Looks like Microsoft's eagerness to get the Xbox 360 out early is costing them some of the initial momentum they had gathered over the last few months. X05 (Microsoft's yearly press-schmoozing extravaganza) wasn't the resounding success Allard and co were hoping for with much of the press reporting varying degrees of dissapointment with the reality of what "next-gen" will actually look like this Christmas. The first wave of titles is bound to be less impressive than those 6 months down the line but it doesn't look like they've got a Halo to help them this time. In fact, it is safe to say that not many of the announced launch games (which may or may not make it) are getting much love. Even the next Project Gotham Racing got slated for bad framerates.

According to Edge Magazine, many of the 360-bound updates of famous franchises seem to be simple upgrades (better textures, higher polygon counts) while previously seen footage of, fan favourite, Ghost Recon ended up appearing hugely misleading when compared to playable code (medium quality PC game quality, apparently).

I was going to pre-order my Xbox 360 this week, I knew that there would be few games at first and that later games would be better but I just wanted to be part of the first adopters because I believed in the machine (and wanted the street cred). I'm not so sure anymore... All this rushing scares me, the fact that they completely hid the gigantic power adapter from the public annoys the fuck out of me and the general line-up doesn't impress me.

Next-gen is going to happen over the next year, just maybe not this Christmas. I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for Microsoft to have an ace up its very expensive Italian-cut sleeve: Halo 3, running in HD at 60 frame a second. I'd love this stuff to blow everyone away but I doubt it will in the very near future.

All the while Sony continues pumping the PS3 hype machine full of heavy fuel, check this out. Impressive and exactly what you need to get your machine into the mainstream psyche. Microsoft, you watching this?