XBox 360 comes into its own

It's looking grim.

You almost had a Sony PlayStation 3. The guy on the phone said they had two but it was first come, first serve. You broke an impressive roster of traffic laws to get to the store in time, and for naught. So you tried for a Nintendo Wii. You failed. You would like one of the season's hot consoles but you have a life. You don't have ages to devote to this. Yet, man, your PS1 mocks.

You're due for an upgrade.

Fear not! There is hope!

See those white and lemon boxes piling up in big-box electronics stores all around town?

That's an Xbox 360; Microsoft has sold 5 million since the system's launch a year ago, and expects to sell another 5 million by year's end. So it's not hot exactly. But for once, the hot thing you want is not nearly as satisfying as the less-than-hot thing you can have right now. I've heard stories from game shop employees of kids (and the occasional adult) throwing fits right there in the store when they're informed the only system available is a 360. The employees tend to chuckle at all this shredding of garments -- and so do I.

Because at the moment anyway, the 360 is unquestionably the classiest bet -- not as clever as the Wii but more rounded and nearly as friendly. For a gamer who wants next-generation graphics, a smooth online experience, and versatility -- well, it's a serious gaming machine, with more than a few good titles for young children (which the PS3 doesn't offer), and if you prefer the simplicity of the Wii, a rich online service that offers old-school classics like Frogger and Joust and time killers like Zuma.

Think of the 360 as the hot girl at the prom whom no one notices until years later at the reunion -- when by then the PS3 is considered a 300-pound couch potato and the Wii a charming screwball you can handle for only so long before you crave more substance.

It wasn't always like that.

A year ago, the 360 was pretty and agreeable but awkward. It's corporate parent, Microsoft, had never been known for the grace and tact of its designs. But navigating around the 360 was surprisingly elegant; it was a home entertainment console you might actually use for something other than gaming. The game play and the graphics, expected to be a significant advance, were merely solid -- very good but, after a dozen spins, you wanted to see its potential.

A year later, it's realized.

XBox Live Arcade -- a stop on the smooth XBox Live network (available separately for $60 a year) -- is becoming a welcoming, low-level iTunes for gamers, offering the kind of quick fun (at around $8 a pop) you crave when you're not in the mood to lose four hours of your life on a dense strategy game like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The online function recently began offering movies (I find it tediously buggy, however). Last year, when the system launched, Microsoft promised you'd be able to play your old XBox titles on the 360, and while the reality proved not so rosy and the glitches frequent, that's gotten much cleaner, too.

But graphically it's no PS3, you say. Actually, it compares well. Both give high-definition pictures, the PS3 in 1080p -- a higher resolution than the 1080i offered by the 360. But few TVs support 1080p, and even if yours does, don't assume every game out there will take advantage of the capabilities of the PS3 (or of the 360). The best 360 titles of the past year -- Gears of War, the zombie game Dead Rising -- are as good-looking as anything the PS3 offers. (And the 360's had a year to build a library; there are about 100 games out now, compared with two dozen PS3 titles.)

If the 360's cost is a factor -- $400 tops, not including games -- here's a respectable alternative: Pick up one of those old (5 years old, actually) PlayStation 2s. The online service never really thrilled anyone, and it lacks that vital shock of the new.

But they go for $130 now, and not only are some of the best titles on the next-gen systems also available for the PS2, there are still great exclusives coming out for it -- for instance, the remarkable new adventure game Okami strips away realism altogether to reimagine the gaming palate as Japanese watercolors. In fact, if you're still moping over the lack of a PS3 in your life, consider this: I have been playing Battlefield 2 on the 360 for a year now, and hours after hooking up my PS3, I couldn't help myself.

I went back to my 360.