Xbox 360 “Can you hear me now?”

From the “Not All Performers Can Be Superstars” category comes our review of Microsoft’s xbox 360 headset microphone for Live. There’s a lot to like about this little fellow, but not a whole lot to love. In fact, about the only thing to love about the headset is that it comes bundled with a new XBOX for the low, low price of free and we here at The Co-Operatives love free!

This guy!

And the price of “free” is reflected quite nicely in its construction.  Feeling as though a stiff wind could rend this headset into a million pieces it is an odd sensation when, after only 45 minutes of use, the rigid plastic designed to keep the ear piece attached to my dome begins to cut into my supple noggin. And the foam covering the ear piece and microphone brought about a wave of nostalgia for this old gamer. Rather than concocting a new variant of comfortable foam (or you know, shopping around for the latest tech in foam construction), Microsoft instead opted to raid all the junkyards in the land for the leftover bits of foam from classic Walkman headphones. Perhaps it was a not-so-subtle “Fuck you, buddy!” directed towards Sony, but the end result is a good bit of ear mashing and general discomfort.
The audio on the other hand receives a triumphant “passable” so all is not lost. The other Co-Operatives in the game claimed to hear me just fine but that may be more of a credit to their own high-priced fancy headphones than the microphone quality of mine. I on the other hand did struggle to make sense of their garbled speech despite cranking the volume to the max (which, by the way, is pretty much the only usable setting on this headset). It was a lot like those old tin-can telephones you made as a kid (if you were really unpopular and boring).

"I said I HATE GINGERS!!!"

things you'll need:

Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows	XBOX 360 Hard Drive Data Transfer Cable	Xbox 360 Wireless Controller 3600mah Battery	Xbox360 HARD DRIVE 250GB HDD + Headset