Obviously the main focus of the Xbox 360 is gaming, and therefore a lot of people may feel that the 360 isn’t worth getting unless you’re a gamer. Well in my humble opinion even non gamers and casual gamers have five good reason to get a 360, and none of them have anything to do with gaming.
Top 5 reasons non gamers need an Xbox 360:
Reason 5) Photos
Everyone has a digital camera now days and they aren’t going away any time soon. Unfortunately with digital cameras we tend to store the images on CDs or on our PCs and rarely get around to printing them off. Sure you could bring your friends and family into your home office/study to checkout your latest pics but wouldn’t it be easier and more inviting to display them on your TV set via your nice new Xbox 360? You can even put music to your slide show to add a bit more ‘feeling’ to them.
Reason 4) Music
The iPod brought about a music revolution allowing people to take their entire music collection with them wherever they go. While the iPod is a great personal audio device it is limited to just that, personal audio. The 360 is the solution to that limitation, not just with the iPod, but almost all modern personal audio devices (mp3 players). Just plug your player into one of your Xbox 360s USB ports (or stream your music from your Windows XP Desktop PC) and before you know it you’re playing music from your digital music collection.
Reason 3) Video
If you’re a movie lover (who isn’t?) you’ll be happy to know that Xbox 360 plays DVDs right out of the box so you can enjoy your DVDs in all their 480p progressive scan glory. Combine your Xbox 360 with a Media Center PC and video takes on a whole new meaning. Using the media centre extender features of the Xbox 360 in conjunction with a Media Center PC allows you to pause live TV, schedule recordings of your favorite shows (think MySky or TIVO like services) and stream video right from your desktop.
Reason 2) ROI from your other devices
Desktop/Laptop PCs, digital cameras, music players, TVs, Stereo/Home Theater Systems all add up to one hell of an investment. So now that you’ve spent thousands of dollars on all of this stuff, wouldn’t it be nice to have a device that gets them all working together in a practical, real world kind of way? Well Xbox 360 does just that, meaning that you actually use these devices more often because it’s right there in your lounge. So I guess in a way you could say by not having an Xbox 360 your actually wasting money on devices because your not getting the most out of them.
Reason 1) The Future
The online services that are ‘unofficially’ in the works for the Xbox 360 are really something to get excited about. From video on demand movies and IPTV services to an online music store right in your living room via your TV remote. Another thing to keep in mind is Windows Vista (Microsoft’s Windows XP replacement) comes with media centre features built in. So all future PCs will completely integrate with Xbox 360. Of course there is also all the integration between Xbox live and Windows Live services. Imagine making VoIP or Video calls via your TV set in your living room for example. Really the possibility’s are endless, and the exciting thing is, its only just begun.
Some people may say many of these things can be achieved by using a combination of other hardware solutions, and they would be correct. However I would argue that none of those solutions can provide an all in one, hassle free answer that “just works” like an Xbox 360 can.