Somebody has just rather helpfully pointed out to me that the Xbox 360 has just launched in the US, and will be hitting Europe in just a few short days. I would like to thank this person, along with the two dozen media outlets, several thousand forum posters and a million and one Microsoft PR hacks for talking about nothing but for the past week or two. There’s nothing I love more than another Xbox 360-related story at the moment...

Frankly, I can’t wait for it to be over. Console launches have to constitute the longest and most arduous period of my professional career, as they take the normal pre-product launch hype and bull and multiply it by six months and a factor of two dozen.

We’ve been hearing an awful lot of buzz words, tag lines and rather smug and superior PR hacks attempting to shove the party line down our throats. Now however the console has launched to a fever pitch of anticipation and then everyone can sit back to bemoan the fact that half the stuff we’ve been excitedly told is a load of bull, dressed up (in the case of the 360 marketing campaign) in a lot of existentialist malarkey.

Before all that of course we still have to get through isle fights and pre-order agony and angst as thousands of gamers fail to receive their 360’s in the coming months, with many retailers saying that a pre-order is no longer a pre-order and more of a waiting list. If you happened to have pre-ordered an Xbox 360 but haven’t received it yet, well don’t hold your breath say the retailers, half of whom don’t expect another batch of 360’s this side of Christmas.

Away from the entire hubbub, I meanwhile have been happily ensconced in original Xbox land. I’ve been a less than committed console player of late, but with retailers practically hurrying me out the door with damn cheap Xbox games of late I’ve been making large journeys into what is rather rapidly becoming "retro gaming" territory.

I’m finding myself unloaded with five Xbox games for the price of one and you know, it ain’t all that bad. If I console myself (excuse the pun) with previous iterations of PR hype, I’m technically playing the best things since sliced bread, and as the Xbox games aren’t 2D NES affairs I don’t really feel like something out of the 1980’s.

So there we go, I’ve managed to become the PR hacks worst nightmare : a gamer who gets into their console when they’re trying to make us all forget about it in favour of its sequel, with its brand new shiny number on the end of the title. Bah humbug, says I, there’s no better time to become an Xbox gamer than right now.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being on the cutting edge of gaming - it’s just that until TG Publishing decides to sell the office and give me a raise I’m not exactly in a position to pay top dollar for all the top games we see every month, nor am I particularly inclined to spend 20 out of my 24 hours playing the damn things.

But now I, the undecided Xbox gamer as I’m sure many of you are too, can enjoy the "old" console at a knockdown price and not have to concern myself with the fighting and scrapping over the Xbox 360 which, now that it has launched, isn’t looking as shiny as it did three months ago.

As much as the Xbox 360 is going to provide a ton of "new", "fresh" and even "mind blowing" experiences, I can’t see how Soul Calibre on the humble old Xbox isn’t a "new", "fresh" and (dare I say) even "mind blowing" experience to me, considering I haven’t played the flippen thing yet. Well, I say that in hindsight, but funny enough with the Xbox 360 only days away from my native shops I can’t help but note that Soul Calibre, among others, is in fact quite a lot of fun.

Microsoft is promising to support the Xbox well into 2006, though most of the new releases are going to be second rate tat aimed at non-gamer mothers who mean well and don’t want to pay full-price for games that all look the same to them (bless ’em, they mean better than I do when purposefully buying crap for annoying relatives.)

But the back catalogue of stuff is enough to make it worthwhile even investing in an Xbox, if you haven’t already. Apart from buying it cheap from a retail outlet or off one of your mates and playing all the good old games that really aren’t that old, you can have a bit of fun with it.

The Xbox is the first console to tout itself as a PC in your living room, so why not grab a few cheap and crack ’em open to see what happens ? The warranty is hardly going to be much of a problem, and considering hundreds of thousands of the poor old blighters will be going into attics and landfills, one might as well send them there the shattered remains of failed (or all too powerfully successful) experiments in amateur computer engineering.

Here’s to life after death for the Xbox... and to all you fans, just remember when you finally get your hands on the shiny new 360 that there was a time when you excitedly ripped open the packaging on that big black hulk now relegated to the corner.

Ohh, and if anyone was wondering what they should get me for Christmas this year... anyone... ?