With Halo 3 coming out, I gave in and bought an Xbox 360. There's a lower price on the hardware in Japan, so it came to about $400 total for the system and the game. As expected, it's a slick piece of equipment. with all the latest stuff (I especially enjoy the wireless controllers). I also bought an Xbox Live subscription, which makes sense since MS is really pushing the online angle this time around, with online being integrated to almost every game and function. And no surprise, seeing as that is where the big money is (or will be very soon). On the whole, everything is more robust and thought-out, making Live on the original Xbox seem like more of a warm-up to the 360 version.

As for Halo 3, it's also about as expected. Multiplayer is dynamite, the single-player is good with some great vehicle-based segments, but there is still lots of backtracking inside of levels and it's too easy to get lost. But we already knew about those strengths and weaknesses. At first I thought there were almost too many weapons in the game, but I'm slowly coming around to the point of view that more choice is good. For graphics and music, it's what you'd expect that the game looks and sounds great, while retaining that Halo flavor. The theather movie playback mode and an impressive level editor known as Forge will keep people playing this game for a long time. So overall, a very excellent title, although not without its faults.