Customization and personalization, it’s one of J Allard’s big mantra’s for the Xbox 360. He’s got a point as over the last few years we’ve seen all kinds of new ways for people to personalize things. There’s the rising market in the car tuning market, the endless series of crap you can put on your cell phone, and the rise in the ultimate personalization of one’s body through tattoos and piercing (something that I’ll never understand). PC Gamers have been modding their cases for years now so its not too surprising to see a company offering new ways for gamers to customize their consoles.

There are a number of ways you can upgrade the appearance of your console by hand. Most of them involve a dremel and voiding the warranty on your system. If you want a quick style touch-up without having to break out the dremel then you may want to check out the line of Skinz from Gamer Graffix. The skins are basically big decorated stickers that you slap onto your console.

The set I received to review was from the Blue Camouflage set for the Xbox. The Xbox set contains eight different appliqués. Two pieces to cover the X on the top of the system, two pieces for each set of controller ports, one piece for the power/eject button, and three pieces that cover the top edge of the system (one for each side and one in the middle). Installing the skin is easy as you clean the surface of the console, apply the sticker, and then rub out any air bubbles that may have been generated when you put the sticker on the unit.

Since the piece that covers the X on top of the system is made up of two pieces I was a little concerned that there would be a visible seam but after putting skin on the system I realized those fears were unfounded. In order to see the seam you have to get really close to the system to see it. After installing the system I have to say I was pretty impressed with the look of the system after I installed it. While I really didn’t like the white border around the edge of the appliqué that appears to be limited to the one I installed rather than all of the products they offered. It’s also something that can be corrected with a black sharpie.

At $20 or so a pop the Skinz aren’t a bad value. For me this kind of item falls into the category of things that I probably wouldn’t buy for myself but that I would really like to have. Items like the Skinz make perfect gifts for those hard to please gamers in your life. You can buy the Skinz in a couple of retail stores but the better option is to cut out the middle man and buy them directly from the Gamer Graffix website
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