Xbox Arrives

It's been a personal point of shame for our company - we beat the competition to market by a whole year for the next generation gaming console, but we wouldn't even sell them to our own employees. Now, with the recent (and very sold out) release of the Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation 3, I suppose that those in power finally decided that they couldn't live with the Nintendo and Sony employees talking wise about us poor Microsofties as they picked up their respective consoles on or before the release day (yes Kyna, I know you're thinking it... :p).

At our company meeting, they made a promise to us. "By Thanksgiving, you will be able to buy Xbox 360, and the new Zune music player at the company store."
[ed. note: for you Canadians in the audience, down South, Thanksgiving is in November - see this editorial for an analysis of the American significance of the holiday]

True to their word, the very last day before the Thanksgiving holiday, the store was filled with thousands of both. And I don't mean like 100, like your average Toys 'R Us getting a new Wii shipment - I'm talking shelves full, entire pallets stacked with them - where no matter how long the line, there's more for employees to buy.

Sadly, the Zune has little appeal to it in its current version, and the Xbox 360 came bundled with crap, but I couldn't help my selfish impulsiveness, so I picked the Xbox 360 up. And thus the Lords of Metal were displeased, for this purchase was no tribute to them. So, of course, the hard drive didn't work. And being Thanksgiving, I don't get to take it back until Monday.

Let me tell you something about the Xbox 360. It's very friendly - everything is designed around a Gamer Profile of sorts. This, of course, must be stored, normally on a hard drive or memory card. Without a profile, most things just don't work.

So, sadly, I have a box that pretty much does nothing but play Geometry Wars.

Ironically, and more than a little sadly, that's more or less what I bought the console for. A $435 bundle for a stupid and ridiculously addictive arcade game.