Back to black - new Xbox 360 gets improved looks and more power

The Xbox 360 has been a roaring success since its launch at the end of 2005. It was the first console to bring next generation, high-definition gaming to the masses, and its culmination also saw another first for the market: the external HD DVD drive

The Xbox 360 has now returned for another go at making the best games console ever; no doubt to take away some of the success of the recently launched Playstation 3. Entitled the Xbox 360 Elite, this box of gaming brawn isn’t much of a breakthrough, and probably won’t convince current owners to trade up, but for those wanting to break into next-gen gaming, it’s a nicer proposition.

Gone is the slightly effeminate bleached bone exterior of the Xbox 360; now replaced with a much more masculine black, a la original Xbox. In terms of hardware, the 360 now has a huge 120GB hard drive, compared to the original, which only had 20GB. This means it can store loads more downloaded games, MP3s and videos

Microsoft, realising that online games and high definition video has become core to Xbox 306 owners, its included with the Elite console; a black gaming headset and an HDMI cable (although it doesn’t say whether this is black or not - boo!) so that you can watch high definition video with multi-channel surround sound on your TV screen using just the one cable.

The Xbox 360 Elite is a few quid more than its predecessor; around £40-50 extra over the retail price of an Xbox 360 (planned retail price for its launch in the US is $479.99), but when you add up all the extras, it’s actually pretty cheap.

Let’s just hope that rumours of the new console overheating when left in the sun, due to its dark case absorbing most of the sun's energy, are untrue.