App ‘Appy

So we’ve all had a few weeks of the new Xbox 360 Dashboard by now, and just like marmite you’ve probably all decided if you love or hate it.

Personally, there is one crowning glory amongst the rubble of changes. As far as I’m concerned you can take the Cloud storage, Beacons or Kinect voice recognition; it seems like poor Zoey had enough trouble with it for me to be that fussed and it would probably have trouble with my common as muck London accent anyway. No people, for me its about apps. Beautiful, addictive, ‘how-did-I-live-without-them’ apps!

LastFM, Facebook and Twitter have been around for a while, along with Zune, but thanks to the most recent update a whole new host of possibilities for Xbox 360 entertainment has been unleashed. For me personally, the biggest of these has to be YouTube, not only because it now means I can watch the millions of videos it has to offer (thank you to whoever put up the Masterchef series by the way!) but it means that Microsoft have finally matched a card played by Sony and Nintendo two years ago. Get with the program!

One of the biggest debates will always be which console is the best and my opinion has always been that the 360 has certainly won the next-gen console war. Unfortunately a fatal flaw in my argument for the Xbox has always been its versatility; I would seriously like a quid for every time I’ve heard “But PlayStation 3 has a BluRay player!” – Bah I tell you!

Apps such as YouTube have not only brought the 360 up to speed, but finally make it a true entertainment console that will be incredibly hard to be matched. Add in the Kinect and you’re onto a winner. Give me iPlayer (later this year) and you have made one seriously happy camper!

The Xbox 360 is beginning to open up a whole world of possibilities for itself as it becomes a stronger, more all-round entertainment machine. My god, with all the TV and film in front of me I may never play a game again…

Yeah, right!? But it made me think it for a second and that, my friends, is seriously impressive!