Console Debate #5: Xbox 360

[Kguillemette | 1,543]

I was mostly absent for this gen. I don't play, nor particularly enjoy AAA titles, so there really isn't much for me on this console save a space few indies. Loved Tales of Vesperia though. The Wii does everything I want from this gen, anyway.

That being said, the controller is fire money.

I enjoy the fact that games are dirt ass cheap for the 360 right now.

5/10

Edited December 6, 2020 by Kguillemette

[CMR | 518]

Fantastic console while it was working.

 

[koifish | 555]

Not sure what I'd rate this system. We got it because the wii sucked noodles and because my brother or I or somebody wanted to play Rock Band. A year or two later and Lost Planet 2 had come out, but by that point 360 was already useless to me. I had a gaming PC, and Demon's Souls had just come out, so nobody in my friend group wanted a 360 anymore, save for the Halo and CoD kiddies. I think I probably played all of two games on this thing, I have almost no memory of anything released on it, and even after reading this thread, I have no positive feelings to express about any of the games people have named as being big influences for their appreciation. I mean, fallout 3? Seriously? Don't make me laugh.

The only thing I would use as a positive for this box is that, as others have pointed out, the 360 sort of gave birth to the indie platform that was needed to keep certain small-time efforts alive. Yet, I cannot give that really as a positive, when the systems like 360 were the reason that many good companies and devteams and game series fell off the face of the earth in the first place. Granted, the PS3 owes a lion's share of the blame for murdering JP devs, which are what I really care about here, but the 360 had its share. Still however, I must accept that what happened to smalltime dev was probably inevitable; The costs have gone up ever since the very beginning. It's not like we were just going to be able to make games on comparatively small budgets forever. It is just hard for me, however, to look beyond how this system really felt like the beginning of the end (along with PS3). I remember thinking that 6th gen was killing off gaming with the popularity of games like Halo and GTA, and how they were affecting other games and their development. I feel like 360 just turned that influence factor on overdrive, and saw a dark cloud fall upon gaming that I'm not sure has ever lifted. I think more than this, however, which admittedly again can be tied to more than just 360, is that I hate the other additions to gaming that sort of came through and were cemented by MS and the Xbox lineage. This was the console series that upended PC gaming and sort of strong-armed PC devs to make console games, and perhaps marked the death of uniquely PC-focused games. This was the company that standardized the garbage bin practice of paid online play, which still to this day I will never pay for or endorse. This is the platform that turned DLC from a horse armor joke into a fact of life, and which invited an entire new level of scummy practices into the industry. Even achievements, I think, are worthy of derision, as I never thought of them as much, other than another way to be annoyed by games being purposely turned into ways to track player engagement, or worse, encourage addictive behavior.

I know that it is not 100% responsible for all of these things, and I know that this is something of a trajectory of what gaming was going toward, but with how much the 360 both embodied and relished in these various horsemen of gaming apocalypse, I can't really say that I like it in any measure. Maybe there's some redeeming factors which I have overlooked, and maybe someday I'll enjoy or like it, but we will see. For now, I call it a wreck, a big disappointment in gaming history for me.

Then there's the little gripes. The horrible hardware reliability, the pointless HD-DVD add-on, the accursed paid online play, the fact that wi-fi wasn't included and cost 100 dollars, despite even the DS having wifi included free a year earlier, the stupid MS points system where they purposely avoid 1:1 payment amounts to confuse/deceive the consumer about the values of items/cost of items, there is just so much I disliked about this sytem. Seriously, about the only good thing I liked about 360 was that it used AA batteries for the wireless controllers. I hate that dualshock 3s use proprietary batteries that are hard to remove. I love that MS stays committed to simple, standard, removable batteries, and that's the one thing I really hold them up as doing right. The rest of it though? I can't say that I like MS much at all, and the 360 sort of wraps up everything I hate about MS and their gaming contributions, and puts a big green bow on it.

Overall I'm not sure what score I'll put on this one, but it's probably not going to be any higher than 2 or 3. Owned it for several years and still have no idea what was worthwhile about it.

[Tulpa | 3,488]

I'm actually a little surprised people are calling the 360 controller "perfect", because the d-pad was garbage, IMO. I know it wasn't used as much as the sticks, but still.

[koifish | 555]

3 hours ago, Tulpa said:

I'm actually a little surprised people are calling the 360 controller "perfect", because the d-pad was garbage, IMO. I know it wasn't used as much as the sticks, but still.

Oh yeah, this is what I forgot. The 360 d-pad was about the worst thing since the painfully chunky dreamcast one that made my thumb sore playing shenmue. Reminds me of an image I saw when Mega Man 9 was announced, that depicted megaman looking at the 360 d-pad and proceeding to weep at the thought of relying on it for anything beyond the most unimportant button prompts.

[fox | 1,665]

+Easy to use Online Gaming
+HD Graphics
+Wireless controllers
+Achievements
+Netflix
+Big library of AAA games
+Spotlight on smaller indie titles

-Red Ring of Death
-Too much Kinect

360 kind of got me back into gaming.  It was very approachable since it made online gaming (friend lists, voice chat, party chat) a breeze,  there were no more tangled controller cords, and HD graphics were easy on the eyes.  Achievements were a welcome new addition that added a lot of replay value to titles.  It was the first console to have Netflix, so it quickly became the way we watched tv/movies.  There were a big chunk of worthwhile AAA games to play, but they also took time to spotlight indie games via Xbox Live Arcade and Summer/Winter of Arcade events that made these releases feel like a big deal.

As much as I enjoyed the system, the faulty hardware really brings it down.  The Red Ring of Death hit me hard!  I got burned 3x, the first two were under warranty so I did send it in and they were replaced, that was still 2 or 3 weeks I missed out on gaming.  But the 3^rd time was way later and I had to buy a whole new system to replace it.  I was not happy about it, but was too invested in the 360 ecosystem with games and accessories to abandon it.  Also later in the console’s life, it seemed the good releases kind of dried up as Microsoft doubled down on Kinect and motion controls, which made me lose a lot of interest in the system.

[Estil | 1,261]

On 12/6/2020 at 5:03 PM, CMR said:

Fantastic console while it was working.

Fantastic employee when he feels like showing up...on time...and not half hung over...  

It's like Jesse Ventura once said (though back then it was about a fellow governor at the time but I digress), the Xbox 360 would never make it as a Navy SEAL or a Frogman because if you say the words "I quit", you're gone!

I don't care how great the 360 might've been (I don't see much of anything special from it as far as exclusives go though) what good is that if it'll just quit on you?    I mean would you like it if an otherwise fantastic car just half the time quits on you?  

Edited December 10, 2020 by Estil

[JamesRobot | 5,786]

I had a lot of good times hanging out with @Richardhead playing 360 and constantly whoopin his ass at Fight Night.  Tons of good games, Live Arcade, and the best modern controller. 

Despite all its flaws, 360 is the 2nd greatest console of all time behind the Nintendo.  Had to knock it down to a 9 due to the RRD and the fact that it's near impossible for me to transfer all of my digital assets to my third 360.

 

[Tanooki | 4,929]

Objectively a 3/10.  The system was shit out of the box, years of failures for so many people they just kept revising and failing giving years of free warranty.  And to what end?  By that time they took the idea of they control PC Windows do they put their IP on there too, so why bother?  A buggy box with good capped performance, or play on PC that won't melt down and play superior.  Unless on a can't buy a decent pc budget, it was a pointless source of aggravation.  Better off on either other choice at the time.

[AstralSoul | 502]

I think out of all the Xbox consoles this one had the most amount of appeal to me, but never enough for me to buy one. Most of the games that I wanted on it I had on PS3 so to me it wasn't worth it to have both. I didn't like Halo enough to buy it for that nor despite being a Rareware fan, I wasn't compelled enough to buy a new Banjo-Kazooie or Perfect Dark or any of their other new games. Part of me always wanted one but the other, logical part of me knew there was never enough exclusives to justify getting one in addition to PS3. Overall not a bad console and had I not had a PS3 I would've enjoyed it just fine. 7/10

[Sumez | 2,930]

I'm completely unbiased when it comes to console publishers, and I get that Microsoft's foray into the video game industry comes with a lot of asterisks.

But completely on its own merit, the X360 (once it got past its now-standard initial problems) is a major player, clear-cut "winner" of its generation, inheriting the status previously held by the SNES, PS1 and PS2. Sporting a massive library of some of the best games ever made, right down to obscure import curiosities.
I still play my Xbox360 regularly, unlike most other older consoles newer than the 16-bit generation.

Of course the PS3 has most of the same games, so the X360 wins out almost exclusively in the games it has over that one. The two aren't that different otherwise.
Other points in the Xbox's favor though is probably the best first-party controller at the time (ignoring the non-functional D-pad) and much smaller patches compared to the PS3 which felt like it had to update stuff constantly.

[Sumez | 2,930]

I guess I gotta give some more points in favor of Xbox Live Arcade, too.
I'm not a fan of purely digital distribution, but the effort really kickstarted the wave of modern indie games that's almost dominating video games nowadays - most of which couldn't find a home on PS3 partly due to Sony's aversion to 2D games.

Starting out, XBLA also had limitation on download size which I think actually worked in its favor, as well as the requirement that every game has a free demo - that's something I really miss in modern digital distribution.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

I was unpacking all my 360 games the last few days and I was again reminded of the insane abundance of great games for this system. Really really impressive and too many to list. Sadly (or thankfully, depending on your perspective), this is the generation where almost everything started coming to PC as well, lessening the value of the console experience.

 

[GPX | 1,369]

FWIW, I’ve had 2 consoles over the span of 12 years and they both still work to this day. I’ve never experienced the RRD phenomena, thankfully. The second console was purchased some 5-6 years ago due to having more gigs in the hard drive.

I don’t play the main modern games these days since ~ 2010 but still play regularly the Arcade Live games on it. This is more a reflection of a busy lifestyle with work/family, rather than no main games worth playing. 

I have 100+ games downloaded over the years and looking forward to trying them all out when time permits. Console is a solid 8/10 with a nice blend of modern/classic gaming.

 

[drxandy | 3,225]

I missed this gen, but played friends during it's lifespan and last year finally got one. Everyone has made such good points I don't have much to add, there's a ton of really great games for cheap! Also a bunch of sweet shmups for the system. 

[drxandy | 3,225]

Somehow I triple posted, sorry yall

Edited December 17, 2020 by drxandy

[drxandy | 3,225]

Ope plz delete

Edited December 17, 2020 by drxandy

[Sumez | 2,930]

38 minutes ago, drxandy said:

Also a bunch of sweet shmups for the system. 

It's probably the best console for shooters, beating out even the Saturn.

[croagunk | 798]

I’d say 6/10. I like the games I have on the Xbox 360, but not a whole lot of other ones interest me. The exclusives don’t really appeal to me.