The Xbox 360 is a fabulously powerful games machine with a wide range of titles that look tremendous on a standard widescreen television and stunning on an HD-ready screen. Microsoft has now sold 6m units, so it’ll be a merry Christmas for Bill Gates.

The Xbox’s media playback features are impressive: it can connect wirelessly to a PC and will stream stored music, video or photos. Online gaming is super-smooth, too, though this service currently costs £40 a year. It’s simple to challenge a friend to play, and organising a group session can be done by text, voice or — with the optional new camera — video.

True, DVD playback is only standard definition, but Microsoft hopes to match the PS3’s Blu-ray movie playback with an optional £129 plug-in drive that converts the Xbox 360 into a HD-DVD player.

This makes the whole affair bulky. The 360 is fairly large and the external power supply is the size of a house brick. Worse, when playing games, its case fan is almost as noisy as a Chinook coming in to land.

That said, the machine has several big selling points. As it’s been on sale for a year, most of the launch-time bugs have been ironed out and a recent software update has added a few useful features. The line-up of games is now formidable, though many have focused on glossy graphics over innovative gameplay. This arsenal is set to grow, as Microsoft has been snapping up well-respected developers to feed it Xbox exclusives. Yes, the games are pricey — and only about half of standard Xbox games will play on the 360 — but the console itself isn’t exhorbitant, albeit that the range-topping version (with hard drive) is the one to go for.

PlayStation 3 will in theory be slightly the more powerful, but both consoles deliver breathtaking action. Bottom line? If you can’t wait for next-generation HD gaming and you can put up with the fan noise, buy a 360. Given time, and with its quieter, classier presence, the PS3 could still catch and overtake its Microsoft rival.

As for the Nintendo, it’s good but the one-time market leader may struggle to match the computing power and fast-paced graphics of its bigger rivals. Yet the quirky, innovative Wii could be a surprise hit among a new audience of gamers.

OTHER SUPERCONSOLE REVIEWS

Nintendo Wii
Sony PlayStation 3