There has never been a better time to buy an Xbox than right now this second, I've decided to myself. In fact, I decided it to myself with the launch of the Xbox 360, but I'd like to reiterate the point since I've just returned from a lunch hour excursion in which I saw quite an amazing sight.

In a major game retail store they were (and please do excuse the euro pricings, just think in your native equivalent currency and all will be well) selling an Xbox for €90. Or, you could grab one with 5 games (decent ones at that, spreading the spectrum of fighten' and driven') for €150. And then, beside these now "retro" consoles, were games going for €30. Actually, they were going for €15 as there was a straight up "Buy one, get one free" offer. A "BOGOF" offer in the video gaming sphere is about as common as good music aimed at 14 year olds.

Every game we've been told is so, so bloody great over the past two years was there. This was no display of the shoddy wares that the Game group want to offload onto the streets - this was a display of the great games that the Game group wants to offload onto the streets.

When you consider that an Xbox 360 game costs €75, or €15 less than you can get an Xbox for these days, and even a PlayStation Portable, with no games, is gonna set you back €205 (at least in this particular store), well you begin to see, if you're not an avid Xbox player, how becoming one can be such an appealing financial alternative.

I won't mince words: I've been largely disappointed by the Xbox 360 games thus
far. Call of Duty 2 was a colossal disappointment, as was GUN. Peter Jackson's
King Kong looked great but was ultimately flat. Prey had potential but never
quite lived up to it. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter? Good but
overrated, in my humble opinion. I haven't played Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or
Saint's Row beyond demo versions yet, so I can't issue a verdict on them at this
point. But you get the point; for the most part the games have been lackluster.

Dead Rising changed all that for me. What a game. I've always been fond of
titles that feature open-ended game play and alternating scenarios that offer
loads of replay value. Capcom has taken that approach to the nth degree; in fact,
game designer Keiji "The Killa" Inafune nearly took the approach too far - Dead
Rising can be a little intimidating and confusing at times with its variety of
missions and storylines. As photojournalist Frank West, players arrive in
Willamette, Colo., to find out why the town that has been quarantined by the U.S.
National Guard. Trapped inside a giant mall, Frank discovers zombies have taken
over the town and has 72 hours before the rescue helicopter arrives to save as
many survivors as he can while uncovering the mystery behind the zombie outbreak.

The graphics are all fine and good, nothing too impressive considering this is
after a next-generation title on a next generation console. What makes Dead
Rising such a rewarding experience is the fantastic game play. Players can
pretty much go anywhere in the mall and use anything they can find as a weapon
(chainsaws in the hardware store, hockey sticks in the sporting goods store, and
even a katana blade in a boutique shops for knives and swords). The zombies move
slowly, but there are thousands of them and they are everywhere. You can hack
away at the undead and engage in bloody, cartoon-ish violence but if you weapons
run out, you're pretty much finished.

The trick is finding ways to navigate the mall and its extensive outdoor
courtyard while avoiding giant hordes of zombies and even a few psychotic humans
holed up in the mall. The game moves pretty quickly, since the 72 hours is about
6 hours in real time. But the great part is that you can play the game the whole
way through a few times and experience different scenarios and hidden treasures.
Plus, there are different modes of play.

Now for the bad: Dead Rising could have been an A, maybe even an A+, if not for
two absolutely idiotic design issues. First, if you don't have an HD television,
you could be in trouble because the on-screen text is extremely small. Honestly,
you'll feel like you're taking an eyesight exam at the DMV to get your driver's
license. There's nothing you can do about it besides getting a HDTV because
Capcom made the game specifically for Hi-Def.

The bigger issue is the save system; I cannot stress how much this tarnishes
Dead Rising. Here's the deal: you only have one opportunity to save in-game
progress per memory device. Players can use several save points - bathrooms and
lounge couches - throughout the mall. So you may be in the midst of a series of
tasks and missions and unable to save your current progress. If you die, you go
all the way back to your last save date. In essence, you can play for an hour
and, if you're not careful, die and then have to start the whole day over again.
While you're progress will be saved - number of zombies killed, number of skill
levels attained - you will get frustrated playing the same missions six or seven
times.

Another problem in the save system is that when you die, you get two choices:
"Load Game," which lets you load your last save point, or "Save Status and
Quit." Now, you'd think the latter option would be pretty self-explanatory in
that the game would "save" your "status." But the option is incredibly
misleading because it restarts the game from the beginning but your profile
retains all experience and skill points, which is stupid. Why would anyone want
to start the game over from the beginning? I cannot believe Capcom let this
happen.

Whatever. Dead Rising is still an excellent game. If you have an Xbox 360 - and
an HDTV - give it a try

Epic's first paddle into the market of single player first-person shooters has paid off in spectacular fashion as Gears of War has shifted over a million copies in the two weeks since its November 7 launch.

Gears of War was hyped up to the high heavens, but surpassing Halo on the Xbox Live stakes and shifting so many copies is a spectacular result. By my reckoning there's one copy of GoW for every seven or so Xbox 360's worldwide. Not bad at all.

I'm considering actually buying myself an Xbox 360 come February or so. If Microsoft can offer a price cut by then and games like GoW aren't up in the "€25 short of €100" price band it might just be a mature enough system to consider.

There, see, Microsoft is turning me around. Slowly. That's a good sign for the next-gen, eh?

The Xbox 360 is the winner of the current console war. A bit of a premature statement considering as how the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii have only been on the market long enough to have their first technical teething problems? I think not, and here's why:

The Xbox 360 has won the current generational console war because it was first to market and is the most mature system out there. There are over 7.5 million Xbox 360's in the wild as we speak, the console has overcome its teething problems (does anyone even really remember the overheating problems anymore?) and, most critically of all, it's the only one you can actually walk into any given shop and be practically assured of securing. 

So what, says you, Sony and Nintendo just need time, right? Well, not if we qualify what a "win" in the next-gen console war actually is. First of all, Microsoft is probably not winning over that many PlayStation fanboys. That would be a coup, not a win. Fanboys are fanatics by any other name and their share of the market isn't worth attempting to go after at this point.

Secondly, the Nintendo Wii doesn't count against Microsoft. Every hardcore gamer I know who will be buying a Wii either already has an Xbox 360 or is planning on getting a PS3. These people can mostly be counted twice among the market share figures. The mom and pop and grandma and grandpa new audiences Nintendo is developing don't matter to Microsoft as they market Gears of War, any everyone else is buying the Wii after/before another console.

So, if you discount the fanboys and the old folk what you are left with is the market of "new" console gamers. Tired PC gamers, rich PC gamers, budding hardcore gamers... New blood, new money, new market. These are the undecided who help my dear colleague Rob Wright further his notions of parallels between the console wars and US politics; the swing voters are the ones who you have to watch.

Why, pray tell, will these budding hardcore console fanatics buy the Xbox 360? Well, for the reasons above: It's a mature platform which is easily available. Even Rob Enderle agrees with me on this one (I might as well retire now); if a kid wanted a PS3 for Christmas but the parent can't get one, that kid will get an Xbox 360 and like it. Or, a swing gamer will say "To heck with standing in line for nine days, I'll just get an Xbox 360." Once a swing gamer picks up an Xbox 360 they will have doubled their price in marketing money alone for Sony to win back when the PS4 rolls around.

After all, what real difference is there in the systems to complain about unless you're a fanboy? In the world of Xbox vs PlayStation 90% of games, if not more, are multi-platform releases, and for every great exclusive PS3 game there will (you better bet) a great Xbox 360 exclusive to counter. The Xbox 360 is available and it works, for less money than the PS3 to boot. Among the hardcore swing voters it is the platform to beat.

This will have wider ramifications into the realm of HD-DVD vs Blu-ray and beyond, but for now Microsoft can sit with the happy crown atop its head of being the market leader, the one to beat, in this current console war. Sure the PS3 will mature during 2007, but who cares? It'll still cost a hoot and Microsoft will still have more units in the wild than Sony can possibly supply until well into the future, if even ever perhaps.

The most impressive thing about this is the further context you put it into: Even if Microsoft gave Sony a run for its money and Sony came out on top of the heap, it would be an impressive feat. Despite having named its console the "360" so as not to look second rate to the numerically correct PS3, Microsoft is only on its second console, ever; the first having been released (in reverse to this time around) a year after Sony's second had hit the market.

I told everyone who would listen that beating the crap out of one another to get one of the limited supply of Xbox 360's last Christmas was a fool merely seeding the market for Microsoft to dominate the market over a year later into 2007. Well, not many listened then and Microsoft is the market leader today for a lot of guts, good medium to long-term strategising and good fortune in the guise of their biggest competitors worst year of blunders.

It's Tuesday at GDC 2007, or as I like to call it, "Microsoft Day." The software giant had lured many members of the games press, me included, away from the Moscone Convention Center to a nearby hotel with promises of juicy secrets and tantalizing previews of titles such as BioWare's Mass Effect and Lionhead Studios Fable 2.

The sessions started at 9 a.m. sharp and will pretty much run throughout the day. It's a bit of a grind, considering that Microsoft invited dozens of tech media members and games journalists to the hotel and packed them into very small rooms. During the waiting period this morning, there were close to 30 of us squeezed into a small foyer near the elevators of the Mezzanine level of the hotel. There was absolutely no room to move, and I couldn't stop thinking about how an earthquake at that very moment could have wiped out half of the games press in one fell swoop.

Well, an earthquake didn't strike, thankfully. And we were well rewarded for the wait. Microsoft gave us exclusive previews of Fable 2, Mass Effect, the new Conan title, and several other games for its next generation platform. More on those later.

A number of media members, myself included, remarked on how Microsoft is really turning the tide in its favor lately in the game community. Years ago, the company was catching nothing but flack for its initial Xbox effort. Hell, even after Xbox 360 launched a year ahead of the competition, people were still doubting them. Now Microsoft has assembled what is clearly is clearly the strongest library of next-generation games available today, with more titles like Halo 3 coming.

While Sony has run afoul of gamers lately with backwards compatibility issues, public relations gaffes and other eyesores, Microsoft has clearly gained momentum and credibility in the industry. To be sure, Microsoft is still a long way off from the buzz and gamer love that Nintendo is enjoying. But the software giant is leaps and bounds ahead of where they were with the first Xbox.