You’ve read the previews, watched the TV commercials, trolled the Internet message boards, made a down payment on your pre-order and had inappropriate dreams about Bill Gates wearing nothing more than come-hither smile and a chiffon pirate shirt and – hold on! Ahem. Yes. We were supposed to be talking about the Xbox here, which you’ve undoubtedly been awaiting with such breathless anticipation that the countdown to Nov. 15 has seemed like the night before Christmas when you were praying for that Micronauts Stratastation to be under the tree. Times a thousand. Right?

What are you, STUPID? Don’t you know the Xbox is bigger than a Volkswagen, prone to catastrophic Blue Screen of Death crashes and will get viruses the second you go online because it’s running Windows? Besides, the Xbox has no good games that aren’t already on the PS2. Which is OK, because you can play Xbox games on a PC anyway.

But wait a minute … how can that be? The Xbox is many times more powerful than the PS2 and is the absolute toast of the developer community, which has been rallying around the machine because it’s the only console capable of letting them realize their creative visions. Plus it has absolutely no load times, you can play your own custom music soundtracks in any game you want and Dolby Digital 5.1 support is built right in to every title! It is the greatest console in the history of gaming and will destroy all others! Kneel! Kneel before Xbox, and bathe in its awesome greenish glow!

I swear to whatever merciless deity that dwells in the heavens above, if I hear just one more brain-dead anti-Xbox myth or unsubstantiated bit of Xbox fanboy hype, I’m going smack the offending doofus upside the head with one of those meaty Xbox controllers.

Whether it’s because the Xbox bears the baggage of being a high-profile Microsoft product or because it’s in the unenviable position of being an underdog in what could well be the most vicious console war of all time, the amount of misinformation floating around about Bill's big black box is staggering. It seems to come in two forms: malicious anti-Xbox bullpoop so rank it makes that rancid earwax I had during a recent infection smell sweet by comparison, and glowing hype so preposterous it wouldn’t seem out of place in a movie blurb from Sixty Second Previews.

As hundreds of thousands of good boys and girls get their hands on Microsoft’s first kick at the console cat this week, we thought we’d have some fun exploding a few of the myths and doing a reality check on some of the hype surrounding the Xbox, just so you know what to expect inside when you get that massive package home and open it up. And no, it won’t be Bill Gates in a chiffon pirate shirt. Drat.

MYTH #1: You will get a hernia if you lift an Xbox with your back instead of your legs. Also, you may need to get rid of your coffee table to make room for the console. Or better yet, put four legs on your Xbox and it can take the place of your coffee table.

FACT: Let’s hold hands and say it together, kids: The Xbox is NOT ALL THAT BIG. Yes, it is larger than the PS2 … a little more than an inch wide, about four inches deeper and just a shade taller. And yes, it makes the teensy weensy Nintendo GameCube look sort of like a Fisher-Price toy by comparison. (Wait a minute … the GameCube already looks sort of like a Fisher-Price toy. My mistake.) But unless you live in a refrigerator box behind the Safeway – in which case, what the heck are you doing spending money on video game consoles? – the Xbox’s marginally larger size should not pose a problem in your own living environment. The biggest danger of having an Xbox in the house is mistaking it for the VCR and then getting upset because you can’t set the timer to record The West Wing while you’re at yoga.

MYTH #2: And that controller! Only a Sasquatch has big enough hands to comfortably hold it.

FACT: You know what they say about guys with small hands, which is perhaps why so many of these tiny-pawed little elflings like to rag on the Xbox controller. We’ve played with it for many hours now and can say this: while not the best design in the history of console gaming, the Xbox controller is very comfortable to hold and use, even by someone with small hands. Er, at least that’s what a guy with small hands told me. Yeah, that’s the ticket. The analog sticks strike a great balance between stiffness and sensitivity (just like the ideal man, eh ladies?) and all of the primary buttons are easy to get at (just like the ideal woman, eh … oh, never mind.) The controller’s two triggers feel great, the vibration is solid and the D-pad is serviceable, if not inspired. The biggest personal gripe I have with the Xbox controller is that the four primary buttons are oval and laid out in a slanted diamond pattern, rather than being round and spaced evenly apart. But given the plethora of third-party controllers out there, finding one to your liking if the Microsoft flavor doesn’t live up to your needs shouldn’t be too difficult.

MYTH #3: Because the Xbox runs Windows, it will be prone to illegal operation errors, Internet viruses and Blue Screen of Death crashes. But at least you can load Microsoft Word on the hard drive and get some work done when you’re not gaming.

FACT: The Xbox does not "run Windows" in the sense you think of Windows. It runs a specialized Xbox operating system based on the Windows 2000 kernel, but with every single extraneous function peeled away and special Xbox-specific application programming interface goodies mixed in. There is no desktop, no MS-DOS prompt, no man hidden behind the curtain pulling levers and switches. Heck, the OS is incapable of even running more than one program at a time. So, take Microsoft’s most stable OS ever, strip it down to the bare bones then tweak it for performance on one and only one hardware configuration (that being the Xbox’s, in case you’re not paying attention), and you have a recipe for stability. And since it doesn’t "run Windows" any more than George Dubya "runs the country" all this nonsense about BSoDs and viruses is poppycock. And not the good caramel-covered popcorn kind either.

MYTH #4: You big liar! The Xbox demo kiosk at my local Toys "R" Electronics Boutique-Mart was never up and running, and the mean lady behind the counter said it was because the console kept crashing!

FACT: That was actually a problem with the first batch of demo disks that were sent out to retailers, which contained some old software code that was conflicting with the current Xbox hardware. A careless and stupid public relations mistake on Microsoft’s part, but that’s really all it was. There have been no reports so far of final Xbox hardware crashing while running Xbox games, though a certain number of defective units is expected with any new console launch. Just look at the PS2.

MYTH #5: The Xbox uses an Intel CPU, an Nvidia graphics processing unit, 64 MB of RAM and a hard drive. It’s just an underpowered PC inside an ugly black case.

FACT: All current generation consoles have a CPU, a GPU, one or more coprocessors, RAM, a CD or DVD drive of some sort and so on. Some, like the PS2, also have standard USB and FireWire ports and offer an add-on hard drive, modem, keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor. If that ain't a PC, what is? Consoles are specialized computers at heart, the Xbox just happens to be a specialized computer that uses some familiar PC components and architecture. While the Xbox does share some internal similarities with PCs, everything has been designed from the ground up for one task: playing games. As one Usenet wag said, putting a Corvette engine in a Cessna doesn’t suddenly make it a sports car instead of an airplane. It’s still designed for flying in the sky, not for driving along the ground and helping you compensate for your small, um, hands. And no, for the love of Pete, Mary and Joe, you cannot play Xbox games on a PC (or vice versa), there is not an emulator that will allow you to do so, and there will not be an emulator anytime in the foreseeable future. Like, before the Xbox2 comes out.

MYTH #6: Because the Xbox has so many similarities to a PC, 90% of all Xbox games will show up on the PC right after they’re released on the Xbox.

FACT: Porting a game from the Xbox to the PC or vice versa is not as easy as just running the code through the Port-o-Matic machine and having it come out all shined up and ready to go. That being said, this common dig at the Xbox ignores two very important facts: One, it is not in Microsoft’s best interests to let Xbox developers port their games quickly to the PC, nor to let PC developers dash off quick n’ dirty ports of their games for the Xbox. In order to make money on the console, Microsoft needs to sell games. Lots of games. And how many games do you think they’ll sell if gamers realize they can simply wait two months and play any Xbox game on their PC? Or how many games will Microsoft sell if the Xbox garners a reputation as a dumping ground for half-assed PC ports? Big Bill has not sunk hundreds of gajillions of dollars into the Xbox just to piddle it away by alienating gamers. This ain’t Windows, folks, people DO have alternatives. And they’ll happily vote with their wallets if the Xbox doesn’t deliver. And two – yes, there was a two – console games and PC games are very different beasts. What works well on one platform often suffers on the other. When was the last time you played a real-time strategy game on a console? Or crowded three friends around your 17" monitor to play a sports title on your PC? Exactly.

MYTH #7: Yeah, well, every Xbox game will be a PS2 port anyway.

FACT: Given that Sony has already shipped something like 20 million PS2s worldwide, a developer would have to suffer from serious money allergies not to see it as an attractive platform. The Xbox is the new kid on the block, it doesn’t have Sony’s installed base or Nintendo’s legendary first-party franchises. Thus it’ll take a little while for the post-launch exclusive triple-A games to come. With a few exclusive killer apps like Halo, Project Gotham Racing and Dead or Alive 3, the Xbox has got enough launch momentum to rack up some good early sales, which will then help make it a more attractive platform for game developers, which will increase the Xbox’s sales, and so on. If this snowball effect sputters to a halt, the Xbox is doomed, and Microsoft knows that. Which is why they will fight tooth, nail and giant bag o’ money to make sure the Xbox gets exclusives, of which there are already dozens in development. As a secondary measure, most games that are ported from the PS2 to the Xbox (or released concurrently on more than one platform) pick up some extra content and graphical sparkle on the way, as with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2X or the upcoming Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, both of which have Xbox-exclusive levels. So the argument could be made, why buy it now on the PS2 when you can get a better version on the Xbox in three months?

MYTH #8: PlayStation 2 games get better as time goes on because developers learn how to program for the machine’s legendarily obtuse hardware. The Xbox is simple to program for, so the games will never look any better than they do at launch.

FACT: Well, actually, I sort of believed this one until Microsoft’s Xbox guru Seamus Blackley laughed out loud when I told him, and then said he was going to go back to Redmond and share that one with the boys. I think his point was that many first-generation Xbox games already look better than second-generation PS2 games, and that gap can only get wider as time goes on. Developers with less at stake in the Xbox back this statement up to a degree, saying the Nvidia NV2A GPU has many tricks up its sleeve that will take time to exploit to their fullest, to say nothing of the whole new design possibilities opened up with the inclusion of a whopping 64 MB of unified RAM and a roomy hard drive.

We could probably go on if it wasn’t already past bedtime. But we need to address the evil twin of misinformed mythery, and that’s harebrained hype. One thing that Microsoft does very, very well is market its products, and sometimes that includes bold overstatements that set any jaded gamer’s eyes a-rollin’. Now that we’ve actually spent many hours with the big black box, there are a few breathless claims that we’d like to pop like the hot-air-filled balloons they are.

HYPE #1: Xbox is the future of online gaming.

REALITY: That may well be, but the key word here is future. Despite Microsoft’s heavy promotion of the Xbox’s built-in broadband adapter, the Xbox will not be online until next spring at the very earliest. Right now you can link Xboxes together LAN-style for multiplayer gaming (and there’s always good ol’ splitscreen mode), but online gaming for the Xbox faithful is still months away, and we’ve yet to see what form it will take or whether it will succeed as a viable component of the console experience. In the meantime, games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 for the PS2 are already playable online, if you don’t mind shelling out for a third party USB Ethernet adapter.

HYPE #2: Thanks to the console's hard drive, Xbox games have virtually no load times.

REALITY: I’m not sure what the origin of this one is, whether it’s some selective Microsoft marketing bafflegab or a misunderstanding among Xbox fans. The cold hard reality is the game data has to get from the disc into memory somehow, and no amount of hocus pocus with the hard drive will change that. In the hands of the right developer, the hard drive can be used to drastically shorten in-game load times by caching game data in the background – take Halo’s near-instantaneous level transitions, for instance. But then also look at Halo’s 30-second load times before each mission (fortunately there are only 10 missions in the game, and they’re each massive enough to provide an hour or more of gameplay, so you end up spending very little time looking at loading screens.) In Project Gotham Racing, each new track loads much the same as any other racing game on any other console, albeit perhaps slightly faster. One nice advantage to the Xbox is that saved games are stored to and retrieved from the hard drive, doing away with the likes of the PS2’s excruciatingly slow memory card access. But zero load times? Don’t get your hopes up.

HYPE #3: All Xbox games are in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, and you can rip your own MP3 game soundtracks to the hard drive from your CD collection.

REALITY: While the Xbox hardware can do Dolby Digital encoding on the fly – the only console with that capability hardwired into the machine's guts – it’s up to the developers to make use of it in their games. Several of the high-profile launch games include full 5.1 surround (and lemme tell ya, playing Halo in true surround sound is a near-religious experience), but it’s quite likely that many third-party games won’t. Wanna play Konami's Air Force: Delta Storm in full, glorious 5.1 surround? Too bad, because the game doesn't support it. As for the custom soundtracks, that’s another feature that must be specifically coded into each game. Yes, you can listen to your Don Ho mix while playing Project Gotham, but not while playing Munch’s Oddysee (which is really too bad, because some of those tunes get freakin’ repetitive.) And last but not least, the songs are ripped to the hard drive in WMA format, not MP3, and the Xbox’s DVD drive can’t read CD-Rs either, so you won’t be able to dump your Gnutella booty onto the hard drive in one fell swoop.

HYPE #4: Since the Xbox does antialiasing in hardware, jaggies are a thing of the past.

REALITY: There's no arguing that the Xbox is a graphics powerhouse, but if you're expecting a completely jaggie-free gaming experience, you're going to be a little disappointed. It's a video game console, not a high-end CGI workstation. Although aliasing is virtually non-existent in some games, it's surprisingly present in others, including marquee title Project Gotham Racing. Even some of the indoor environments in Halo reveal stairstepping artifacts along the edges. Part of the reason is regular TVs just can't display the kind of resolutions needed to show Xbox games at their finest – we've truly reached an age where our consoles are outstripping our television sets. But there is hope on the horizon: Xbox has built-in HDTV support. Combine an Xbox game that supports HDTV output with one of those $4,000 flatscreen 16:9 wonders and you have an unparalleled console gaming experience. And while you're at it, buy me one too. Seriously though, HDTV support could become the Xbox's ace in the hole in a couple of years when the price of the sets comes down to reasonable levels.

HYPE #5: Developers will defect to the Xbox from the PS2 because Microsoft’s machine is so much easier to program for. Plus, the Xbox has the power to let them create games the way they envision them.

REALITY: Be that as it may, if you were to ask indie film directors if they’d be willing to sacrifice a little creative vision for a big Hollywood box office payday, most would be looking for the dotted line to sign on. Until the Xbox has a large enough installed base, or at least makes it clear that a large installed base is a likelihood, only the most devoted of developers will be willing to forego the PS2 paycheque to flex their wings on the Xbox. Which isn’t to say it hasn’t happened already (as with Tecmo's DOA3) or won’t happen again. Just that all the power and ease of development in the world – two things which the GameCube also boasts, by the way – don’t mean much if you can’t cover the development costs through sales of the game. Realistically, there aren’t many Xbox launch games that couldn’t be done on another next-gen platform, albeit with less graphical splendor and maybe missing a few other features. But when developers really do start pushing the envelope with the Xbox, it’ll be a different story. Keep your fingers crossed, because that could be a glorious time indeed.

HYPE #6: XBOX IS GOD. KNEEL BEFORE XBOX! KNEEL BEFORE BILL GATES IN HIS SEXY CHIFFON PIRATE SHIRT!

REALITY: Yeah, OK, this one is true. Carry on.