Are we supposed to be excited?

Still no Blu-Ray, still not reliable, still costly, an no longer getting the best games... Still it's got a costly 802.11n adapter.

Is this RATIFIED 802.11n?

You could argue that HD movies are taken care of with HD streaming via XBL, newer X360 consoles are improving in reliability and you can now pick up some of the older 20GB versions for £70. I'm not sure what you mean about games though, X360 has all the latest games and still retains some console exclusive stuff and the Wii and PS3 hardly have any 'killer apps' which would make you rush out and purchase.

I'm not an X360 fanboi, but I still think it's the best console in the current market - is the lack of blu ray such an issue?

In response to: "HD movies are taken care of with HD streaming via XBL"..

Sorry, but the HD "Label" ONLY defines the resolution of the picture, not the compression or bitrate of the content.

Blu-Ray looks (and sounds) significantly better than any HD download service, How do you think they can take a 40GB movie on BD and turn it into a 3GB download?

Don't be fooled by HD movie downloads, it's not even close to even SkyHD bitrates, let alone Blu-Ray.

Your over estimating the capabilities of regular consumers. Most can`t tell the difference between XBL downloaded HD content and the "real" HD picture from a blu-ray.

Infact, most don`t see any reason to upgrade their legacy DVD player (or think upscaling players are just fine), so this whole point is pretty moot.

Blu ray will not become the ubuquitous format that DVD is for MANY years. Theres not enough perceived value in the format, so joe public will keep his old kit.

Blu-ray was a success in that it allowed sony to beat Toshiba in the format war. Other than that, its only served to push the price of the PS3 above the reach of most consumers. The rest is marketing spin.

"ONLY with the power of CELL and BLU-RAY" - yea, whatever.

I am the proud owner of an Xbox 360 but, is it going to cost £50+? If so, forget about it, that's enough money to buy 2 reasonable good games, cheaper to buy a longer lan cable.

"How do you think they can take a 40GB movie on BD and turn it into a 3GB download?"

Simple, the actual HD movie itself takes up no where near 40GB. Dont mix up the amount of space a Blu-Ray disc can hold and the space a movie actually takes up.

Great point - I would consider myself as a regular consumer (certainly in terms of audio/video) and I would say that the X360 more than delivers what I need on my Sony 40" HD-TV. I can get full on dirty blu-ray joy through 'the internets' and my WD-TV, if I could only be bothered to waste my bandwidth on what would really be overkill.

I expect the new 'n' adapter will come out at the same price as the original one did (£50 odd?), which is fine by me. I could buy an 'n' adapter that works via USB, but I like the way that the device just fits snugly on my 360 and is barely noticable.

"Simple, the actual HD movie itself takes up no where near 40GB. Dont mix up the amount of space a Blu-Ray disc can hold and the space a movie actually takes up."

Most Blu Ray movie files exceed 9 - 12GB, as for XBL movie downloads, the frame rates are 24/30FPS, the res is only 720P (any more the the 360 will RROD).

All "HD" movies should run at 60FPS in 1080p otherwise it isnt true HD. It doesnt matter if its a download or from a BR.

The day I buy the Star Wars series AGAIN is the day I decide money's just not worth having.

Seriously, I can't see any point to blu-ray, except to say 'Look at me! I've got the latest kit!'. Honestly, is (for example) Shawshank Redemption significantly improved by a slightly higher resolution?

according to my blox360 owning pal you can get some 3rd part adapters to work on them, so i would rather look into getting that than feeding gates pension fund for something that looks like a 3 year old designed on a sugar induced high.

then again my consoles adapter is internal and came with the console.....