"I got some hands-on time with the Xbox 360, and the presenter answered some questions about it. The Xbox 360 will, in some countries, come with a "shorty" remote - it controls the DVD playback, navigation of the blades, and it can be used to turn the Xbox off and on (perfect for those of us using the Xbox as a media box). There will be a "tall" remote that contains more buttons and will be sold at retail. The Xbox 360 will have built-in 10/100 Ethernet, but no wireless - there's a small adaptor that will be sold as an accessory, and supports 802.11 b/g/a.

The big deal for me was the built-in Media Center Extender software - with the current generation Xbox, you need to put in a special CD to have the Xbox connect to your MCE 2005 computer, and the end-user experience was pretty horrible because it was essentially a special remote desktop client running. This meant you didn't get any of the smooth transitions, there was a lag with every button press, and it generally wasn't great. It was impressive as a proof of concept, but I for one wanted more and the Xbox 360 delivers: because it has a full client built in, you get a first-class experience when using the Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender. Rapid response to buttons and selection movement, fast responses to changing screens, and direct TV viewing (including HD content) are all supported. The one thing it doesn't do is visualizations for music - which kind of sucks given the Xbox is going to be connected to the big-screen TV in most homes. " [more]