November belongs to Microsoft and the Xbox 360. With just days before launch on the 22nd, Mr. Softy's marketing machine has reached saturation, at least within the industry, and looks poised to do whatever is necessary to roll straight through the holidays as an unopposed juggernaut. The launch campaign for the 360 has thus far played out as a business school worthy case study in modern marketing, running the gamut from ultra low level viral techniques to the extremely high profile MTV debut and Time magazine cover. Toss in real world exposure events like the Xbox Lounge in Tokyo and the coming Mojave Desert launch party and you've got a marketing department that is firing on every cylinder. Marketing on this level sets a new high mark within the videogame industry, and rightly so, as the forthcoming consoles will likely be the generation that conclusively ends the debate as to whether videogames will be able to stand toe to toe with Hollywood and the music industry for cultural significance and consumers' cash.

But what of the Xbox 360 itself? Without doubt, it is the sickest piece of videogame hardware yet released to the public. Back in the day, RISC chips were the be-all, end-all of console hardware. Today, it's all about multi-core CPUs, a concept barely a theory, in terms of consumer electronics, when the Playstation 1 launched. (Want to see all the technical details? Peep this.)
Just two generations ago, a 10,000 polygon character model pushed a platform to the max. The forthcoming next-generation will add orders of magnitude to this figure, with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of polygons becoming standard graphical fare, simply for character design. The debate as to the relative power of the Xbox 360 and PS3 will likely only intensify in the period between the launches, and no matter the final conclusion, both consoles are extremely engineered and very powerful. For a full video overview of the 360, go here.

Like many other revolutionary concepts in the tech industry, online-multiplayer gaming has progressed though a number of iterations to reach the critical mass it carries today. Over the course of more than a decade (remember Mplayer and Heat.net?) hardware, software, and infrastructure have finally progressed to the point that a seamless and exciting online community can really deliver on the promise of brining gamers together. Other consoles have launched with plans for online communities, like Sega's sadly ill-fated Dreamcast, but never before has a hardware manufacturer had the experience or resources to create as fully-fledged a community as Xbox Live. Take a look at our hands-on coverage of the new and improved Xbox Live in action here.

Microsoft is also poised to finally bring about the oft-prophesized but previously failed convergence of the modern home entertainment experience. The components for this synergistic experience (DVD players, media-center PCs, digital cameras, DVRs, huge, beautiful HDTVs, and increasingly affordable surround sound systems) may finally be ubiquitous enough for the right industry player to bring them all together. For the past five years, anyone with a bit of patience for setup and the skills to wield 5 or more remote controls could make synergy happen, but realistically, such impetuous is far beyond the general populace. If the Xbox 360 can at least streamline just a few of these steps, it will be making a solid contribution to the mainstreaming shared multimedia. For a preview of Logitech's Harmony universal remote for the 360, slide on in here.

For all its pre-release promise, at launch the Xbox 360 will have to stand up on its games. It's going to sell out, straight through the holidays most likely, but in truth, I cannot honestly say I'm impressed by the launch titles. They are, on the whole, high-resolution updates of games previously released on other consoles, or rather derivative baby steps in well defined genres. A lot of people are looking back at the Playstation 1 launch and recalling that Battle Arena Toshinden and Ridge Racer weren't very good games either. Indeed they weren't, but they were pretty much the first time most gamers were doing anything in 3D, and despite its mechanical flaws, the flash of Toshinden was enough to make the Saturn's Virtua Fighter look weak in comparison.

With some historical perspective in mind, what are we, the avid gamers of the world, to make of the lack of a killer app, as well as EA's launch efforts for the 360? The self-described king-maker of the game publishing world, EA believes its involvement in console launches to be quite significant, as exemplified by the company's refusal to publish on the Dreamcast, and that consol's eventual failure. Sure they are publishing for the 360, but am I the only one that's insulted that they pulled major features from the franchises? One would hope that even in an admittedly rushed console launch, the biggest publisher around would step up to the plate and show us what it can do with a powerful new console. There isn't even a plausible excuse that the development team spent all their time upgrading the graphics. Madden 06 looks good on a HDTV, but not at all mind-blowing. Player faces are more detailed, but as soon as you get a playable copy, take a look at Brett Farve. It doesn't look a thing like him. And why pull features and game modes, especially when most hardcore fans already have the Xbox and PS2 versions of the key EA franchises? For a full list of the Xbox 360 channel's launch reviews, hit this up.

Perhaps I'm actually showing my age with this sort of viewpoint. Back in the 16 and 32 bit era, general wisdom dictated that no console could launch without a killer app, and also necessitated some thunder-stealing move by any hardware rivals to lessen the impact of a new piece of gear. That's all old news these days. Microsoft is launching the 360 with some pretty mediocre games that don't come close to showing the real potential of the machine, but luckily for Bill and friends; neither Sony nor Nintendo appears to have anything in the works to recapture this Christmas.

Maybe this is all a positive thing for the gaming community. Rather than wait till next spring or summer for a AAA title and better 3rd party support, Microsoft is launching now and allowing consumers to make their own value judgment on the 360. Power to the people, man. The hardcore can have their new console, and the rest of the gaming community can wait till next year (not like you could buy a 360 before then anyway) to see if really promising games like Gears of War will pan out. I have no doubt that the 360 will be a serious player in the next-generation console war, so even if you miss everything EA pulled out of Madden and that glowing feeling of tearing open your new console to play the absolute must-have retina searing launch title of yore, hang in there. The future of Xbox 360 is definitely not now, but at least you'll be able to say you knew it when. Need even more coverage? Our knowledge knows no bounds. Total coverage of life, the universe, and everything Xbox 360 begins here.