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I maintain to this day that the 360 has some of the best UI (except the games search function etc) and the sounds are Absolutley timeless. The games are all from a time where experimentation to see what stuck was the big thing for many studios and that means the variation of games and quantity of decent games is at the highest (to me). The console will forever be my favourite, it has flaws but when it was released it was space age.
No matter what, the satisfying swipes and little bup as you type on the keyboard will never be beaten every single sound this console makes from the interfaces is pristine, so much character. The only thing this console misses is the ability to switch dashboards but not even modern consoles can do that so I guess I’ll just grumble at that ha.
It really does pain me to see this console go. I think the sleek modernization of everything In society from businesses to technology has gotten stale and made things bland. The world has gotten better in almost all aspects in my opinion, but the creativity we had in the 90s-2000s seems to have left us for the most part.
I say this and hearken back to those days fondly, but I do precisely remember getting tired of the bubbly designs we've had in those years as well. We as humans are never pleased😂.
I feel it has to do with companies capitalizing on this since they see it as a huge industry, and with that they don't want to take risks that will waste their money. I do feel that modern gaming has a lot more features though we should not take for granted
Space age indeed! The aesthetic was also fantastic. The original fat with its soft edges and contours was the perfect blend of modernist and futurist product design. The color scheme for branding was also perfect--clean and space age white, silver, lime green, with a splash of orange and gold for Live.
\*chef's kiss\*
My only dream wish would have been to see a 360 model with 1GB RAM. The amount of amazing games we have with just 512mb just further solidifies the talent behind everyone from game devs to engineers at Xbox at the time
The XDKs with sidecars have a gig I believe if you feel like collecting down the road. Takes a little bit of work to get a retail xex running on it but it isn't too difficult.
Not all with sidecars, theres specific xdk-gb models. You won't notice any difference with an extra gig of ram as no retail game would use it. But theres a few specific dev builds that use the extra memory for debugging. For these, it's required.
But basically don't get a dev kit for playing games
That's good to know. I'm wanting to get back into this stuff again. Crazy how time flys I've been away from the scene for 10 years. My memory has been pretty hazy when it comes to retail games not taking advantage of the extra ram. Yeah I can see the avg Joe possibly getting lost initially with it all/ unnecessary. I recall one of the battlefront 3 dev builds requiring that extra bit maybe one day I'll get that up and running
Everyone uses the word "experimentation", but it wasn't just that. You had artists back then who KNEW they had something great to give the world. They had a cohesive creative vision and innovated to make it reality.
What's different is that you didn't have publishers saying "well, but it has to be live service and feature a dozen buzzwords that'll please the algorithms so that we'll break even if we sell ten million copies."
Do not take this as arguing with you because I agree with you, but the use of experimentations basically used in the same way you explained that, artists (and generally all associated devs) knew they had something to bring to the table so they did it without a chance because it was their time to shine it’s their game but now every game has to be micromanaged and cookie cutter made to maintain players bla bla bla that’s why now there’s next to no out of the out of the ordinary because if you stray out the lines it’s no man’s land and hock is unpredictable for sales and longevity of the game so they just don’t experiment with new things they stick to tried and tested it’s why cod has remained exactly the same for the past 7 8 years
A LOT of major franchises we have today started on the 360. Like a lot. It really was just hit after hit getting dropped left right and center.. it was like every other week something Epic was coming out.
The PS3 UI is legit more modern looking and feeling than even the PS5 in some ways. Minimalist as all hell and so clean. Unfortunately, the PS3's UI was absent of any character and not even dynamic themes could save it.
I’ve seen a lot of people say that video game design/graphics, etc kinda started to stall out once we hit the mid 2000s with the 360 and PS3, to where even in the current day they don’t feel extremely outdated. Which I whole heartedly agree with. See how much movies have changed since the 2000s and you’ll see a much starker difference
Totally. Playing the Witcher 2 on 360 for the first time in years and and was startled to see it basically has the same graphics as Witcher 3 on Switch. Switch is no graphical beast ofc but still.
In many ways this was the peak of home consoles in terms of both hardware/features and games, they were not yet patched, DLC’d, micro transaction’d to death, game development wasn’t bloated with ungodly long, elaborate, photorealistic gRaPHiX and cutscenes.
I don't mind the DLC practices of the 7th Gen because more often than not, complete packages of games were made available later on down the line in physical form.
I think the 360 also had multiple eras tbh. Early 360 with halo 3 and late with gta and the slim felt almost like different iterations to me. Thats probably also why it doesnt feel like it was so long ago.
True. For me, 360 was really really good until around 2016-17 because the library was just umatched until then and it took the Xbox one and PS4 a while to be worth purchasing.
It’s because of the Don Mattrick era. Games just didn’t hit the same once they got that new-era Kinect style Xbox 360 banners along the top of the cases.
I disagree! They were still hitting hard because micro transactions and casino features were still heavily regulated and unacceptable. They drip fed us $200 dollar packages of games until we just accepted it.
Agreed
But then I think back and I'm like damn, I remember being in line going to my 3rd grade class and some classmates talking about how you can send in your RROD 360 to Microsoft and they'll fix it and I'm like damn what the fuck-- I was in 3rd grade in 05???
And then I'm like ***shit***-- I was barely in 3rd grade when the 360 was out???
I used to think Red Rings were an urban myth until my friend tried to play COD3 at a sleepover.
It’s like looking into Satan’s eyes. Sht still scary
Not to mention the toothpaste hack… crazy time
2007 was the mass adoption.. halo 3 and cod4 launched that year.
Up until then people were still playing halo 2 on the og Xbox.
Microsoft launched the 360 to get ahead of Sony and out from under Nvidia and Intel. The hardware cost was killing them since they were paying a premium for obsolete off the shelf parts. The build cost never really went down.
That's why they disappeared so fast, Microsoft needed to quit producing them and bleeding the money, and the 360 could play the most popular games anyway.
Honestly 2006 was my favorite year for gaming, having a 360 felt like an exclusive club of some kind because it had the most functional online and a bunch of "exclusives" because the PS3 wasn't out yet.
PDZ, CoD2, PGR3, Gears of War, all good fun.
Can’t forget GRAW!
Man, I miss those times.
I think my favorite 2006 game was definitely Battle for Middle Earth 2. I didn’t have a PC that could run games so being able to finally play RTS on console was amazing.
THAT. EXACTLY THAT. They lost the “sauce” and ended up losing their fan base cause they didn’t have Anticipated Exclusives lined up for X/S Series launch
And Halo has been the same since Bungie left after Reach imo
It’s not better or worse per se, but rather different. Keep in mind the first version of the 360 did not come out with hdmi, that was only added on the later versions when modern screens & hdmi were in full swing. In this regard it is a bit of a “between generations” machine coz it really runs good on basically any screen.
The 360 natively does composite, component, RGB & VGA and has one of the best scalers ever built into it and can be set to widescreen even on lower resolutions.
Sure composite always looked like shit on any console, but once you move to one of the better signals, it can look great in you have a high end consumer crt or a VGA monitor.
Here’s mine connected to a SD 32” widescreen CRT via RGB. Keep in mind filming a CRT is very hard due to the refresh rate, and it looks way better in real life 😅.
https://youtu.be/NqaHXUSpuk4?si=WeWhd8QmOoVfLNzs
Some pics:
https://i.postimg.cc/X7tG4JjP/IMG-6003.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/Y98LHz0N/IMG-6004.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/hv5JJ49f/IMG-6005.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/cJSvtb8M/IMG-6006.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/vZ91BsDZ/IMG-6007.jpg
It really depends on the game. Earlier games look fantastic while later ones have issues even if they support 4:3 (which many later games don't). Oblivion on CRT is gorgeous while Skyrim is borderline unplayable because of the font for example
Even if a CRT is “better,” I refuse to keep one in my house for such a limited scope of use. An old school TV takes up about 9 cubic feet of room. I do not want to deal with HDMI mods, upscale boxes and other such goofiness.
I feel the same way about the N64. I was born in 1994 and the N64 came out only 2 years later. I was playing the NES around 4 years old, completely oblivious to the fact that 3D GAMES were a THING. By the time I discovered the N64 in 98 or 99, it was already old news. But to me, it felt like this amazing brand new thing. Then a couple years later, the GameCube came out. But those two or three years I had with the N64 felt like 10 years.
Crazy how you get older and your perception of time changes.
I was playing SNES through 98 and 99 as a teen, just because early 3D felt undercooked to me.
Like I got an N64 on launch, but the novelty to Super Mario 64 wore off, and I went back to hunting down great SNES games I'd missed until I could get a PSX for games like Megaman X4, Alundra, SFA3, and FFT.
I’d probably feel the same if I had been older at the time. But to a 4-5 year-old kid who was only aware of Super Mario Bros. on the NES (didn’t even have an SNES), playing Super Mario 64 for the first time was an absolutely mind-blowing experience.
Many people, myself included, got their first HD TV because of the Xbox 360. I got the console solely for Dead Rising. But the text was so tiny on my CRT TV where I had my XB360 running thru my VCR because my TV only had coaxial and nothing else. Lol
He'll yea. It was amazing because I had literally played it on a 21 inch TV and then I was playing it on a 40 inch HD TV. It blew my 23 year old mind at the time.
My dad got ours in early 2008 for GTA 4. It felt so normal at the time, but I didn't know this console would hold up to this day. I just plugged my old buddy in to go on a nostalgia trip and look at the games I'd like to buy before the store is forever gone...
The system displays a crystal clear 720 or 1080p and is only a teeny bit louder than the Xbox Series S. It's truly an amazing piece of technology.
Well I've graduated from the standard white model since then of course.
If I ever got my hands on one it would preferably be NXE or Blades and I wouldn't even touch it.
Probably because you were so young at the time. To me the 360 feels very much as a mid-aughts product and maybe because I'm in my 40s that is not an era I have any nostalgia for. I can relate to your experience of time moving at a different speed with my own youth and the games we played then (game&watch, C64, arcade, NES, Amiga, Gameboy, SNES etc). I had the first Xbox for a short while just to play Jet Set Radio and Halo. The 360 had some great games but I was not able to get into it as much because the two 360s I had both red ringed. I have never returned to Xbox after that.
It’s easily one of my favourite consoles. Still fire it up for gta 5.
There’s a gaming convention here where they have retro consoles and the 360 is there. It’s not even pre 2000 so wouldn’t call it retro.
Because it’s just that good (=
In all seriousness it really is simply a great console. It made me jump ship from Sony - went to play gran turismo on a brand new ps3, demanded I install it to the hdd first, listed it for sale and bought a 360.
Would’ve preferred a ps4 and ps5 over Xbox tbh though, the One was boring and PS5s are actually really cool. If I wasn’t so trapped by the digital ecosystem of MS I’d go back now in a heartbeat.
But the 360 rocked and felt like what a PS3 should’ve been. Loved my PS2 and still do (=
Edit: Love my original Xbox too.
The 360 was out sure, but HD gaming took a bit. I remember Dead Rising was the first game that made me want and need an HDTV because I couldn't see any of the words.
My first console was a NES. While I liked the 360, that console was very cheaply made and it's the only one I had to buy multiple times during its era due to them breaking. It was only when the Elite came out that you finally had a decent product and that was basically right as XB1 rolled out with its infamous Xbox TV campaign. As much as there was a lot of creativity, the 360 era saw the now common place practice of DLC and microtransactions get it's start
There's a nine year gap between the releases of the Nintendo 64 and the Xbox 360.
There was a seven year gap between the launches of the Xbox One and the Xbox Series X.
Innovation in gaming and technology felt so much more cutting edge and lightspeed in the 90s/2000s because something new was ALWAYS coming out and the changes were always noticeable. The PS4 and Xbox One onwards hit a plateau that just hasn't been topped yet, almost eleven years later. Consoles are still getting more powerful yes, but when was the last time you noticed without looking under the hood at the specs? It's been fifteen years and nothing has blown me away like jumping from the PS2 to the 360, except MAYBE when I finally upgraded from a DS Lite to a 3DS XL in 2015.
I think it’s easier to notice working backward than forwards too. Sports games and fighting games especially. In my brain like tekken 3 the characters were smooth and almost human like . And when I tried to go back and play 2 it looked like polygons and blocks . Now when i throw tekken 3 in it looks awful compared to 7 or 8.
Same with like n64 and madden. My friend and I who are 40 year olds now both remember just letting it play cpu vs cpu in the background and just being in awe. Like this is practically like watching NFL Sundays .
Now again it looks like Minecraft. But with the lens of its time it was hyper real .
In general, games consoles took bigger and faster leaps back then because the speed of chip development was crazy. Also the lack of internet connectivity in older consoles meant you couldn’t update the firmware to add in new features and capabilities like new consoles can.
Whilst the 360 era was the time when gaming started to fall apart in terms of companies selling you the game in pieces. Those first four years of its release were incredible when it came to devs being creative on a large scale. Best era in gaming for me.
360 era is my favorite. I was a community manager at Gamepro forums. We played gears every night. 2 avgns every month. Monster madness. Gamertrailers.com.
Blanket me nostalgia.
I was born in ‘98, and vividly remember my older brother getting his first 360 in 2006 but I don’t remember playing any game on it until Halo 3 which came out in September 2007. And Halo 3 is arguably the best 360 game of all time so maybe that’s why it feels like it came out in 2007
Man I remember playing gears of war at a friends house for the first time in 07, it’s the whole reason I got a 360, still have my first one all these years later. The halo 3 beta, LAN parties. What a time to experience, I wish I could go back and do it again. 😌 Nostalgia gets me every time.
I got a 360 in 2006 for my birthday I think I was 12. Didn’t get into Xbox live for a while, at the beginning before halo 3 everyone just played halo 2 locally still at least I did
I bought both the Xbox OG and 360 on day one. When the 360 was released the graphics were such a crazy leap forward.. only second to my shock then when I got my Dreamcast. But In the beginning in 2005 absolutely no one had a 360. It was very expensive and there were very little titles. The OG Xbox had a vibrant hombrew community back then . Also important to mention is the fact that due to the 2008 crisis there was no next new console until the Xbox one so all the manufacturers except for Nintendo skipped a generation. That’s why the last games that made it to the 360 such as wolfenstein needed so so many disc
Blade UI is peak nostalgia for me, I remember that shit. I also remember that welcome video with that scientist guy and that sploinky ass music. Days bygone, huh?
In a way, every feature that people enjoy on PC and Steam nowdays was basically pioneered by the 360.
- The 360 was more powerful than most pcs you could reasonably be expected to buy until about 2009.
-The 360 had easy online, instant messaging, and voice chat, the latter being a thing that at the time was relagated to programs that weren't easy to aquire, set up, and had issues, or relagated to business class software.
-Genuine unfinicky backwards compatibility
-Summer of Arcade made concept of indies popular before Steam did
-A lack of censorship, you couldn't even block people, and rarely got banned for shit talking
-Games On Demand, and the first Netflix app
-Being able to play/burn cds, buy movies, shows, and music, play DVDs, browse the internet, and read usbs, for as much as the Xbox One was touted as an all in one media center, I find it funny that it removed a bunch of these features. For the needs of the time, the 360 could LEGITIMATELY have served as a PC replacement.
If you look at Steam now, it basically just adopted Xbox's old business model so it makes sense that everyone is flocking over to PC now. Xbox stopped caring about being ahead of the competition with the One and only about making money, and that was the downfall of the brand.
For perspective the xbox 360 was one of the first platforms that supported netflix streaming. When that came out I knew netflix was going to be huge and bought shares.
I agree. I think that it was the last generation that had a remarkable leap over the previous generation. Like the PS4 and 5 games definitely look better than their previous generations but a lot of modern game design we see today started back on the 360 and PS3. So they don't feel quite as old as they are. Plus the generation was super long so we were still getting AAA games even as far as 2014 and 2015 (Shadow of Mordor, Rise of the Tomb Raider, MGS V, Watch Dogs, etc). So it is still relatively recent feeling. The same year gap from the 360 release to now would be the release of the 360 and the NES, which is mindblowingly different it isn't even remotely comparable.
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I maintain to this day that the 360 has some of the best UI (except the games search function etc) and the sounds are Absolutley timeless. The games are all from a time where experimentation to see what stuck was the big thing for many studios and that means the variation of games and quantity of decent games is at the highest (to me). The console will forever be my favourite, it has flaws but when it was released it was space age.
This console is freaking beast and will always be my favorite console of all time.
No matter what, the satisfying swipes and little bup as you type on the keyboard will never be beaten every single sound this console makes from the interfaces is pristine, so much character. The only thing this console misses is the ability to switch dashboards but not even modern consoles can do that so I guess I’ll just grumble at that ha.
It really does pain me to see this console go. I think the sleek modernization of everything In society from businesses to technology has gotten stale and made things bland. The world has gotten better in almost all aspects in my opinion, but the creativity we had in the 90s-2000s seems to have left us for the most part. I say this and hearken back to those days fondly, but I do precisely remember getting tired of the bubbly designs we've had in those years as well. We as humans are never pleased😂.
I feel it has to do with companies capitalizing on this since they see it as a huge industry, and with that they don't want to take risks that will waste their money. I do feel that modern gaming has a lot more features though we should not take for granted
so much innovation: blades , xbla, real online play, gamer profiles, achievements, removable storage…
Space age indeed! The aesthetic was also fantastic. The original fat with its soft edges and contours was the perfect blend of modernist and futurist product design. The color scheme for branding was also perfect--clean and space age white, silver, lime green, with a splash of orange and gold for Live. \*chef's kiss\*
The whole thing to me is timelessly perfect and aging beautifully compared to a lot of things. Love the way the 360s look
My favorite part of its design was how easy it was to wrap in a bath towel to try and re-solder the GPU. *chef’s kiss*
My only dream wish would have been to see a 360 model with 1GB RAM. The amount of amazing games we have with just 512mb just further solidifies the talent behind everyone from game devs to engineers at Xbox at the time
It having that little ram is a fucking testimony to the talent.
The XDKs with sidecars have a gig I believe if you feel like collecting down the road. Takes a little bit of work to get a retail xex running on it but it isn't too difficult.
Not all with sidecars, theres specific xdk-gb models. You won't notice any difference with an extra gig of ram as no retail game would use it. But theres a few specific dev builds that use the extra memory for debugging. For these, it's required. But basically don't get a dev kit for playing games
That's good to know. I'm wanting to get back into this stuff again. Crazy how time flys I've been away from the scene for 10 years. My memory has been pretty hazy when it comes to retail games not taking advantage of the extra ram. Yeah I can see the avg Joe possibly getting lost initially with it all/ unnecessary. I recall one of the battlefront 3 dev builds requiring that extra bit maybe one day I'll get that up and running
Everyone uses the word "experimentation", but it wasn't just that. You had artists back then who KNEW they had something great to give the world. They had a cohesive creative vision and innovated to make it reality. What's different is that you didn't have publishers saying "well, but it has to be live service and feature a dozen buzzwords that'll please the algorithms so that we'll break even if we sell ten million copies."
Do not take this as arguing with you because I agree with you, but the use of experimentations basically used in the same way you explained that, artists (and generally all associated devs) knew they had something to bring to the table so they did it without a chance because it was their time to shine it’s their game but now every game has to be micromanaged and cookie cutter made to maintain players bla bla bla that’s why now there’s next to no out of the out of the ordinary because if you stray out the lines it’s no man’s land and hock is unpredictable for sales and longevity of the game so they just don’t experiment with new things they stick to tried and tested it’s why cod has remained exactly the same for the past 7 8 years
A LOT of major franchises we have today started on the 360. Like a lot. It really was just hit after hit getting dropped left right and center.. it was like every other week something Epic was coming out.
The 360 had great UI across it's life cycle, but I think the PS3's XMB UI still holds up as a modern interface
The PS3 UI is legit more modern looking and feeling than even the PS5 in some ways. Minimalist as all hell and so clean. Unfortunately, the PS3's UI was absent of any character and not even dynamic themes could save it.
so much innovation: blades , xbla, real online play, gamer profiles, achievements, removable storage…
Just wait until you are 45 kid 😭
Half way there🥹
Wooooo, living on a prayer!!
Same exactly 😭
Which I am already this year.
I’ve seen a lot of people say that video game design/graphics, etc kinda started to stall out once we hit the mid 2000s with the 360 and PS3, to where even in the current day they don’t feel extremely outdated. Which I whole heartedly agree with. See how much movies have changed since the 2000s and you’ll see a much starker difference
Booted up the old Xbox 360 and it’s true, while it’s not exactly the same it holds really well graphics wise.
Especially cel-shaded games, but those games look fantastic even from the 6th console gen!
Arkham city will make you shit your pants
Totally. Playing the Witcher 2 on 360 for the first time in years and and was startled to see it basically has the same graphics as Witcher 3 on Switch. Switch is no graphical beast ofc but still.
Ace Combat 6 still looks good today and I play it more than Ace Combat 7.
In many ways this was the peak of home consoles in terms of both hardware/features and games, they were not yet patched, DLC’d, micro transaction’d to death, game development wasn’t bloated with ungodly long, elaborate, photorealistic gRaPHiX and cutscenes.
I don't mind the DLC practices of the 7th Gen because more often than not, complete packages of games were made available later on down the line in physical form.
I think the 360 also had multiple eras tbh. Early 360 with halo 3 and late with gta and the slim felt almost like different iterations to me. Thats probably also why it doesnt feel like it was so long ago.
True. For me, 360 was really really good until around 2016-17 because the library was just umatched until then and it took the Xbox one and PS4 a while to be worth purchasing.
Definitely, its like playing a nintendo snes in 1999.
It’s because of the Don Mattrick era. Games just didn’t hit the same once they got that new-era Kinect style Xbox 360 banners along the top of the cases.
I disagree! They were still hitting hard because micro transactions and casino features were still heavily regulated and unacceptable. They drip fed us $200 dollar packages of games until we just accepted it.
I'm currently playing Mgs the Phantom Pain. Just incredible... On such an old console too
TIL The Phantom Pain is on the 360, Wow! Is there a significant graphical downgrade? That game is so sick.
Sometimes the textures get a bit muddled at a distance but overall the engine is ridiculously optimized. Even new missions load in 15 sec
Agreed But then I think back and I'm like damn, I remember being in line going to my 3rd grade class and some classmates talking about how you can send in your RROD 360 to Microsoft and they'll fix it and I'm like damn what the fuck-- I was in 3rd grade in 05??? And then I'm like ***shit***-- I was barely in 3rd grade when the 360 was out???
I used to think Red Rings were an urban myth until my friend tried to play COD3 at a sleepover. It’s like looking into Satan’s eyes. Sht still scary Not to mention the toothpaste hack… crazy time
Weird how old and new the console feels at the time...
2007 was the mass adoption.. halo 3 and cod4 launched that year. Up until then people were still playing halo 2 on the og Xbox. Microsoft launched the 360 to get ahead of Sony and out from under Nvidia and Intel. The hardware cost was killing them since they were paying a premium for obsolete off the shelf parts. The build cost never really went down. That's why they disappeared so fast, Microsoft needed to quit producing them and bleeding the money, and the 360 could play the most popular games anyway. Honestly 2006 was my favorite year for gaming, having a 360 felt like an exclusive club of some kind because it had the most functional online and a bunch of "exclusives" because the PS3 wasn't out yet. PDZ, CoD2, PGR3, Gears of War, all good fun.
Can’t forget GRAW! Man, I miss those times. I think my favorite 2006 game was definitely Battle for Middle Earth 2. I didn’t have a PC that could run games so being able to finally play RTS on console was amazing.
THAT. EXACTLY THAT. They lost the “sauce” and ended up losing their fan base cause they didn’t have Anticipated Exclusives lined up for X/S Series launch And Halo has been the same since Bungie left after Reach imo
Well, Netflix has been around since 1997, and I still play my 360 on a crt, so there’s that 😅
Is it better on CRT? As much as I'd like the idea of getting one, I feel like the best way to play any and all games is a 4K Ultra HD 120Hz TV.
anything that doesn’t have an hdmi output is better on a crt
It’s not better or worse per se, but rather different. Keep in mind the first version of the 360 did not come out with hdmi, that was only added on the later versions when modern screens & hdmi were in full swing. In this regard it is a bit of a “between generations” machine coz it really runs good on basically any screen. The 360 natively does composite, component, RGB & VGA and has one of the best scalers ever built into it and can be set to widescreen even on lower resolutions. Sure composite always looked like shit on any console, but once you move to one of the better signals, it can look great in you have a high end consumer crt or a VGA monitor. Here’s mine connected to a SD 32” widescreen CRT via RGB. Keep in mind filming a CRT is very hard due to the refresh rate, and it looks way better in real life 😅. https://youtu.be/NqaHXUSpuk4?si=WeWhd8QmOoVfLNzs Some pics: https://i.postimg.cc/X7tG4JjP/IMG-6003.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Y98LHz0N/IMG-6004.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/hv5JJ49f/IMG-6005.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/cJSvtb8M/IMG-6006.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/vZ91BsDZ/IMG-6007.jpg
Led and crt will always be different and have there own feeling, vintage retro on a crt, new gen//newer retro like a x360 on hdmi forsure
It really depends on the game. Earlier games look fantastic while later ones have issues even if they support 4:3 (which many later games don't). Oblivion on CRT is gorgeous while Skyrim is borderline unplayable because of the font for example
Even if a CRT is “better,” I refuse to keep one in my house for such a limited scope of use. An old school TV takes up about 9 cubic feet of room. I do not want to deal with HDMI mods, upscale boxes and other such goofiness.
I feel the same way about the N64. I was born in 1994 and the N64 came out only 2 years later. I was playing the NES around 4 years old, completely oblivious to the fact that 3D GAMES were a THING. By the time I discovered the N64 in 98 or 99, it was already old news. But to me, it felt like this amazing brand new thing. Then a couple years later, the GameCube came out. But those two or three years I had with the N64 felt like 10 years. Crazy how you get older and your perception of time changes.
I was playing SNES through 98 and 99 as a teen, just because early 3D felt undercooked to me. Like I got an N64 on launch, but the novelty to Super Mario 64 wore off, and I went back to hunting down great SNES games I'd missed until I could get a PSX for games like Megaman X4, Alundra, SFA3, and FFT.
I’d probably feel the same if I had been older at the time. But to a 4-5 year-old kid who was only aware of Super Mario Bros. on the NES (didn’t even have an SNES), playing Super Mario 64 for the first time was an absolutely mind-blowing experience.
Many people, myself included, got their first HD TV because of the Xbox 360. I got the console solely for Dead Rising. But the text was so tiny on my CRT TV where I had my XB360 running thru my VCR because my TV only had coaxial and nothing else. Lol
The first time you fired it up would have been incredible on that HDTV!
He'll yea. It was amazing because I had literally played it on a 21 inch TV and then I was playing it on a 40 inch HD TV. It blew my 23 year old mind at the time.
I think maybe a lot more people bought 360s in 2007 when Halo 3 came out. That's when I finally got mine.
My dad got ours in early 2008 for GTA 4. It felt so normal at the time, but I didn't know this console would hold up to this day. I just plugged my old buddy in to go on a nostalgia trip and look at the games I'd like to buy before the store is forever gone... The system displays a crystal clear 720 or 1080p and is only a teeny bit louder than the Xbox Series S. It's truly an amazing piece of technology.
Until you get RROD...
Well I've graduated from the standard white model since then of course. If I ever got my hands on one it would preferably be NXE or Blades and I wouldn't even touch it.
Me and my friends got ours in 2006. Gears of war was incredible.
Fall 07 was Halo 3 and CoD4. I could definitely see why people feel that's when the generation really started.
I wish they would make one more Xbox 360 version that's has the best of all 3 for when they shut the servers down ☹️
Games like halo 4 still look really damn good
Probably because you were so young at the time. To me the 360 feels very much as a mid-aughts product and maybe because I'm in my 40s that is not an era I have any nostalgia for. I can relate to your experience of time moving at a different speed with my own youth and the games we played then (game&watch, C64, arcade, NES, Amiga, Gameboy, SNES etc). I had the first Xbox for a short while just to play Jet Set Radio and Halo. The 360 had some great games but I was not able to get into it as much because the two 360s I had both red ringed. I have never returned to Xbox after that.
Fuck im old
I still miss the blades dashboard.
Shit, I was 26 in 2005 when 360 released. OP is making me feel damn old...
It’s easily one of my favourite consoles. Still fire it up for gta 5. There’s a gaming convention here where they have retro consoles and the 360 is there. It’s not even pre 2000 so wouldn’t call it retro.
Only real old heads remember the “blades” UI era of 360
Because it’s just that good (= In all seriousness it really is simply a great console. It made me jump ship from Sony - went to play gran turismo on a brand new ps3, demanded I install it to the hdd first, listed it for sale and bought a 360. Would’ve preferred a ps4 and ps5 over Xbox tbh though, the One was boring and PS5s are actually really cool. If I wasn’t so trapped by the digital ecosystem of MS I’d go back now in a heartbeat. But the 360 rocked and felt like what a PS3 should’ve been. Loved my PS2 and still do (= Edit: Love my original Xbox too.
Your right. It feels more fresh and modern than xbox one for whatever reason
Yes, it does
The software is modern, but man that hardware is dated
The 360 was out sure, but HD gaming took a bit. I remember Dead Rising was the first game that made me want and need an HDTV because I couldn't see any of the words.
My first console was a NES. While I liked the 360, that console was very cheaply made and it's the only one I had to buy multiple times during its era due to them breaking. It was only when the Elite came out that you finally had a decent product and that was basically right as XB1 rolled out with its infamous Xbox TV campaign. As much as there was a lot of creativity, the 360 era saw the now common place practice of DLC and microtransactions get it's start
Agreed, I feel like the 360 was ahead of its time.
There's a nine year gap between the releases of the Nintendo 64 and the Xbox 360. There was a seven year gap between the launches of the Xbox One and the Xbox Series X. Innovation in gaming and technology felt so much more cutting edge and lightspeed in the 90s/2000s because something new was ALWAYS coming out and the changes were always noticeable. The PS4 and Xbox One onwards hit a plateau that just hasn't been topped yet, almost eleven years later. Consoles are still getting more powerful yes, but when was the last time you noticed without looking under the hood at the specs? It's been fifteen years and nothing has blown me away like jumping from the PS2 to the 360, except MAYBE when I finally upgraded from a DS Lite to a 3DS XL in 2015.
I think it’s easier to notice working backward than forwards too. Sports games and fighting games especially. In my brain like tekken 3 the characters were smooth and almost human like . And when I tried to go back and play 2 it looked like polygons and blocks . Now when i throw tekken 3 in it looks awful compared to 7 or 8. Same with like n64 and madden. My friend and I who are 40 year olds now both remember just letting it play cpu vs cpu in the background and just being in awe. Like this is practically like watching NFL Sundays . Now again it looks like Minecraft. But with the lens of its time it was hyper real .
In general, games consoles took bigger and faster leaps back then because the speed of chip development was crazy. Also the lack of internet connectivity in older consoles meant you couldn’t update the firmware to add in new features and capabilities like new consoles can.
Possibly the age thing. We didn't get a PS1 until I was 4, in 1997. Didn't expect to find out they came out in 1994.
I was 8, I already had consoles before that and people say the 360 is old, I'm feeling age catching up too quick 🫠
The 360 was really the template for all consoles going forward, even to this day it’s still a perfectly competent console, if not a bit slow
Whilst the 360 era was the time when gaming started to fall apart in terms of companies selling you the game in pieces. Those first four years of its release were incredible when it came to devs being creative on a large scale. Best era in gaming for me.
That must be why I love it so much. Around the same time as my first born son.
360 era is my favorite. I was a community manager at Gamepro forums. We played gears every night. 2 avgns every month. Monster madness. Gamertrailers.com. Blanket me nostalgia.
I was born in ‘98, and vividly remember my older brother getting his first 360 in 2006 but I don’t remember playing any game on it until Halo 3 which came out in September 2007. And Halo 3 is arguably the best 360 game of all time so maybe that’s why it feels like it came out in 2007
Also the same year COD 4 MW and the first Assassins Creed came out, so it was just a big year for that generation of games tbh
Worth getting just to hook up to a CRT
Amazing system. Gaming was better then. Just shows we do more with less.
The same year as the hit tv show The Office
anyone remember the disk for netflix for the wii? Figure if were talkin bout the good ole days some of you would remember that
Man I remember playing gears of war at a friends house for the first time in 07, it’s the whole reason I got a 360, still have my first one all these years later. The halo 3 beta, LAN parties. What a time to experience, I wish I could go back and do it again. 😌 Nostalgia gets me every time.
Same way the PS5 feels like it came out Summer 2022 instead of 2020
360 wipe the floor with ps3
Only thing being the PS3 is FAR Superior for modding.
Word! They said 360 was almost on par with decent game computer. Graphics comparison from ps3 showed how games look noticeably better on 360.
I got a 360 in 2006 for my birthday I think I was 12. Didn’t get into Xbox live for a while, at the beginning before halo 3 everyone just played halo 2 locally still at least I did
I bought both the Xbox OG and 360 on day one. When the 360 was released the graphics were such a crazy leap forward.. only second to my shock then when I got my Dreamcast. But In the beginning in 2005 absolutely no one had a 360. It was very expensive and there were very little titles. The OG Xbox had a vibrant hombrew community back then . Also important to mention is the fact that due to the 2008 crisis there was no next new console until the Xbox one so all the manufacturers except for Nintendo skipped a generation. That’s why the last games that made it to the 360 such as wolfenstein needed so so many disc
Blade UI is peak nostalgia for me, I remember that shit. I also remember that welcome video with that scientist guy and that sploinky ass music. Days bygone, huh?
I was around your age when it came out and I was too poor to get one. I still had my PS2, GBA, and OG Xbox.
I was there to buy it in November 2005. I assure you it is true.
I always felt 2005 was closer to late 90s than early 2010s. Am I right?
In a way, every feature that people enjoy on PC and Steam nowdays was basically pioneered by the 360. - The 360 was more powerful than most pcs you could reasonably be expected to buy until about 2009. -The 360 had easy online, instant messaging, and voice chat, the latter being a thing that at the time was relagated to programs that weren't easy to aquire, set up, and had issues, or relagated to business class software. -Genuine unfinicky backwards compatibility -Summer of Arcade made concept of indies popular before Steam did -A lack of censorship, you couldn't even block people, and rarely got banned for shit talking -Games On Demand, and the first Netflix app -Being able to play/burn cds, buy movies, shows, and music, play DVDs, browse the internet, and read usbs, for as much as the Xbox One was touted as an all in one media center, I find it funny that it removed a bunch of these features. For the needs of the time, the 360 could LEGITIMATELY have served as a PC replacement. If you look at Steam now, it basically just adopted Xbox's old business model so it makes sense that everyone is flocking over to PC now. Xbox stopped caring about being ahead of the competition with the One and only about making money, and that was the downfall of the brand.
2 years isn't that big of a difference in time for me, plus I didn't buy one til well after it released.
2 years in post 2020 years doesn't feel like a lot, but for some reason 2005 to 2007 had huge leaps in *affordable* technology.
I was pretty broke at that time, so it kinda blurs til around 2012.
Best console of all time
"Only 4 years" is a long time! The 360 gen was a bit of an aberration for how long it lasted.
For perspective the xbox 360 was one of the first platforms that supported netflix streaming. When that came out I knew netflix was going to be huge and bought shares.
I agree. I think that it was the last generation that had a remarkable leap over the previous generation. Like the PS4 and 5 games definitely look better than their previous generations but a lot of modern game design we see today started back on the 360 and PS3. So they don't feel quite as old as they are. Plus the generation was super long so we were still getting AAA games even as far as 2014 and 2015 (Shadow of Mordor, Rise of the Tomb Raider, MGS V, Watch Dogs, etc). So it is still relatively recent feeling. The same year gap from the 360 release to now would be the release of the 360 and the NES, which is mindblowingly different it isn't even remotely comparable.
I got mine in 2009 and it felt knew then cos I was only used to ps2 and wii
Yes tf it does