i was planning on taking my 360 with me to buy the game this morning to get the update (no broadband line at home).have been thinking of leaving it though until later (when more patches were available).is the game still playable without the patch,or does it crash/lock up e.t.c (as you can tell am not fully up to date with the patch situation).thanks,and apologies for being the 100th+person to start a thread about this

People have been playing it without the patch, so it's definitely playable. I'd recommend getting the patch ASAP though.

Yep, but you won't be able to connext to Xbox LIVE while playing Skyrim if you don't update it.

Man,do you really think that Bethesda is going to release a unplayable game?.

There are patchnotes in the Hardware and Software Issues forum. The bugs listed there could possibly pop up while playing.
But so far I haven't run into any while playing offline. No crashes and such anyway.