With a built-in Blu-ray player, the Playstation 3 certainly seems to be the multimedia darling of this generation's home game consoles. But don't fret Xbox 360 owners; your little concave bundle of joy has a few tricks up it's sleeve as well.

Several years back, when Microsoft first introduced the Media Center concept to consumers, it seemed like a mighty ambitious undertaking. And it was. A place for all your music, videos, pictures, and even live TV to congregate seemed too good to be true. And, despite stumbling out of the gate just a bit, Windows Media Center has certainly come a long way. While this may seem like ancient history to some of you, it is still important information for those new Xbox 360 owners out there who can now reap the benefits of so much trial and error.

While the original "bladed" dashboard of the Xbox 360 did allow for Media Center connectivity, it was rather tucked away and perhaps didn't receive the promotional time it could have used. Now, with the complete revamping of the dashboard and the introduction of the NXE (New Xbox Experience), new (and perhaps old) 360 owners are going to be wondering what that flashy green icon on their screen is all about. Let us show you how the Windows Media Center can turn your Xbox 360 into a true multimedia powerhouse, and how to get the two to play nice together.

To get the extreme basics out of the way: you'll need an Xbox 360, a PC decent enough to run Windows Media Center (which you also need installed, obviously), a network, wireless or otherwise, and a TV to watch this whole thing come to life before your eyes. Next, you'll want to make sure your Xbox 360 and PC are both running through the same router, or else they simply won't be able to talk to each other. Once you've assured that these things are set and ready to rock, you can boot up both your computer and your Xbox 360.

Guide yourself over to the My Xbox tier of the Xbox 360 dashboard and scroll to the right until you find the gorgeous green menu option titled Windows Media Center. Once you click this icon, your Xbox 360 is going to do a search of your network to see if it can find a suitable PC with Windows Media Center. It should only take a moment for this step to complete, at which point you'll be provided with an 8-digit code that you'll want to make sure you write down.

Now it's time to let your Xbox 360 rest for a moment and give that PC of yours some attention. Boot up Windows Media Center and be prepared for magic to happen. If everything works as it should, you will now be greeted with a message telling you that there's an Xbox 360 on the network that wishes to be used as an extender. If you get this message, follow its prompts. If you don't get this message, you'll need to navigate to the "Add an Extender" icon under the "Tasks" menu of the Media Center itself.

From here, you'll be asked to input the 8-digit code that the Xbox 360 provided you with in the earlier step. Type that bad-boy in and hit enter. The systems will take a moment to decide if they want to play nice or not. They will typically pass this step without much trouble, but if you have any additional firewalls on your network, you'll be prompted with a message telling you that you may want to add some permissions to the firewall's list in order to attain maximum media efficiency. We tested this process on both Windows Vista and XP machines, with two different routers (with firewalls enabled) and while we were prompted with a message both times, it didn't seem to affect the speed or quality of the connection in any way. This isn't to say that the message is entirely without merit, but it might be more of a caution than a necessity.

Once the console and computer have made nice with one another your TV screen will suddenly be transformed into the Windows Media Center. At this point, you should feel a huge sense of accomplishment as you've managed to get two super-advanced pieces of technology to speak the same language. Now, if you never gave Windows Media Center a spin on your computer, you can go ahead and take the tour, which will show you all the wonderful things you can do with it. Or, if you're too lazy to take the tour (we would be), you can let us tell you about some of the more interesting things to do -- Some of our favorite things to do with this connectivity are:

• Direct the Music player to your iTunes folder for hours of Xbox 360-controller-controlled music (perfect for parties).
• Set the Media Center to play your pictures folder as a slideshow (perfect for family gatherings).
• Use the Media Center's video capabilities to stream all of those TOTALLY LEGAL movie downloads straight to your TV (perfect for date night).

Now that you have the know-how to set up your Xbox 360-to-Windows Media Center relationship, and a few cool ideas of what to do once you've completed the merge, you should definitely be the hit of your next at-home social gathering, whoever it may be with.