"Playing Dead Or Alive 4 on the Xbox 360 this week, I thought I'd seen the first true glimpse of the machine's graphical might. Then I downloaded the free demo of EA Sports' Fight Night Round 3, and my jaw dropped. Literally.

If you've got a hard drive-equipped Xbox 360 and an Xbox Live subscription, go suck down the nearly half-gigabyte demo via the Xbox Live Marketplace menu right now. Now! Go! Put down the newspaper and pick up a controller!

The demo only offers three-round bouts with two pre-selected boxers, but the visuals are so impressive, you won't care. The full game is due in stores this March.

Ironically, Fight Night Round 3 was shown off by Sony at their E3 press conference last May as an example of the PlayStation 3's power. It'll be interesting to see how much better the game eventually looks on the PS3 -- if it looks better at all.

There were some intriguing tidbits coming out of last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, not the least of which was Microsoft overlord Bill Gates announcing that an external HD-DVD drive will be available for the Xbox 360 later this year.

Microsoft has thrown their weight behind Toshiba's HD-DVD format, while Sony is pimping their competing Blu-ray technology, which will be incorporated into the PS3." [more]