Interesting to see that other people keep the boxes of the electrical items (I have one for a PS2,3 2 x PSP, 3 phones, cameras computers, iPods everything.....) though I do have to disagree, even though I don't have my 360 yet, it can't be nicer than the iPod packaging.
I do have 2 games already, but no console to play them on!!!!

I really disliked the 360's power brick and rigid cables, my PS3 I have comfortably placed inside my media cabinet. The huge power brick and rigid cables was why I kept the 360 outside of this cabinet. (It was a white premium, also looking quite ugly inside this black cabinet, the Elite probably suits it better)

Before the Sixaxis battery runs out you are notified, you can then pauze the game and connect the PS3 controller with the USB cord to the PS3 or other USB ports like those found on PCs. If the battery runs out completely games seemed to pauze and wait for you to connect the cord and turn on the controller. I think this is much more elegant than having to deal with AA batteries, especially if you have more than one contoller.

All those features happen to be implemented for the 360 and the wii... it's nothing special. In fact the 360 pauses the game for you when the controller's power juice runs out.

As for internal batteries or AA, a case could be made for either one - it depends on how you handle things. Personally I use rechargeable AA because it avoids battery degradation over time and my controllers always stay wireless. Cables have always been very annoying.

He asked with regard to how it works on the PS3, I just provided an answer.

I have about 16 AA batteries, I use rechargeable AA batteries for my remotes, clocks, photocamera, etc. It was quite a fuss to recharge and recharge so often for 2 controllers (bascially the easiest is to dedicate 8 batteries to the 360 controllers, 2 times 2 inside the controllers and 2 times 2 as backup plan). Sometimes I couldn't find the spare batteries, so I stopped playing.

I wouldn't prefer swapping AA batteries for our mobile phones neither.

Then you need to manage your rechargeable AA better!

I wouldn't prefer wired controllers for my next-gen console neither. ;)

Edit: anyways, it's a matter of tastes as I said.

edit: oh crap, firefox 3 doesn't play nice with the forum code, anyone else having issues editing multiquotes?

Glad to see your enjoying it so far, great comparisons, and fair. Its ironic when you see Fans of a particular systems views once they pick up the a console they didnt own prior. Once you have multiple systems, fair comparisons can be made, and the gamer usually ends up loving all of his consoles regardless of pro's and con's. Many of their opinions change once this happens and the views become less one sided. I love my X360, LOVE IT.

After you're done playing you can just connect the Sixaxis to a USB port and always when you start playing it's fully charged. But I don't worry about it at all. If I could have just connected the 360 gamepad to something to keep playing it would have been less of a fuss, but IMO still worse than the PS3 controller approach.

Good to see your positive comments on Mass Effect, I have the game in front of me, but I still can't play it!

I agree with you on most things, except for the UI. I thought, and still think, the 360's UI is a convoluted, unintuitive, cluttered mess. That doesn't stop me from liking the system; it just takes me about ten times as long to figure out how to do something new as it does on my Wii.

In other words, I don't understand how you could find the 360's interface to be easier to navigate than the Wii's channel system. I mean, Wii channels are basically designed to be navigatable by your average non-gamer; they're the simplest thing around, and - IMO - the most elegant UI this generation.

I don't think anyone knows yet ;)

Nice article. Personally, I find only two faults with the 360 (one you mentioned). It's loud, and it breaks.

I think the 360 has outstanding capability. The issues i have with it, is that capability only is included in 70-80% of the 360's sold. The other 20-30% do absolutely nothing.

If you get one that does not break, you will have lots of fun with it. I hope yours never does.