Here are some tips and trick you will find useful for playing your favorite games and using the console properly.

Playing your favorite music:

Whether you are in a game or not, Xbox 360 allows you listen to your favorite music from a number of sources. After setting up the console, you just need to press the `Guide` button to load up the music and play in your favorite game. The dashboard of the Xbox that runs in the background can mute and override the music that is in the game. However, the original Xbox games that run via backwards compatibility don`t allow this feature.

Use your audio CD:

You have the option of inserting your CD into the hard drive of Xbox 360. But you must remember that you can get only 12GB of free space in the hard drive of the console. You can free up maximum 1 gigabyte of space by deleting pre-loaded media. Alternatively, you can use any form of sharing of your 360 if you have large collection of music. While playing your MP3 off a thumbdrive or portable harddrive, ensure that the drive is formatted with FAT32 file system as the 360 is not able to read from hard drive formatted with NTFS. For the Xbox 360 owners with an old hard drive it may be a problem.

Checking for the NTFS:

Want to check if your portable drive is NTFS? The simple process is to connect to your PC and enter to the control panel and then administrative tools. After opening the computer management, select the Disk Management to find out your portable drive in the list. You will find the file system that it in use.

Switch-on and switch-off:

There is a simple feature of turning on and off your Xbox 360. Press the `Guide` button on your controller and hold it for some time to power on the console. Again, you can follow the same process when the console is on to find a little side bar with options for either shutting down the whole console or turning off the wireless controller.

Protecting the console from overheating:

The power under the hood of Xbox360 is more than any modern PC and it hence, the device needs proper airflow. Hence, you need to make sure that the console is exposed to enough ventilation while using it to keep it from overheating. Generally, the console remains warm while running the game, but you have to make sure that the console doesn`t get too hot making it difficult to touch. You can follow some of the safety measures to keep the device cool.

Compatibility:

Although the USB storage devices, standard thumbdrives and iPods work with the Xbox 360, most of the MP3 players won`t work. For more information on the devices that don`t work, you can check the list on the website of Microsoft. In such cases you may have to update the software of your MP3 player to make it compatible. In case there is a need for that, you must make backups of the data.

Changing the Position:

It is more about caution that tip. You must not change the position of the Xbox360 from vertical to horizontal or vice versa when there is a disc inside the DVD drive.

There are many other necessary must-do tips for the Xbox 360 users. You can follow them for better performance of the console.