Christmas Buyers Guide: The Essentials for Microsoft Xbox and Next Gen Xbox 360

News From Lik Sang

It's that time of year again! Ahh, the Holiday season rush, so lovely. Here at Lik Sang, that's usually synonymous with late night overtime and working twice as fast as usual without sacrificing on quality (as stated by our operations manager). That's what it takes though if you want to be listed on the "official partners list" of Santa's corporate web site (and you should see the flowerish "thank you" message to Lik Sang which Santa posted on his private blog!). Yes, our warehouse is approved as one of the top performing and most productive genuine Santa centers on the planet and once again we're prepared to do our best to live up to the trust you put in us for another great holiday season.

In order to ease up your shopping time at Lik Sang, we've compiled these Christmas Buyers Guides as a series to help you out saving time and cutting lines when handling your Christmas list for relatives, family members and friends (not to forget yourself, it being time to get that expensive gear you've been eyeing for months, now that your end-of-year bonus is coming up, either from work or grandma). Whether you're preparing well ahead of time to avoid a stressful break down, or joining us late in the middle of your last minute race, the round-up hereunder is sure to save you precious time by pointing you straight to the good stuff. This particular exhaustive guide covers all the cool gear for Xbox, while the other three articles focus on different systems:

Essential Peripherals for Xbox freaks

No matter which type of gamer you are, we've got the goods. Lik Sang carries the most expansive and exhaustive range of Xbox peripherals, including some sexy exclusive pieces you won't see anywhere else. In that spirit, here we short-listed the most essential accessories a serious Xbox player needs for the ultimate home entertainment experience. Starting with the guy who can't get enough sweet, sweet eye candy, and just acquired a HDTV or any TV allowing component input, high-definition cable options are a must. Microsoft's AV Pack and the third-party component cable are regular hot sellers here, and there's a good reason why - they're great! The improvement in picture quality is immediate with these leads.

For those who like to play with game saves, tricking and cheating around, the Mega X-Key is just the tool they need. Holding 32mb, four times that of a standard memory card, it also comes pre-loaded with many saves, works with all Xbox consoles worldwide, and simply plugs into a PC's USB port for transferring and downloading of new saves. Levels, cars, weapons, lives and other cheats are hidden away inside the games they play, and the Mega X-Key brings them all out!

For the gamer that wants to play it their way, the Dreambox lets them plug their beloved PlayStation and PlayStation 2 controllers into the Xbox, and do it all without sacrificing vibration and memory card support. If on the other hand they only let go of their Xbox controller to go to the bathroom, and even then only because the thing is tethered to the actual Xbox, why would they want to play PC games with anything else? The SmartJoy-X lets them plug their Xbox pad right into their computer, and free downloadable drivers mean it'll work on Windows NT/2000, ME, XP, Mac OS X and even Linux! At just US$ 9.90 too, talk about a great stocking stuffer!

If you see titles in their collection like Halo, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, James Bond, Unreal, Medal of Honor, or any other first person shooter for that matter, they could really take their games to the next level with SmartJoy FRAG. This revolutionary adapter lets them plug a keyboard and mouse into the Xbox, something that's unanimously agreed upon as the best way to play shooters, proving far faster and more accurate than a controller. All buttons (including the Mouse's Scroll-Wheel) are supported, and advanced features such as Deadzone and Mouse Control Inversion let them tweak the controls to their liking. There's a built in memory card and Xbox Live headset slot, and it works with every Xbox game, on every Xbox console. At the new low price of US$ 19.90, the SmartJoy FRAG will be the hottest selling adapter this Christmas.

What SmartJoy FRAG is to first person shooters, Arcade Sticks are to fighting games; the only way for the serious gamer to play. We have three choices for the Xbox, starting at only US$ 34.90 with the X-Fighting Stick. Converted from Sega's original Japanese Virtua Sticks, one of the best ever made, it features turbo, slow motion, auto fire for each independent button, and like each of the three sticks we're looking at here, Micro Switch technology for the best speed, reliability, and durability money can buy.

Next up is the Fighting Stick Ex from Hori, a name synonymous with quality in Japan. Packing a memory card slot at the back, this licensed arcade stick looks great next to the console, and is built tough with a real arcade button layout. Beyond that, we present the massive Street Fighter Anniversary Arcade Stick, made of actual arcade cabinet components, housed in real wood and press board, weighing in at a mighty total of 3.3kg (7.3 lbs). Topped off with a high-quality Street Fighter graphic-wrap, arcade sticks don't get any better than this, and the cherry on the top is it'll even work on a PS2 also. If you still can't choose, we've compiled the reference Arcade Sticks Comparison Chart to ease up the process for you.

Transition to Xbox 360 - The clock is ticking

While the western world is just a few weeks off the Xbox 360 launch, we've received regular enquiries from customers asking us when we'll start taking preorders on this bad boy. Hardcore gamers have learnt Lik Sang is always the first to stock next gen systems, but for the first time the Xbox 360 will prove this belief wrong because of the simple truth; it comes out in Japan last, on December 10th. We won't be first and we don't want to confuse consumers by letting you believe we could be.

Import Gamers who like it hardcore and want their Japanese games played on a Japanese system though, don't worry about a thing as we'll be stocking Xbox 360 Japanese systems from launch day, as well as all Japanese launch titles exclusive to the land of the rising sun. All generic accessories, innovative gear and specialty peripherals to be released here in Asia - whether they come from China, Korea, Japan or Mongolia - will be stocked and sold here as fast as they are assembled together.

The full list of Japanese titles we're taking pre-orders for can be found right here, and at the time of writing, this includes Tetris The Grand Master Ace, Every Party, Shin Sangoku Musou 4 Special, Dead or Alive 4, Fifa 06 Road Two Fifa World Cup, Wrestle Kingdom, eM -eNCHANT arM-, Perfect Dark Zero, Need for Speed Most Wanted, and Ridge Racer .

Special Gaming DVDs

We've also got high quality DVD productions focusing on the gaming lifestyle and events that will please most hardcore players out there, whichever system or platform they prefer. Tokyo Access, the official Tokyo Game Show DVD, and E3 Access, a four disc set boasting 13 hours of coverage, each deliver all the info they crave for the next gen consoles, right down to the press conferences and keynotes speeches. Showcasing all games for the next six months through high resolution movies and exclusive in-game video presentations with the developers, both items are must-have pieces in a gamer's DVD collection.