XBox 360 Doomed?
Posted November 25th, 2005 @ 12:50pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Someone pointed me to a thread on IGN's forums about how the XBox 360 will be a failure because… of who knows. I forget - the points they made were just weak.
I posted a quick response that will probably be met with flames. Essentially, as a Mac user, I feel I have a unique (4.5% or so unique, anyway) perspective on enjoying products that don't come from Microsoft.
Guys, the 360 will be a success. Learn to deal with it. You don't need to bash another system to make yours better - just take comfort in knowing that for you, your Revolution (or PS3, or DS, or original Nintendo, or whatever) provides you more joy than an XBox 360 would.
Windows is crap compared to Mac OS X, yet here I sit using a computer with 5% market share. Do I really care? No - I long ago accepted the fact that popularity is by no means an indication of quality.
The XBox 360 sold out in minutes and will continue to do so through March. People are dumb and they'll buy crappy products from companies that have a history of producing crap. Whether that's because they're lemmings to marketing or because Bill Gates sold his soul to the devil or what have you, it's going to happen.
Wasting time commenting on how the 360 will be a failure is both a waste of time and rather ignorant: just look at the history of things.
"Fanboys" has always been an appropriate term because it suggests they've not yet matured to reach "adult" status. Consider this post a kick in that direction, perhaps. But really, I'm just trying to point out that the Revolution can succeed with each and every one of you regardless of what the XBox 360 does or doesn't do.
I've not bought a 360 and am planning to buy both a PS3 and a Revolution. If you want to flame me as an MS fanboy, well, that'd be even sillier than predicting the 360's demise.
Of course, I suspect most of the responses to my comment will be met with disdain and more flaming. 😛 We'll see.
Donate Life
Posted 25 Nov 2005 at 2:00pm #
You kind of come off as a snobby Mac (or just anti-M$) fanboy yourself in that post. I'd suspect that most of your flames will be from that aspect alone.
Posted 25 Nov 2005 at 2:22pm #
Uh, sure Ron. If you say so…
Posted 25 Nov 2005 at 2:40pm #
Just giving an outside opinion, that's all. At least with the XBox, Microsoft actually admits to the problem and sends out field techs to repair or replace the units. When the Playstation and Playstation 2 had post-launch problems, (especially the DVD drive problems with the PS2), Sony didn't do much for their customers, if anything at all. Though with the current foul-up from Sony, I'm not surprised.
Microsoft's reaction to the XBox 360 problems are a step in the right direction, but not all hardware problems can be attributed to Microsoft. Remember the bad batch of capacitors that went through the industry a few years ago? How many motherboard manufacturers, graphics card manufacturers, etc (or even companies like Dell) got a bad rap for a problem that they couldn't have been aware of until 3 years later, when the caps bulge or burst and cause all kinds of fun problems?
Also, the GUI on the 360 is really impressive and a major improvement. The few places I think the XBox comes up short is the range of titles and that Microsoft is trying too hard to make it more than just a gaming console.
Posted 25 Nov 2005 at 3:40pm #
Ron, you're the only one talking about problems with the XBox (and how MS is reacting to them). That completely misses the point.
Posted 25 Nov 2005 at 4:16pm #
Ron: why can't those hardware problems be attributed to MS? Why are there so many people out there who are trying to downsize the problem by pointing to Microsoft's reaction?
Just look at it this way: I've had consoles like the Atari 2600, the CBS ColecoVision and various Nintendos and I still have one of the first Gameboys lying around that still works. People like me are used to buying such a product and have it "just work". I don't want to deal with any sort of crash here, it's not a PC after all, no fiddling with drivers, one hardware configuration for one specific purpose - and all other consoles until now have "just worked". Maybe this changed with Sony, maybe the people's attitude has also changed with Microsoft's first XBox which basically was not a console but an old Windows PC. Maybe that is the real reason I still like Nintendo because they have never gotten into this habit.
However, my attitude towards blackbox-style devices hasn't changed, no matter if I buy a toaster or a console - the damn thing has to work, and if it doesn't work, I want my money back. There's no excuse here. It's really astounding how Microsoft has succeeded in changing peoples attitude to something like "well, it's brand-new, it will eventually mature" just because they couldn't get their act together and just because they had to be first here in order to benefit from the Christmas season. I don't care for that and I also think no consumer should. Do it right or get out of this market, simple as that. No doubt, the XBox will be a success, but I won't contribute to that for obvious reasons.
Posted 26 Nov 2005 at 6:04am #
I read the DVD player is bad (quality wise, with lots of interlacing, etc.).
Posted 26 Nov 2005 at 2:25pm #
I have a 360 and am super impressed with it. I wasn't going to get one right away (if at all -- the PS3 and Revolution are no-brainer to-buys), but I am REALLY liking the 360. The graphics are amazing and there are some games that are really fun (Gotham 3, NBA 2k6, Call of Duty 2, and so on). I originally had the "anti-Microsoft" feeling for whatever reason about the 360, but that has definetely been replaced by amazement over this system. I know other people in the same position as I am -- first hated it but once they started to use it, realized, "Wow, this thing IS pretty insane." I think MSFT has put themself in a good position to compete with the PS3 (and Revolution -- hopefully Revolution will support native HD though -- this is what helps make the 360 so amazing) -- hopefully they can get enough 360s out there to the marketplace.
Posted 27 Nov 2005 at 9:46am #
PS3 To Provide More Joy Than 360
According to a post by Erik J.Barzeski over at NSLog (in response to an IGN thread)…
Posted 05 Jan 2008 at 2:59am #
Agree with me or not but the xbox is just another PC to microsoft...