost the entire trio scaling under the £199.99 mark.

Xbox 360 Elite, the 120GB beast complete with a slick black finish, is now on shelves for an impressive £229.99 - £50 cheaper and with more memory than the comparatively-lacklustre 20GB machine launched in 2005.

The HDD-less Arcade console meanwhile, which is packed with a 256MB memory card, wireless pad and five Xbox Live Arcade games, is in the shops for an incredible £129.99 - that's almost a whole £200 cheaper than a PlayStation 3. Today, Xbox 360 is undoubtedly the best value HD games console on the market.

New Xbox Experience

"Accessible" seems to be the buzzword in the Xbox 360's story up to 2009. From Wednesday 19th November the completely redesigned backend interface, the 'New Xbox Experience' begins streaming onto consoles worldwide as a free, mandatory update.

The new interface is smoother, slicker-looking and yes, makes accessing HD content a lot easier for the ever-lucrative expanded audience, a group which Microsoft's has firmly in its sights this Christmas.

The redesign isn't too dissimilar from Windows Media Player; boxes of content slide elegantly on a horizontal line, while indexes such as your Friends list and Video Marketplace - currently the only games console digital download service for movies in Europe - are selected on a vertical list.

As a whole, it's far more well catered for hi-def displays than the original Xbox 360 backend. Menu boxes and the amount of information displayed by the console's interface is expanded and spread out in higher resolutions , something that the old dashboard disappointingly lacked.

It looks and works wonderfully, and is certainly a world above the cluttered, sometime sluggish dashboard of the launch 360.

There's also a ton of feature additions that improve the Xbox 360 as a whole; retail games can now be installed to the HDD for drastically shortened load times, and of course less noise coming from the fan vent on the side of the box.

The Xbox 360 Guide also seems to open faster and browsing through your movie and games collection in the iPod Cover View-style menu is effortless. Mii-like Avatars are also on hand to add personality to the animated backgrounds, which can be stunningly customised by new themes available on Xbox Live Marketplace.

Head to head

So it's looking slicker and sporting an incredibly attractive new price point, but how does the Xbox 360 compare to the pricier, more technically plump PlayStation 3 after three years on the market? The answer is; very well.

The Xbox 360 may lack the built-in Wi-Fi and Blu-ray drive of Sony's console (and in fact no HD disc playback at all with the ill-fated HD DVD add-on in the bin) but with currently the only games console movie download service in Europe, and now the ability to install games to hard disk, for gaming especially there's little reason to feel stung by the Xbox's lack of Blu'.

The mass of high-quality titles in the Xbox 360's game library alone too - both on disc and digital - make it a real force to be reckoned with as far as gaming goes - and the 360 versions of many multi-format titles such as Fallout 3, which suffers graphical problems on Sony's box, are still coming out on top.

But it's often forgotten that Microsoft's console is also an excellent media extender. You can share files from any PC running Windows XP or Vista, and Windows Media Player interchanges media files such as video and photos fluidly and with ease.

Every Xbox 360 model now also includes a built-in HDMI port, and the middle-ground Pro model has had an HDD memory bump to 60GB for no extra cost, making the box even more competitive with the PS3 where hardware and HD content is concerned.

Let's also not forget Xbox Live, which boasts over 10 million subscribers and is hands-down the best online service on a games console.

Even after various component revisions, the actual hardware is admittedly still slightly noisy, and lacks the selection of full-1080p disc games boasted by the PlayStation 3.

But overall the Xbox 360 is a stunning HD games console at a price point that's impossible for any gaming or movie enthusiast not to have underneath their television.

Update: check out our first impressions of the new Nintendo Wii U console here: Hands on: Nintendo Wii U review

For sheer playability, there's no console better than the Wii. Its former codename, Revolution, describes it superbly. The motion sensitive controllers are just that, and with the addition of extra controllers such as the Wii Fit Balance board, Nintendo is managing to take the concept outside the traditional realms of gaming.

If you haven't played on a Wii, you won't quite know what it's like to experience. Not only are the motion sensitive controllers unbelievably responsive and easy-to-use, but it's at its best for family gaming where even grandparents can pick things up pretty quickly in simple games.

Complex games using the additional nunchuck are far more difficult though! And make sure you fork out for rechargeable batteries, also.

There are clever touches, too – pressing the off button on your controller powers down the entire system and the other connected controllers. The controllers pick up movement via a plug-in sensor bar that sits atop or underneath your screen.

Mini characters called Miis are your representation in the games, and you can pick up points as you become more proficient.

You can also play online via the built-in Wi-Fi connection or an optional Ethernet adapter and even save Miis to Wii remotes to play at friends' houses; the whole system really is very well designed.

While the Opera-powered web browser is initially impressive, you'll need to have a pretty rubbish laptop to want to browse the internet this way.

Since the browser uses Flash 7, the video content available is poor even through BBC iPlayer; the BBC actually has to encode its video content especially for the Wii and at a higher bitrate even though it plays in worse quality. The browser is an optional add-on available through the online store, a shame.

Serious gamers need not apply

Nintendo has also taken the step of remembering those who bought the GameCube. All games and even the controllers are supported.

Elsewhere on the hardware, USB slots enable charging of devices and other add-ons while a SD slot enables storage and photo browsing on your TV.

The Wii is also extremely affordable – even if this doesn't extend to the games themselves, you won't find yourself too bored by those games included with the system, especially Wii Sports which is addictive to say the very least.

The IBM-powered Wii was never meant for serious gaming, and if there is any criticism of the system it's in this department. The ATI-powered graphics are far from amazing while the media features of the Xbox 360 aren't even half-matched.

But you'd have to be chief of the snob parade if that makes you dislike the Wii. It's gaming for those that don't usually game. Nintendo is not only safe, the Wii has reinvented what a games console should be.

The Fanatec Speedster Controller is what would happen if some psychopath took a machete to a PS2 controller then in a fit of guilt tried to fix it back together with a bizarre hinged arrangement he'd once seen in some lithium-induced dream.

Apparently, this extra axis allows you to seamlessly switch between driving and action modes, with the awkward twisting of the controller meant to simulate the turning of a steering wheel. I'm not convinced.

Clunky design

There's nowhere near the level of tactile feedback you get from the far more impressive Thrustmaster Run 'n' Drive and you'll end up accidentally operating the axis while using the other controls too. There is a clunky locking mechanism to hold it in place, but it's hardly a seamless switch.

And it's ugly. Oh boy, is it ugly. The vast, gray, angular AA battery pack does it no favours whatsoever and when you're being expected to fork out £40 for the privilege you don't want it looking like a cubist freakout. Stay away – far, far away.

Update: the Xbox 360 Elite has been superseded by a newer, redesigned model. Read our Xbox 360 250GB review.

The Xbox 360 holds a significant place in the hearts and minds of UK cinephiles.

Pre-dating the launch of SkyHD, it was the first mass market hi-def entertainment system to hit the streets.

Back when HD Ready TVs commanded a premium, it was an essential purchase if you wanted to get the most from your flatscreen.

Two years on, Microsoft's iconic system has had a makeover, offering a significantly bigger hard drive (120GB up from the original paltry 20GB) and an HDMI output, as opposed to component video. It's also matt black and, priced at a relatively keen £300, with an additional charge of £120 for the white HD DVD drive.

Of course, there's more than just playground bragging associated with the bigger drive. The growing success of Xbox Live immediately demands a more capacious HDD. The number of high-quality game downloads alone justifies the space, and with the European market poised to receive more HD video content, 20GB just isn't enough.

One element often seemingly forgotten is that the 360 is an excellent media extender. What's more, it doesn't need a media centre PC to do so. You can share files from any PC that's running Windows XP, however you must have sharing software installed. Typical examples include Media Player 11 and Media Connect.

Adding HDMI to the Xbox's system connectivity also brings benefits. It's much easier (and neater) for casual users to hook their console up to an HD Ready display. HDMI also brings with it 1080p clarity.

On the original 360s, the only way to squeeze out full HD was via a VGA adaptor and, for many, not a viable option. It's worth noting that HDMI is no longer exclusive to the Elite. Microsoft is now shipping HDMI-enabled Premiums as standard.

Needless to say, picture quality via HDMI is superb. Colour fidelity and pixel punch is impressive. Games such as Bioshock and Gears of War really pop. It's worth noting that the HDMI connector is v1.2, not 1.3 as on the PS3. But in the context of a games system, the difference is largely insignificant.

Using HDMI also allows the 360 to upscale standard DVDs to 1080p, which is an unsung bonus. As a DVD player, the basic 360 isn't exactly cinephile quality, and the unrelenting noise of the fan and drive make it a less than perfect choice for largescreen movie watching, but it is another box ticked in most users 'wants' lists.

Hooked up via an optical output, it does a grand job of delivering multichannel surround sound from games. As a DVD player, Dolby Digital 5.1 playback is functional. Unfortunately, as a CD player it leaves a lot to be desired - but you can rip tunes to its hard drive.

As an upgrade for existing 360 owners the Elite is seductive, but for the new buyer, however, the attractions are far more obvious.

After nearly two years on sale in the UK, Microsoft today launched the first major update of the Xbox 360. The Elite is slicker, it's snazzier, and it's a little more expensive at £299. But is it any better?

Of course, we could forgive Microsoft for not bothering to update the Xbox 360, full stop. After all, it still tops the high tech console table despite the arrival of Sony's troubled PlayStation 3.

On the other hand, the 360 hardly has an immaculate track record. Most obviously there's the dreaded "red ring of death" overheating problem that has caused widespread hardware failures.

The 360 also falls short when it comes to all round multimedia prowess. Any console that aspires to be a one-stop-shop for digital home entertainment in the 21st century surely needs to sport a digital video interface along with the ability to play back HD discs.

It's in that context that the Elite arrives to recharge the Xbox 360 range.

In architectural terms, the Elite is not a major departure from the existing design. But it does sport one or two upgrades that enhance the 360's digital media cred. And there are also rumours that it addresses some of those niggling hardware issues.

Physically, the Elite is a dead ringer for the standard 360. Well, barring the all-black colour scheme which extends to the matching wireless controller and headset, that is. Consequently, it's much the same Xbox 360 we know and kinda love.

Still, the new look is purposeful and certainly jives better with the hi-fi and AV kit with which Xboxes inevitably share shelf space.

HD hardware

The big news, therefore, is in the detail hardware specs. First up is the bigger 120GB hard drive. That's a serious boost over the existing 20GB drive option and betrays Microsoft's long term ambitions for the Xbox platform.

The extra storage, you see, is just another step in the Xbox's transition from traditional games console to content delivery platform. Specifically, it's preparing the ground for when the Microsoft flicks the switch on the European version of the Xbox Live MarketPlace.

When that happens, probably later this year, premium video content such as TV shows and HD movies will begin to flow. It'll be fascinating to see how successful the Live MarketPlace is in the long run.

Similarly, the increased disk space might help smooth the implementation of the IPTV services that are also pencilled in for the near future.

The other major revision is the addition of an HDMI digital video and audio port. HDMI is of course the digital interface of choice on almost every HD TV on the market.

In truth, the appearance of HDMI on the 360 is long, long overdue, and makes setting up the Elite an absolute cinch. Thanks to the pure digital signal, you get a pin-sharp, pixel perfect image every time.

1080p at last

The difference in absolute in-game image quality compared with a 360 running in HD mode courtesy of a VGA of component connection isn't huge. However, it's a different story with HD video content. Thanks to that HDMI port, the Elite is capable of pumping out a full 1080p signal, as opposed to the 1080i or 720p limitation of the analogue interfaces on the boggo Xbox 360.

That means image quality comparable to a standalone HD DVD or Blu-ray player. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Microsoft has indeed been good enough to bundle an HDMI cable, gratis.

Just remember that 1080p playback is also dependent on your TV. Only in recent months have full 1080p TV sets begun to appear at mainstream prices. Still, the improved storage, HDMI port and premium video content (not forgetting all those awesome games) is a nice combination.

You can begin to see how the Elite might make for a killer single-box digital entertainment solution for the HD age. Or at least you would if Microsoft had seen fit to give the Elite an HD DVD drive as standard.

Like other 360s, the Elite is compatible with Microsoft's add-on HD DVD player. But given the Elite's range-topping status, it's something you might expect as standard. And it's just not as neat a solution as including integrated HD DVD support. The same can be said for the Elite's lack of standard wireless networking. Again, it's easily remedied with a plug-in wireless adapter. But in the year 2007, standard Wi-Fi is hardly a big ask.

The 65 nanometer question

Finally, there's the question of whether the Elite addresses the reliability problems that have plagued the 360. Earlier in the year, it was rumoured that the Elite would be the first 360 to boast the new cooler-running 65nm versions of the 360's Xenos graphics chip and Xenon CPU.

Frankly, we weren't in a position to tear down our single review sample. However, several reports from the US where the Elite has been on sale several months indicate that it is still built using 90nm hardware.

Certainly, in terms of heat and noise, the Elite is indistinguishable from existing Xboxes. Likewise, the Elite's power supply is precisely the same ludicrously large 200-odd Watt item, just like all other 360s.

Moreover, this all ties in with Microsoft's official position on the gubbins inside the Elite and the question of 65nm chips, which goes that any internal modifications and upgraded components will be rolled out across the Xbox range as a whole and will not be exclusive to the Elite.

Which just leaves the question of value and overall desirability. Clearly, the Elite is not a must-have for existing 360 owners. Of the two key new features, the 120GB drive will be available as an upgrade for all 360 owners.

It's also worth noting that reports from the US indicate that "Premium" Xbox 360s have begun to appear with HDMI ports. If that's true, the Elite obviously doesn't have all that much going for it as an upgrade option.

However, if you're just about to take the Xbox plunge for the first time the extra outlay Microsoft is asking for the Elite looks like reasonable value. The guaranteed HDMI port alone makes it very hard to resist.