Of the 15 games available at launch...

Amped 3
Call of Duty 2
Condemned: Criminal Origins
FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
GUN
Kameo: Elements of Power
Peter Jackson' s King Kong
Madden NFL 06
NBA Live 06
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Project Gotham Racing 3
Perfect Dark Zero
Quake 4
Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 06
Tony Hawk' s American Wasteland

...only Call of Duty 2, Kameo and Project Gotham Racing 3 were really worth buying.

The rest (with the exceptions of Condemned and Quake 4) of the games were either hi-res ports of current gen console games and pretty much sucked ass. Even Microsoft' s flagship launch title
Perfect Dark Zero had been severely rushed and turned out rubbish (the worst parts being the incredibly bad story, pathetic animations, overly shiny plastic looking textures and super slow pace).

March came and Burnout Revenge 360, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, Fight Night Round 3 and Oblivion were released. Other games had been released since launch but the only important one was Dead or Alive 4. The games released in March, most notably Advanced Warfighter and Oblivion showed what the console was capable of and coupled with the next batch of units hitting stores further increased 360' s userbase.

So skip to now, seven months after launch and the current list of available title looks like this...

Dead or Alive 4
Full Auto
EA Sports Fight Night Round 3
Burnout Revenge
Tom Clancy' s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Rumble Roses XX
Far Cry Instincts Predator
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
Top Spin 2
Tomb Raider: Legend
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
Major League Baseball 2K6
2006 FIFA World Cup
Final Fantasy XI
Moto GP 2006
Hitman: Blood Money
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis
X-Men: The Official Game
Amped 3
Condemned: Criminal Origins
College Hoops 2K6
Call of Duty 2
FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
Gun
Kameo: Elements of Power
Madden NFL 06
NBA 2K6
NBA Live 06
Need for Speed Most Wanted
NHL 2K6
Outfit
Perfect Dark Zero
Peter Jackson' s King Kong
Project Gotham Racing 3
QUAKE 4
Ridge Racer 6
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Outfit
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
Tony Hawk' s American Wasteland

...and too be honest, only 16 of those (in my opinion) are actually good games worth the money i paid for them. The rest are a mix of average and rubbish titles filled with wasted potential.

E3 has passed now and 360' s future looks great. The next 2 months or so should see games like; Over G Fighters, Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, Prey, Chromehounds, Dead Rising, N3: Ninety-Nine Nights and Enchanted Arm released and the BIG games should follow in September and October in the weeks before PS3' s launch.

So as far as fully grown console titles goes it' s actually been pretty good when you factor in the online too. Live Arcade though and Xbox Live Marketplace have been disappointing do far. Everybody is waiting for the much delayed Street Fighter 2 and the only really good game is Geometry Wars. Sure there are others, but i wanted Microsoft to secure some seriously good titles, and i would have expected them to have made RARE' s past games available already. That' d make sense surely!

Xbox Live Marketplace was supposed to be updated in March with a ton of new features. The update was delayed until a fortnight ago for reasons unknown. That said, we now have our section labelled " Television" where TV shows will be made available for download. Sony has secured 24 (i think) so who knows what Microsoft have up their sleeves. Whatever they are, and whatever else is planned, i' d expect everything up and working by the time PS3 hits.

Marketplace just doesn' t have enough stuff for download. E3 was AWESOME because every 360 trailer, beta demos of upcoming games and several behind the scenes videos were made available quickly, but we simply need more film trailers, music videos and hopefully user created content made available. The game downloads are great and there' s tons of additional content up for download, but it does suck to have to pay for some things. I don' t mind paying for stuff like new maps or real additional content releases like the forthcoming GRAW pack, but the themes and stuff should all be free.

Whether the launch could be deemed a success or not obviously depends on who you ask. I' ve been super impressed with standout titles like GRAW, R*' s Table Tennis (AWESOME!), Kameo, CoD2 and Battlefield 2, but i' ve also been pissed off by games like Perfect Dark Zero and Moto GP 06, games i HAD been really looking forward to.

As far as i' m concerned 360 kicks fu*king ass and HD console gaming is a massive improvement over the previous generation' s SD or progressive scan formatted games.

Right now, 360 has more potential than either of it' s rivals. Will Microsoft pull through though?