and that console is......Xbox Live!
I have had my Xbox going on two years now, but have always been worried about how the wireless network adapter would work (as my internet is not that great to begin with) and it was always too difficult to physically link the 360 and the net. So I held back, and have contented myself with offline singly player experiences, which have still been awesome.
Finally last week I bit the bullet and tried it out. The net works fine and HOLY SHIT Xbox Live is awesome.
It really is like having an entirely new console. Playing all the games I love on multiplayer, opening capabilities in games I hadn't been able to experience before (e.g Team Fortress 2 in the Orange Box), getting new updates for games (Burnout Paradise, SO AWESOME), purchasing games (Braid, Rock Band DLC, GTA The Lost and Damned Brother).

I wasn't really expecting a lot out of Xbox Live, not being a huge fan of online multiplayer. But this has gone far beyond my expectations. It also is making me consider purchasing games that I had previously only hired because of their short single player (CoD4 is the main example of this)

The only negative is the struggle to find a good Australian online community to decrease the lag somewhat. But the lage isn't even all that bad on the majority of games.

I just hope that my internet keeps liking this and that I don't use all our allotted bandwidth