So I recently purchased an XBOX 360, since I didn't buy an XBOX the first time around, but then came to the harsh reality that my resistance would have to come to halt with good games like Phantasy Star Universe and Hitman: Blood Money being released for this superior system.

Anyway, I have some questions or concerns about this system, because besides play the 360 and XBOX videogames that I buy for it (granted they work with the backward compatability), WHAT else can it do?

For some reason, I thought that it would play AVIs and WMAs if I burned them onto a CD, since this is supposed to be like a super computer.

Nope.

Wrong.

I was wondering if there is a way that I can connect this to my PC to transfer audio and video to this 360's internal hard drive.  Is that possible, and if so, HOW?

What else exactly does this machine do, besides play the games I buy for it?

$399.99 is a lot of money for  a small library of games.

You need to get Windows Media Centre on your desktop PC, and connect it to the 360 in order to stream video or move video to the 360 HD. As far as audio goes you can get it to stream MP3s from your desktop, but in my limited playing about with it I found that the genres were utterly confused - navigation was very poor, and some things it simply didn't recognise.

I was very disappointed in it as a media centre, in fact, and swiftly went back to my original modded Xbox.

I'm coming this close to picking up a 360 for Dead Rising alone.  Damn, the game looks like boatloads of fun....

I think you can stream audio and pictures from a host PC without having Media Center OS installed.   There's some app you need to get for your XP SP2 system to allow that streaming to happen (though I think this is what Sabreman just said. :x.)  You do need WMC to stream video, though.  We have a PC hooked up to our TV, so we just stream all our crap from there.  That also allows us the luxury of playing back things like divx and xvid and ogm and whatnot.

We just got a 360... hahaha, exactly one week ago today.  Jeremy is helplessly addicted to Chromehounds.  It's a multiplayer cooperative "pilot a mech and wander around strategically, blowing shit up" game, and he's absolutely addicted to it.  We also got Dead Rising... Angela, I can see you enjoying this game.  It's one of those games where it's really easy to get a kick out of the little things they throw in, or something like that.  It gets damn hard, damn fast, and the time limits are a pain, though.  Of course, I usually dislike anything with a time limit.  One of the added perks that you get later on (no idea what the conditions are) is "Infinite Mode" or something like that... that would be a cool thing to play toward. :)

What about Ninety-Nine Nights!  Now that game looks beautiful...

-avatar!

.

We played the demo, and were also awestruck by the sheer beauty of it... Jeremy said the camera controlled like crap though, and the game seems to be getting pretty crappy reviews, so I think we'll pass or at least wait for the bargain bin.

That one guy you control during the demo though... ohhh, he's so cute. ;D
erm, ahem. *goes back to trying to sleep*

What's the point of having a xx gig hard drive in this machine if I cannot even save any data other than game saves on it?

I know many people picked it up for Dead Rising itself, I beat game yesterday with the best ending and now I'm playing 2nd time - this is the best game I played in months, very high replay value, adequate soundtrack, extremely fun gameplay and gorgeous graphics if you have hdtv.
an absolute must have if you like zombie games from capcom.
brilliant title.

there are many exclusives on 360 right now, system is really great and more people are leaning towards it, since ps3 will mostly have the same 3rd party games and pretty much no exclusives in the first year except very few titles.

you can connect it to your pc media centre, you can stream but you cant download stuff into hard disk, you can listen your audio cds, and rip them on the hdd, watch dvds, customize your dashboard(if you have digital camera, you can download your photos and set them as theme/background), going xbox live for all free demos, trailers, and such.

but mainly yes - this is a console not a computer.

not exactly - its just a survival mode, there is no missions, just do your best to survive as long as you can on the mall, you're loosing energy by just walking, and you cannot pick food from places you already took it, so its  a very challenging mode, every now and then you'll get something for killing a zombie, but all in all - this is not your "do what you want and enjoy" mode.

Oooooooooh, that sounds like fun. 'Course, my bro still has to make the jump to the 360.