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feature :: xbox 360 - setting up

Xbox 360 - Setting Up

All the details of what you can expect when you get your Xbox 360 home.


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I've bought an Xbox 360, against my better judgement. And by better judgement I mean that I won't be able to buy food for the next week now that I've spent almost $900 on this thing. As have a lot of you.

I managed to get my Xbox 360 a full 12 hours before the 'official launch' at midnight on the 23rd of March. Half of that time was spent staring at the box while I was stuck at work. When I finally got home, Matt came around and the following is an account of my first impressions and setup experience.

First off, I should let you know I ended up buying the Xbox 360 Premium Pack, the VIP Pack, Ghost Recon, a Rechargeable Battery pack, and a few other wires and cables that were supposed to help me plug everything into my LCD Monitor and computer speakers.





The Xbox 360 itself is less heavy than the original Xbox (that's not hard), but still heavier than it looks. There's sticky plastic covering the silver bits to keep them from smudging, and there's a bunch of leaflets included in the pack (with some really strange warning labels).

All the accessories come wrapped in green plastic at the bottom of the box, with batteries included for the controller and remote. Everything was what I expected, with the exception of the power box, which is bloody big. Not that I care, I mean c'mon, it's going to be sitting at the back of the TV or under a desk, so it's not a big deal.

The other accessories, the 2nd controller and rechargeable battery, came in their own plastic packages. I can't stress enough how much I hate how these things are packaged, and Matt managed to actually CUT himself while trying to open the controller package.





I don't have a fancy schmancy plasma screen TV unfortunately; however I was interested to see how things looked on my normal 68cm LG TV. Plugging in the 360 via the standard Audio/Video cables and switching it on, two things were immediately apparent: One: if you don't have Xbox Live, then not only will you miss out on a lot, but you'll be reminded of it every time you try to do almost anything. Two: it really does make a big difference between a High-def TV a normal TV

There was practically no setup other than asking for your country. You are REQUIRED to setup a user profile, whether you are connected online or not. Since I didn't have the net connected by my TV, I chose an offline profile, but named it the same as my Xbox Live name.

I had gotten Perfect Dark Zero as part of the VIP pack, so put that in and started it up. I had played the first level at Robs (from www.spectreworld.com.au) place on his massive plasma TV, so I was really keen to see how it compared. I had heard a lot of reports about how if you didn't have a plasma TV, the games just looked like really good Xbox games.

This is not true.

While the graphics on a high-def TV are far and beyond what can be displayed on a normal TV, the game in question, Perfect Dark Zero, looked amazing. The motion blur is not a plasma TV thing (as a few people had speculated), but is inherent in the game, and personally I love it, it makes the movement feel more real and organic. The lighting and textures are still impressive, and the detail is fantastic. On the flipside, it's still just as jagged as ever, having to operate in a low res format for a standard TV.





Of course, I wanted the high definition experience, and I also wanted to hook up to Xbox Live, so I unplugged everything and took my Xbox 360 to my room to hook up to my computer monitor and ADSL line. A few things I learnt: You will need the typical VGA adaptor to connect to a LCD monitor, but it's the sound I didn't really think about. I have been told the official Microsoft VGA adaptor comes with an optional microphone jack converter, so you can plug it directly into your computer speakers, but I had bought a 3rd party setup, and had to get a second cable to convert the RCA into a plug for my speakers.

Once all set and done however, the clarity is amazing. I'm not sure if I'm used to playing with an Xbox 360 controller while being so close to the screen, however the games DO look much better than any game I currently have on my PC (which has a radeon x800 graphics card mind you). If you decide to take this particular view for your Xbox 360, make sure as soon as you do it, you go into the console options and bump up your resolution as far as you can go. That's what makes all the difference in the world.





My 360 was now plugged into my router/hub, so I went to setup my Xbox Live account. Two things:

1. Because I already had an existing Xbox Live account, I was automatically upgraded to a Gold account for the remainder of my annual account.

2. You have to associate your Xbox Live account with your Microsoft passport account. Don't ask why, but for some reason I had to enter my passport email and password in order to continue setting up my Live account. Just seemed a bit strange to me.

My entire previous friends list was there which was great. I then realised I didn't have a headset, as none had come with any of the packs I got. I'm not too fussed however, as I have been told the 360 headsets are really uncomfortable compared to the old ones, so I'll just pickup my old ones off Matt who has them next time I see him.

I had a play through the first level of Ghost Recon (perfect dark looked impressive, ghost recon looks AMAZING) and I think I'll leave my 360 setup here next to my computer monitor from now on.

That's my initial impressions and setup experience; I hope it's as positive for you all as it has been for me. To anyone who doesn't have an Xbox 360, this is what you can expect, and to anyone that does have an Xbox 360, my live tag is YugAG :)

See you in the game ...

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