The first thing you need to know is that the power cord does indeed have a huge brick attached to it that is an astonishing 3 inches wide, 2 inches thick and 8.25 inches long. Other than that, both the consumer console and the developer's kit are luscious. Photo swirl after the jump...

This is the basic package being sent to reviewers. The white box is the Xbox 360 system that comes with the hard drive, wireless controller, headset, ethernet cable and component HD AV cable. The combination code for the metal briefcase? 360, duh!

Will consumers get to buy a bundle of accessories in a hardshell metallic briefcase? Doubt it. But all of the things inside are available. That's another wireless controller, the Universal Media remote (the regular remote control is included in the other box), a couple of rechargeable battery packs (the quick charge kit is "coming soon"), and a wireless networking adapter. They also stuffed a couple preview games in the file pocket of the case. Strange thing, though — the interior of the briefcase smells like it might have been used by South American, uh, "hemp exporters" in a previous lifetime.

So long old pal, it's been good to know ya.
Hmm... what am I going to do with that old hard drive?

Old dev kit, new dev kit.
Oprah, Uma. Uma, Oprah.

The family portrait (awwww).
Also the consumer electronics version of a Weight Watchers commercial.

Hey, who let these guys into the party?
Geez, that slimline PS2 is such a show off.

Play nice kids.

That's all for now.

Pre-Order Xbox 360 Accessories [Amazon]

Speaking of Project Gotham: The highlight of the party was racing against Kiki Wolfkill. She's the art director at Studio RX (the makers of PGR) the makers of Forza Motorspot—and she also worked with Bizarre on PGR3). She's also a true driver—just bought the first Porsche Cayman S in Seattle and is planning to take part in a Cannonball-style run with it later this year. She's also hot, hot, hot. She whipped me on the course, needless to say. Kiki did have several advantages, among them the fact that I was mesmerized by the amazing view from the Brooklyn Bridge from a Ferrari going 174 mph.

After the jump: Peter Moore, Machinima, and the sloppy drunk NYC gaming elite.

I've talked to plenty of heads of marketing before. It's usually not a conversation as much as an extended infomercial. This is not the case with Xbox marketing boss Peter Moore. He's the guy that tattooed the Halo 2 ship date on his arm at E3 a couple years ago. Moore has the energy of a presidential candidate. He should go door-to-door stumping for the 360, every single person would buy one after talking to him. I'm psyched to read the big profile of him coming out in Business 2.0.

The crew from Heavy.com announced a new lineup of Machinima shows today. I asked Moore whether the Xbox 360 online marketplace was going to host that sort of content. He's open to the idea, but it didn't sound like anything is in the works yet. Too bad, it would be great to download an episode of "Honey, I Killed The Geezer" or a "Pimp My Weapon"-style show in HD via the 360.

I always hope someone will get sloppy drunk at these gaming events, and it's usually me. But tonight everyone was so mesmerized by the games that it looked like that scene with the pod towers from The Matrix. Gordon Bellamy, who works the Spike TV Video Game Awards, was on hand to badger me about finishing up my ballot. USA Today's Mike Snyder was making some kind of excuse for playing as a Celtic. MTV Overdrive's Alex Porter was there too—he's so damn funny (and I'm not just talking about looks here). Geez, what self-respecting game reporter wasn't there sloshing some free booze around? I didn't see any of my pals from Cargo. So I'll just have to thank them here for the image topping this entry—I grabbed it from an Xbox 360 feature I wrote for them that hits stands today.

The games? King Kong rocks, although it didn't get as big a bump from HD as I'd hoped. Perfect Dark Zero tweaked its cooperative play in a nice way, but the AI seemed a bit slow on the uptake. Turn off the lights, put on headphones and play Condemned if you want the bejeezus scared out of you. But the game at the top of everyone's list is Call of Duty 2, it is without doubt the premiere Xbox 360 title. I'll fill you in on even more details as soon as my preview Xbox 360 arrives, which I'm told isn't too long from now.

First impressions: the next four years are going to kick ass. The XBox 360—presumably the rest of the new consoles—will keep us in our living rooms long past dinner-time, bed-time, and colostomy-bag-changing time. The XBox 360 games I saw, Dead or Alive 4, Project Gotham Racing 3, Condemned: Criminal Origins, and the like, looked excellent. Photo-realism was the real draw and some of the more cartoony games like Kameo lost something in the translation. Cell shading looks nice and smooth, but that's about it. PGR 3 featured incredible detailing on the cityscapes and cars and your humble correspondent felt blood and stool on his leg while fighting Jerry in CoD2.

XBox Live has an odd new Anime interface that eschews the "brain in a jar" look of the XBox Dashboard. The Live features, including IM, voice chat, and match gathering, are all easy to handle and the ever present Live window pops up with a click of the silver Live button. A cute feature we already knew about—iPod support. Plug in your Nano and get rocking, was the suggestion, and we're assuming that almost any USB-enabled MP3 player will appear as a music source. Any USB keyboard will work with the 360 so you'll be able rag folks in Avatar mode.

I am starting to see a need for Windows Media Center Edition. The built-in extender features turns the XBox into a living room media center for the oldsters. HD content looks flawless and the movie download services are waiting in the wings for late night sessions of gaming/watching "Hard Bodies 2."

Is all this news? Not so much. This was a get to know me event, something that happens around the world for us journalists to hang out in apartments nicer than ours and play video games. There's another event later this evening, which one of our wonderful editors will attend, so that's nice. Otherwise, people, get ready. This shit kicks ass.