Xbox 360 & How It Won Me Over
Entry posted by Dimensioneer
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Being the old man that I am (born in 1969 -- you do the math), I burned through many, many, many rolls of quarters in my mall's Barrel of Fun arcade in the early 80's and have owned my fair share of home computers (way back when they weren't common appliances and only had 8 bits) and a good number of gaming consoles.
For the record, my gaming lineage goes something like this:
- Sears Pong/Tennis
- Sears Telegames (aka Atari 2600)
- Genuine Atari 2600
- Atari 400 Computer
- Atari 800 Computer
- Atari 800XL Computer
- Atari 130XE Computer
- Atari Lynx Handheld
- Amiga 500
- Super Nintendo
- Nintendo 64
- First IBM Compatible PC (200Mhz circa 1995)
- Nintendo Gamecube
- Playstation 2
- Sony PSP
- XBox 360
You'll note a few glaring omissions: No NES, no Commodore 64, and no XBox. Never wanted one, never needed one, and never missed having one.
But I have become a Microsoft fanboy over the latest generation of XBox; the XBox 360. In my opinion, they've simply done so very many things right, I just couldn't resist getting on their bandwagon.
The first things that grabbed me months before the platform was ever released were the set of baseline requirements for all titles: must be HD (my TV is), must be widescreen (my TV is), must have surround (my system does), must be online-aware. My interest was sparked right away. And then the more I learned about the XBox Live Arcade (cheap downloadable games with relatively simplistic graphics but with great gameplay harkening back to the days of the classic arcade games), the whole integrated online experience (I love getting gamerscore points for game achievements) that make everything you do a cohesive experience, and the media expander capabilities (I play games while streaming music from my PC elsewhere in the house on the same wireless network), the more sure I was that this was a box I had to own.
I didn't get one on launch day, but within a few weeks I finally scored mine and have never regretted plunking down the green.
It's good stuff, even for an old man like me. If you're on XBox Live, go ahead & look me up:
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