For Gamers, X Marks the Spot.

Byline: Steven Levy

I had barely reclaimed my breath from an exhilarating 160kph-plus race through the streets of lower New York City when the notice came. "Westerby" wanted to chat--and race me head-to-head. I hadn't even realized that I was online. But I was starting to realize that this Christmas's most anticipated high-tech toy--promoted relentlessly by its impresario Bill Gates--might actually live up to its hype.

Let me back up a bit, a process easier to do in print than in the Viper GTS that gave me virtual whiplash in Project Gotham Racing 3. I was testing Microsoft's new game console, the Xbox 360, hooking up to a high-definition set to see if the much-touted superpowered graphics could really jack up my blood pressure. They could, indeed. That's a good thing, since the games available at the 360's recent launch--I sampled what was supposed to be the cream of the crop--were pretty much in the same vein as the stuff available to the plain old Xbox and Sony PS2. With 360, the eye-popping graphics, particularly on games like the World War II Call of Duty 2, bring novelty and intensity even to familiar games. My favorite example: as Tiger Woods, I hooked a tee shot into the crowd at Pebble Beach. From down the fairway, I could see that the spectator I struck on the knee was doubled over in pain.

But getting that message to chat from Westerby--the nom de joystick of a friend across the continent--illustrated Xbox 360's other big advance: being online is built directly into the experience. Almost all the games have an interactive component that lures you into a self-contained Valhalla for Xbox gamers. It's a sort of mini-Internet with its own in-your-face version of instant messaging, VoIP, social networking, music discovery and commerce. The essence of this world is an ad hoc multiplayer game experience available 24/7, mediated through the ...