I've been dragging my feet about upgrading my Xbox, but some of the bearings are getting a bit noisy, and the more time I spend with Vista's Media Center the more I want to use the Xbox as an extender. Then there's the gaming side: I quite like driving games and to be honest the wheel I have has been a major disappointment after the force feedback wheel I had on my PC.  I'm quite taken with the Force feedback wheel for the 360 - although it's early days for games which support it. And Halo 3 isn't far away.

I've also had a little bit of good news on the financial front recently so I decided the time had come to treat myself to a 360; you may know that Microsoft has a staff purchase system to let us buy software more-or-less at cost price. Since Consoles are sold with a subsidy, they'd be more expensive than in the shops, so they're not even listed. Which is how I find myself on Amazon - where I found three offers

• Get a free Xbox 360 Entertainment pack (a 2nd wireless controller, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged: Volume 1)

• Get Crackdown & Gears of War for £10 until midnight on May 30, 2007. (£10 the pair, not £10 each - cheaper than staff purchase)

• Get a top game for £30 (from a list of 20 or so) until midnight on May 30, 2007

So I've ordered the console with 20GB hard drive, ethernet cable, HD AV cable and headset, two wireless controllers, PGR3, Crackdown and Gears of War - for less than £279.99 RRP. Now I have to go to the staff purchase site and order the wheel ,the Media remote (a much better design original Xbox DVD bits)and  WiFi adapter (which runs at 54Mbit/sec and turns off with the console. My current 11Mbit one is on 24/7, not very green). Then I have to move my Xbox live subscription over.  So there's still stuff to do to get exactly what I want, but I feel like a big kid a few days before Christmas.