Home improvement is a constant process as any home owner knows. I speak from experience when I tell you that you never stop looking for ways to enhance your living space and make your home a more enjoyable place to live and entertain.

At Coldwell Banker Real Estate, we see a lot of high end properties listed by some our top agents across the globe. Recently I was in a newly renovated luxury property that had every high tech home feature you could imagine. As a guy who loves his gadgets, I asked about what kind of media center the family room had. The agent explained how it was one of the most sophisticated media hubs on the market and went on to tell him everything that it did.

I won’t even tell you how much it cost, but I walked away with a single thought: my Xbox 360 can do everything that top of the line media center can.

I’ve found more and more homes on coldwellbanker.com touting the availability of a home media center as a big selling point, but what many people don’t realize is one of the best media centers you can get is quite affordable and available at almost any electronics store in the country. It’s an Xbox 360.

The purpose of a media center is to centralize your entertainment in one place and make it accessible through your high end TV and speaker system. My Xbox 360 has the ability to take all my music, videos and photos from my computer and wirelessly stream them to my home theater system. So every picture from a family vacation or video of my 3 boys is able to be enjoyed on my 50 inch TV without connecting any wires.

Not only that, but with the addition of Xbox Kinect I can also video chat with any of my friends and family that also have an Xbox Kinect right through my TV. As someone who uses Skype, I can tell you that video chat through a TV is a way more engaging and entertaining venue. And the quality of the video is surprisingly great.

Through the Xbox 360 dashboard, I can instantly rent movies, TV shows, watch live sporting events and more. Plus the Kinect allows me to toss my remote aside and control everything with my hands or my voice. You have no idea how impressive it is when watching a movie with friends and you say, “Xbox Pause” and the movie immediately stops. Yup, you’re officially master of your domain.

So while the high end of the market spends thousands of dollars on the most elegant of media centers, I’m telling you that you can upgrade your family room with a much more affordable purchase of an Xbox 360.

Oh, one more thing! Did you know it can also play video games?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user SobControllers