In the UK, the first in the queue to lay his hands on the new console was Kevin Sage, 33, of Sydenham, south London. He had waited outside the store since 1445 GMT. "We have been waiting in this queue for hours and hours and now I can't wait to get home and play this game," he said. "I've made so many new friends through this, it's a surreal experience and I will remember this for the rest of my life."

Also in the queue was Richard Tiah, 22, of Enfield, north London, who had been waiting since 1500 GMT. He said: "Demand has been so high it's impossible to get it unless you pre-ordered and got here tonight. There's nowhere else you are going to get it off the shelves unless you are in this queue.

The hardware: The console itself is a gorgeous, desirable bit of kit. It looks good, feels good, and the hardware inside plays,err, good. Currently, the raw power of the console allows for a gaming experience that is as rich as a top-end PC. We think that when developers have enough time to get to grips with the hardware - harnessing the power of the triple-core CPU and the unified graphics - that games are going to look far better. Look at the difference in graphical quality between Halo 2 and the original game - we think that the same is going to be true here.

The launch line up: There is no one stand-out game in the launch lineup; there is no Halo for this generation of Xbox. Project Gotham Racing 3 comes very close, but ultimately is let down by the hype it generated for itself beforehand, and the fact that there's very little new in terms of gameplay; it is but Gotham 2 with nicer graphics. However, what you do have in the launch lineup is a range of games that are all brilliant, if not exceptional. Buy PDZ, PGR and Kameo and you won't need to do anything else for a couple of months at least - there's certainly nothing better out on the PC at the moment.

Xbox Live: In some ways, this is the highlight of the console launch. Online gaming is the future, and Microsoft is dragging gamers into the future kicking and screaming. By giving away the online functionality to everybody that owns the console, they make access ubiquitous - in fact, it's nigh-on compulsory - and this allows them to do things that would otherwise not be possible. Since all 360 owners access to the Marketplace, they ensure there is a big enough market to attract premium content to the service, guaranteeing its quality and popularity. The potential and the infrastructure is there to offer all kinds of premium downloads, and the payment system - Microsoft points, which are bought in bulk and then used in small quantities - basically amounts to micropayments done right, the Holy Grail of online services.