When November 22nd, 2005 arrived, I was one of the many people willing to pay an extra hundred or two in order to secure an Xbox 360. Despite purchasing one there, I managed to get an Xbox 360 Core the next day at a local store, giving me two consoles. That's how excited I was about Microsoft's new system : I didn't care that I had just spent a grand for the same product twice. After all, the original Xbox had absolutely everything that I had ever wanted in a system during that generation, and it was only right that I become an early adopter of its successor.
On an almost daily basis, I played the system and any game that I could throw at it. I bought a ton of XBLA games and whatever decent game I could get my hands of, ignoring all of the bad press the system was getting even within its first few weeks. 'Red ring of death,' I thought, 'I always take care of my system, there's no way that it will happen to me!'
Several months later, during some marathon session of Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, my system froze and displayed a red ring upon restart. Having had a good deal of experience with technology and computer repair, I did the first thing that came to mind and unplugged the system from the wall. Upon restart, everything was playing as it was before. I averted death, how lucky.
In the humid month of August, I eventually got a hold of Dead Rising. I had heard nothing but good things about the game on forums so it was a given that I would pick it up once I had a chance. I first played the game for two hours without any problems. Then, I could only manage around 45 minutes before it froze. Then, around 15. Finally, it started freezing within 5 minutes. 'Blast it,' I thought, 'Capcom seriously dropped the ball on this one.' It never occurred to me that the console was at fault, I was absolutely sure that Capcom had simply released a buggy game. Then, I figured I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and began to play the game with different configurations. No wireless controller, no hard disk, wireless controller only, memory card only, etc.. Nothing could solve the problem. I was eventually convinced that it was the system's fault and put it up for sale, thinking that as long as the buyer doesn't play Dead Rising, he will be fine since every other game works fine. I even let him know about the Dead Rising problem and he was very understanding.
Within a day of the sale, I bought another Xbox 360. This one played the game perfectly but if any game was paused for more than ten minutes, the drive would stop spinning leading to a console freeze. Thus, I returned it and got my third console.
During this time, I had the chance to buy a 20 gig PS3 and a Wii. Neither of the two lasted more than a month with me : not because of their reliability, but simply because I thought both systems were trash. To tell you the truth, the Wii still IS trash in my opinion and the PS3 -- that lasted a good six days in my home -- was so demoralizingly awful at that point in time (December 2006) that it could not compare to the Xbox 360 on its worst day, at least to me.
The third console worked fine for a good eight months and then, one day, decided it no longer wanted to read any of my discs. Lucky for me, I had purchased an extended warranted with EB Games (GameStop in the United States) and was thus able to exchange the console on the spot. Because of my experience, I asked if I could purchase a new extended warranty and was told that I could, for double the price, and that my next exchange would be for a refurbished system : not very alluring. However, it was a strong signal that I wasn't the only one in my area suffering through these kinds of problems. Suddenly the paranoia I was reading all over various forums online seemed a lot more factual. The Xbox 360's problems no longer seemed isolated, they seemed widespread. During this time, I started telling my girlfriend that it might be a good idea for me to consider dropping the console in favor of the PS3. I just couldn't handle the idea of having to buy a new machine every year.
Luckily for me, Microsoft announced that it was beginning to offer a three-year warranty on the system because of the reported problem. Suddenly, Microsoft seemed to be dealing with the problem. It gave me the impression that not only were they going to take responsibility for the atrocity they released to the public since 2005 but that they would put some thought into improving the system, reliability-wise, for the future.
The fourth console lasted a good 14 months. When it happened, I was completely shocked. After managing to survive a year unscathed, I was convinced that the machine was one of the good ones and that I would never have to see the thing go down for any one of a number of reasons. Then, while playing NHL 2K9 against someone that I could have easily beaten (I was competing for that week's first place position), my game suddenly froze on me. I found this unusual since NHL 2K9 had never frozen on me even once before in an online match. At first, I figured that it was just a reality of consumer technology and was only mildly annoyed by the occurrence. Then, when I turned the system back on, I saw my first prolonged red ring of death. The problem that so many anonymous users had complained about in forums had finally hit me. I sat there, staring at the ring, trying to keep my cool and prevent myself from throwing everything I had bought for the Xbox 360 out of the window in favor of the PS3. Then, after a good fifteen minutes, I figured I'd go over to the local Blockbuster, the only store place open at that time of the night, and get myself an Arcade version of the machine. It was a fix, but it did little to save Microsoft's image in my eyes.
That was in late October 2008. From that point on, I bought a good number of games and tried to go on as though none of this garbage had ever happened. I was a Microsoft fanboy and knew that my experience on the system was way better than whatever the PS3 users were going through. However, I never stopped wondering how much the PS3 experience had improved since the six days that I owned the machine. I kept pondering the idea of getting myself a PS3 and often made offers for machines I found on craigslist and kijiji but never went through with any of them.
Then, on my birthday of February 24th, I came across the sweetest deal I had ever seen : a man who had received a 160 gig PS3 bundle as a gift was trying to unload the machine because he already owned a backward-compatible 60 gig version. For 350$ cash, I would get the highest end model of the PS3, Uncharted, two controllers and a Blu-Ray remote. NEW. After promising to buy it from him, I tried to get out of the deal. However, he was very convincing on the phone so I offered to meet up with him and test the machine in full before buying it.
I drove to the downtown area of Montreal and watched the PS3 power on and play a disc flawlessly. I then realized that I was moments away from owning a new console for literally half the price that it would have cost me in the store. Therefore, I threw 350$ on his coffee table and ran out of the apartment before he could realize how much he was getting ripped off.
On my ride home, I figured I would continue to buy all but the exclusives on the Xbox 360. After all, it had achievements and the PS3's trophy system was still half-assed at best.
After finishing off a few Xbox 360 games, I turned my attention to Uncharted. While not groundbreaking in any way, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had with a game in a long time. 'A fluke,' I said, 'I doubt any of the other exclusives are any good.'
I then got a hold of the first Resistance game. Once again, while I did not feel that it was groundbreaking in any way (at first anyway), by the tenth mission I was truly impressed by how comfortable the controller felt and how responsive the game was. I progressed to the 24th mission and then started to look at my collection of 120 Xbox 360 games.
Earlier in the month, I had removed all of Microsoft's products from my computers in favor of Ubuntu. The move to Linux gave me a sense of liberation, knowing that for the first time in years, I wouldn't have to keep my eye on the registry nor would I have to worry about Microsoft authorizing some of my media to run and others not to. What Microsoft is planning with Windows 7 demoralized me further because it truly made me realize that Microsoft is determined to keep a very firm grasp on my computer as a potential entertainment hub with its very advanced DRM functionality. I have no intention, anymore, to ever use Windows again.
As I continued to stare at my 120 Xbox 360 games, I started to wonder why I was keeping all of them. I had no real intention of playing them again and I had created the collection in the first place with the hope that I could share some of my generation's game with my children in the future. However, I was convinced that no Xbox 360 would survive that long and that no future product would be backward-compatible with these games. Essentially, once the Xbox 360 became obsolete, all of these games would die with it. The large collection also prevented me from seeing the PS3 as a potential primary system. Unlike many people, I have an incredible inability to own two systems and enjoy them both : one of them always takes precedence. With so many games on one console, it was a given that console would be the main one. Nevertheless, it is hard for me to make a suicidal console my main machine. As such, I grabbed a few bags from my kitchen, put any game that wasn't exclusive to the Xbox 360 into each of those bags and drove over to EB Games for trade them in without looking back. I figured if I gave it too much thought, I wouldn't go ahead so I just drove as fast as I can. I then traded everything in for credit and used that credit to purchase Resistance 2, Killzone 2, Little Big Planet, Ratchet and Clank and Smackdown 2009.
I came home and inserted the games into my collection. Essentially, I had made the first ever effort in my life to make the PS3 my main console. I expected to feel a great deal of regret in getting rid of so many games for next to nothing as I returned home, but I instead felt a sense of liberation greater than the one I had felt when I switched from Windows to Linux. I then jumped right back into my campaign in Resistance and I finally understood what was going on in my head : my fear that the Xbox 360 could die at any moment was diminishing my enjoyment of any game on the console.
For the first time since 2005, I can turn on my system with confidence. I KNOW that when I slide my finger on the power button of the PS3, it will emit a green light and that I will be able to jump right into whatever game that I want to play. Being on my fifth Xbox 360, I no longer have that sense of confidence. I know that no matter how well I take care of the system, there will come a day when I press the power button and will be greeted by a primary color instead of a secondary one. It was exhausting to feel absolutely no faith toward the Xbox 360, it was doubly exhausting to defend the company producing the machine and hoping that the next batch will be more reliable all the while knowing that such a thing will never happen. I am glad that I no longer have to spend so much time exhausting myself.
The Xbox 360 is the last time that I will buy a product from Microsoft.
The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth combat director has expressed that he wants the final part in the trilogy to offer players "even more freedom".
I love the game so far but please don’t make the final part a mini game fest
Everytime I get to a new part in Rebirth it’s “mini game time”
Wccf tech writes: "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2's scope was impacted by the Xbox Series S hardware limitations, as developers could only make a game that was 25% bigger than its predecessor."
This is the issue with things like this
Xbox Series X is apparently to MS the worlds most powerful console
However the Series S is obviously a limitation because it’s underpowered and developers have to go for parity.
So what’s the point of the world’s most powerful console if you are holding third party developers back? They aren’t going to push themselves if they have to think about the weakest console.
The issue wouldn’t be as bad if it was just Xbox but you are also affecting the PS version aswell
I think developers need to start just taking advantage of a console and if one of them can’t do X Y and Z then f*** them…why should the others suffer. What’s MS going to do? The bigger the franchise the least chance MS are going to tell them to f*** off. Baulders Gate 3 seemed to have stood their ground and suddenly their “strict” parity rule didn’t really matter. We suddenly got super optimisation efforts for the Series S that got things sorted.
I agree, and the sad part is use normal folk saw it the second they announced their plans.
More info from the author of the article, I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/ki...
Quote:
"1) I was told this info from the producer of the game Martin Klíma.
2) He specifically said the game will have only one mode.
3) And this mode is 4K 30 on PS5/XSX and 1440p 30 on XSS.
4) He said that the game is already running north of the 30 FPS cap so the performance should be stable on launch, much better than KCD1.
5) The limitation was XSS because of the 10GB memory. He said that's why they wanted to make the game 25% larger.
6) Speculation on my part: the output resolution is probably upscaled and the reason why there won't be a 60 FPS mode is because it'll most likely be very CPU heavy, like Dragon's Dogma 2 for example."
Doesn't seem like they're adding a 40fps mode on PS5/Series X for launch even if they can handle it.
I'd much rather have 1440p/60fps or even 45fps. Having just one, even with the Series S in mind, is disappointing.
Custom Controller Company HexGaming launched a Kickstarter campaign for their latest pro controller, Hex Phantom. - IS
you are officially a statistic, I don't know what the failure rate for the orig. xbox 360s was but you really got hoed, 4 times? yikes. I'm a ps3 owner myself and am enjoying kz2 currently. how's little big planet, by the way?
No doubt the technology (including a sort of prototype cell processor, which was teefed from sony via IBM) was rushed out to get the jump on the next gen market. effective move by microsoft, because I don't think the failure rates are doing very much to mar their overall success, while chaps like you get the short end of the stick.
Good story, it's true that the 360 isn't reliable mine has died twice, but it offers the best gaming experiences, particularly online compared with my PS3.
You should come and also post it on a great site I visit: http://www.thedarkside.org....
Good read. I know people with the same problem as you. They have fans running around the 360 to help keep it cool.
It is unfortunate you have to go through 5 consoles it others are like you then the 360 worldwide numbers are off but by how much we will never know.
Good read. I hope others read it and don't just scoff.
My blog was something similar in a way. I went the same way you did except I used numbers to back up my change in gaming rig...
welcome to the darkside.... we have cookies (and by that i mean great games)
may i suggest you try Heavenly Sword and Folklore?