It's Got Game (But Microsoft Hopes for More)

To keep the device from being banished to the basement or the kids' room, Allard's team has spent almost as much time worrying over the appearance of the new Xbox as about the technology inside the console.

The controllers on the new Xbox are wireless to keep the console from annoying neatnik moms who might not want wires littering the living room floor, Allard said.

The first Xbox was black, bulky and featured poison-green accents, but the new one is sleek, white and curvy. The new Xbox is designed to fit neatly on a home entertainment stack even as it tries to put some of the other components out of a job.

Those who don't like the looks of the front end of the machine can customize it with faceplates, purchased separately. Some are wild tributes to hot game franchises; others are more sedate, such as a simulated wood-grain faceplate.

"This is a gamble for Microsoft, trying to court two different markets at the same time," said Brian D. Crecente, a senior editor at the gaming Web site Kotaku.

The fact that the Xbox 360 is being sold as more than a game machine is a risk, "but it's a risk that will likely benefit Microsoft in the long run," said Shannon Cusick, president of the Austin-based Orbis Games LLC, publisher of online games aimed at women.

"This will sound kind of silly, but telling women that they can do all these other things -- play DVDs, play solitaire, play their iPods -- in this game machine is a very good selling point."

So far, the games created for the new machine haven't impressed critics as much more than somewhat slicker versions of games they've already seen.

Game-publishing giant Electronic Arts Inc. said the stadiums for the Xbox 360 version of its Madden NFL 06 game contain 50 times the detail of previous versions of the game, for example. But Dan Houser, vice president at Rockstar Games, the developer behind the hugely successful and controversial Grand Theft Auto series, said gamers buy new consoles for new game experiences, not slick graphics.

"If the machines don't offer stuff that is fundamentally different than what you can do currently -- and I don't mean fundamentally prettier -- people won't buy them," Houser said. "There has to be a game that comes out that is worth paying $500 for, or whatever it ends up costing." Though Rockstar has games in the works for the Xbox 360, he wouldn't describe them for fear that competitors might steal his company's ideas.

For the vanguard of gamers who want every cutting-edge machine first and who don't care much how much they spend for the game experience, the Xbox 360 is a must-have. EB Games in Pentagon City said more than 300 people pre-ordered Xbox 360s. There is so much demand at GameStops in Wheaton Plaza and Alexandria that they stopped taking orders back in August.

Microsoft viewed its first Xbox as an investment to gain credibility in the gaming world, and it has yet to make a profit from it. But this time, hopes are high. "We're going to make somewhere between a lot of money and a lot of money," Allard said.

Clinton, Md., gamer Nicholas Bonds, a 17-year old high-school student, hopes to get an Xbox 360 for Christmas because he wants the console that will play the next Halo game whenever it's released.

Even though he's a serious gadget fiend, the type who builds computers in his spare time, the console's multimedia features interest him only hypothetically. "I probably won't use half that," he said.