More Xbox 360 issues

10. Poor DVD Playback Quality

In the next year or two, this will be less and less important as people begin to move toward HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. With the merging of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray failing due to political issues, the main barrier to entry is going to be the introduction of combo drives. Once HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo drives are available, you can expect a significant surge in consumer sales of HD playback devices along with a decrease in cost due to economies of scale. In one to two years, the fight between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will be no different from DVD+R and DVD-R.

With Microsoft now selling HD movies on Xbox Live, they have even less incentive to upgrade the DVD features of the Xbox 360. By keeping the DVD playback poor, the benefits of high definition video will be maximized. By the way, isn’t it funny how gamers talk about how great downloaded HD video content looks, while the mainstream press keeps talking about how HD-DVD and Blu-Ray looks no better than regular DVDs? The short answer is that the HD revolution is real and it’s here. This is also the reason why you should read reviews from people who actually know what they’re talking about...

11. No Pressure Sensitive Face Buttons

I keep reading rumors about Metal Gear Solid 4 coming to the Xbox 360, but if MGS4 continues to adopt the gamepad mechanics of MGS2 and MGS3, the ultimate experience won’t be faithfully brought over the Xbox 360 (if the game even does show up on the Xbox 360).

Ego Boosting Comments

With the Xbox 360 in our hands for only one month when we came up with this list, it’s surprising to see how accurate our comments were. Let’s take a look at these 11 issues and see if Sony learned anything from Microsoft’s mistakes.