Xbox 360
Xbox 360 is Microsoft's second attempt at a gaming console. The term "360" used in its title is suggestive that its development, based on improving the design of its predecessor, the Xbox, went around in a circle and changed nothing at all. A prominent feature of the Xbox 360 is its integrated Xbox Live service that allows squeky kids to abuse players online and download content such as arcade games, game demos, viruses, trailers, TV shows, pornography and movies.
Other major features of the console include its Windows Media Center multimedia capabilities (encouraging you to buy Microsoft computers), mandatory support of high definition in all games (making standard definition appear obsolete, encouraging you to buy a new TV), movie rentals (encouraging you to buy from Microsoft's Xbox Live system), game downloads from its online marketplace (encouraging you to buy Microsoft's video games) and the ability to watch movies on the (now discontinued) HD DVD format via an add-on drive (although Sony have since proved Microsoft backed the wrong horse, Microsoft still encourages you to buy HD add-on drives and HD-Disc formats). People who use more than one of these services are approxametely $2,300 in debt.
The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), receiving lukewarm response and a compulsory 5-second applause from the audience. Surprisingly to many game analysts and developers, the console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan, and, as of October, 2009, over 34 million units have been sold worldwide. The Xbox 360 is currently available in two configurations—the "Arkade" and the "E-l33t"—and each has its own selection of useless but highly customisable accessories.
History
On November 15, 2000, an unidentified flying object was spotted crashlanding into the middle of the Nevada desert. The US Military's Paranormal division enlisted the help of technological expert, Microsoft enterpreneur, and certified genius, Bill Gates, to help them investigate this strange alien artifact. Upon inspection, Bill Gates hypothesised it to be a large transport vessel designed with long-distance journeys in mind. All of the alien passengers had died from starvation, but strangely, the ship was full of food and there was therefore no need for them to starve to death. Gates then powered up the ship's log, which revealed that they had become dangerously addicted to the built-in entertainment facilities that were originally in place to keep passengers from going insane with boredom.
After finally solving the mystery, the US Military took the alien bodies to play with and left, believing the space ship had no value as it contained no weaponry or destructive capabilities of any kind. Gates, however, had the spacecraft shipped back to Microsoft, so he could miniaturise the entertainment technology. Realising the cash-flows he could anticipate with this addictive piece of equipment, he then mass-produced it and sold it worldwide as the Xbox. Gates did, however, have the social conscience to limit its addictiveness, and created an attachment that would give users an epileptic fit if they played it any continuously for any longer than 28 hours.
Alternative symptoms of being under the influence of Gates' consumer-protection system include: poor vision (see Blindness), always using Windows despite the flaws, spending more hours than you normally would on your computer or laptop (excluding Apple hardware), uncontrollable rage when gaming is interrupted by someone, frequently paying $50 for a game that will only entertain you for a few hours and rationalizing the design flaws by saying "it's worth it".
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 was originally a circular DVD player that an unnamed elderly man kept his child pornography in. However, Bill Gates eventually reclaimed this trademark to be used in conjunction with his successor to the original Xbox.
Known during development as Xenbox', Xbox 2, Xbox Next, and NextBox, the Xbox 360 was conceived in early 2003. Gates originally conceived simply just selling the original Xbox again, but with a different plasti encasing designed to fool consumers into thinking they were buying something new. However, his market-research team warned him that if this genius idea was exposed, the consequences could be disastrous for Microsoft. Gates then pursued a new direction, and strived to create a console that would be able to justify its inclusion in the league of next-generation gaming by having one thing: "Better Graphics".
During development, Bill Gates got slightly carried away with himself and integrated even more new features than the aforementioned graphics improvement. The Xbox 360 is powered by a 3.2 GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xen THT-SNDS-COOL-DSNT-IT processor which was at the time commonly used in 347 Jet airliners, subsequently making the noise from the console's fan system similar to that of an aircraft taking off. Rather than acknowledging this as the complete irritant that it is, Gates kept the feature, as he felt the extra noise made the the console powering up sound more grand, more exciting, more powerful, and hence allowed it to be more expensive!
Bill Gates also did extensive market research by observing small focus groups of families and friends playing on the Xbox 360 together. Through this, he came up with the idea of using wireless controllers to solve the problem of gamers trying to strangle each other with the controller cables.
The Xbox 360 can also act as central heating system to ensure you room stays at a constant 50 degrees C all year round. Placing a trough of water on it can convert the Xbox 360 into your very own Swedish style sauna, and it can also be used to make fantastic boiled eggs. Included in the console is a complex algorithm that ensures 1 in every 6 disc loads will result in a disk scratched beyond repair, meaning the user has an excuse to treat themselves to a replacement game, making sure their collection never gathers dust for long. Gates also implemented the same idea with the Xbox itself, giving it a built-in lifespan of 6 months.
Feeling highly experimental, Bill Gates also tried to introduce different social classes to gaming by releasing alternate versions of the Xbox 360.
Xbox Arkade
The Xbox 360 Arkade is the working-class level for the Xbox 360. On October 23, 2007, it replaced the "Xbox 360 Poor Core" and maintained the price of $279.99. Bill Gates was soon informed that $279.99 was too expensive for any working class individual to afford, and so cut the price to $199.99. It includes a wireless controller, composite AV cable, HDMI 1.2 output, an internal 512 MB memory chip, and 5 Xbox Live Arcade titles: Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and Uno on a single disk. The Arkade version does not include a hard drive or any major Xbox 360 titles in its bundle, as Gates assumes that poor people do not possess the sufficient currency or intelligence to play them.
Xbox Pro
The Xbox 360 Pro is the middle-class level for the Xbox 360. It retailed at $299.99 and has a reasonable 60 GB Hard Disk Drive. However, due to the the growing divide between working and upper-classes, Bill Gates is discontinuing this version of the Xbox 360.
Xbox E-l33t
The Xbox 360 E-l33t is the upper-class level for the Xbox 360, and is generally held to be the best and most desired version of the 360. It retailed at $479.99 and includes a 120 GB hard drive and a matte black finish in response to the comments of one upper-class test subject.
- "One likes NOT to see one's console whilst "pwning n00bs" on Halo 3 in the dark halls of my father's mansion."
- Richie Rich on being the E-l33t in both society and Xbox owners.
There are few outside of the Forbes' Fortunes 500 list that have the privilege to own such a piece of innovation in Engineering and Modern Art.
Competitors
Since what feels like the dawn of time, Microsoft has been in a three-way console war with Sony and Nintendo. Bill Gates, in his campaign to monopolize and obliterate any other competition he deems to be a threat to Microsoft, has utilised many tactics and strategies to win the war and save his 360ian subjects. Many believe he will fail, as an increasingly large amount of users are being swayed to the dark side of the Gaming force, but others remain devout in their belief that he will smash the competition, just like he did with Apple and Lotus...
Playstation 3
In an attempt to combat the 360's popularity, Sony created a monster of science, defying the laws of relativity and imagination, as well as acquiring a mythical artifact known colloquially as the blu-ray drive. Born like Darth Vader, but without the melodramatic and oh-so laughable "NOOOOOOOO!", it was then knighted the Playstation 3. Due to the ability to play Blu-ray discs, it is technically superior to the Xbox 360 , as a Blu-Ray disc contains 1.7x the amount of space a HD DVD does, allowing almost twice as much gaming detail.
However, the Playstation 3 is holding itself back from global domination for several reasons. Developers are unkeen on actually bothering to do anything with the extra space available. Whilst attributable to laziness, this could also be due to the fact that the Playstation 3 has very few games that are not shared multi-platform with the Xbox 360, and they are therefore limited to what the 360's specifications allow.
Another similar point is that the Xbox 360 has more exclusive games than the Playstation 3 does. "But what about Drake's Fortune?" cries one PS3 gamer. "And what about Metal Gear Solid 4?" cries another.
- Well PS3 owners, how would you like to play:
- Alan Wake, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Beautiful Katamari, Crackdown 1 & 2, Dead or Alive, Dead Rising, Fable 1, 2 & 3, Forza Motorsport, Gears of War 1 & 2, Any of the GTA: IV downloadable content, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars, Halo Reach, Lost Odyssey, Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 1,2,3 & 4,
', and Viva Pinata?
- Alan Wake, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Beautiful Katamari, Crackdown 1 & 2, Dead or Alive, Dead Rising, Fable 1, 2 & 3, Forza Motorsport, Gears of War 1 & 2, Any of the GTA: IV downloadable content, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars, Halo Reach, Lost Odyssey, Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 1,2,3 & 4,
- Well PS3 owners, how would you like to play:
- You would?
- Well, tough!
- You should have thought about it before you became a PS3 fanboy and forsook our HD-DVD capabilities!
- What do you mean, "half of those are crappy Halo spin-offs anyway"?
- Go fuck yourself!
Though the Playstation 3 does have some very interesting features-such as the ability to play a DVD above black & white picture quality, hentai screensaver, and a lone exclusive from Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid series-until it has an interesting red coloured circle, the ability to sound like a large aircraft taking off, and an online gaming system where one can be adequately abused by nine year olds, the Xbox 360 will remain way ahead of its closest competitor.
Nintendo Wii
“Wii think you suck!”
The Nintendo Wii is also considered to be one of Xbox 360's most dangerous competitors. In a shameless sellout campaign to get people aged 3-97 years old playing videogames under the "casual gamer" moniker, Nintendo may not only be stealing gamers from the Xbox community, but also from the human community as a whole. Consequently, they may also be taking away revenue from games once considered just average games, now considered "Hardcore", and investing money in stupid, trivial, casual games which revolve around one basic concept, such as "Wii Bowling", "Wii Fishing", "Wii Sumo Wrestling" and "Wii McDonalds Worker". It appears the extinction of the average gamer is nigh.
Fortunately, the Nintendo Wii and its "shit" "casual" games are hampered by having Playstation 2 standard graphics and limited gameplay which usually grows tiresome after 2 hours. Hopefully, this will only be a fad born from adverts displaying people of all ethnicities, ages, cultures and backgrounds playing together joyfully in harmony. On the other hand, the Wii could win the Nobel Peace Prize, which would make us royally f***ed.
Technical Problems and Controversies
Red Ring of Death
“With Xbox 360 we wanted to create something to calm gamers down in the very rare case that the console should break, and we all know that there is nothing more soothing than 3 soft-glowing red blinking lights.”
Despite having Jet airliner cooling fans, the Xbox 360's powerful processor never fails to overheat. This results in the most original feature that Bill Gates has come up with in his successor to the original Xbox, the Red Ring of Death. It indicates a "General Hardware Fuckup", and is recognized by three quadrants of the ring around the power button flashing red. Despite being solvable by simply waiting 12 months for the hardware to cool down (6 months if placed in a freezer), many owners find that waiting any longer than 30 seconds with the RRoD blinking at them will cause them to enter into a fit of blinding rage, in which they will perform one of two options.
- A. Angrily call customer services, get even more angry for having to wait ages trying to connect to the call center that Microsoft has cleverly decided to base in India. Then after half an hour of the call center assistant trying to sell you Perfect Dark Zero at "cheap retail price of $59.99", a claim will be filed and Microsoft will collect your console for repair.
- Or...
- B. Throw your console out of the window. Then follow the above...
Some 360 owners try to find a silver lining by engaging in 1-on-1 contests of staring at the RRoD, with the winner being the person who manages to stay calm the longest. The loser is the one who has to call customer services to get it repaired. Some absolutely stupid 360 owners (see Casual gamers) also compete to see who can get a RRoD fastest, by covering the fans, placing it next to the fireplace, "forgetting" to turn it off, and/or playing a game on it.
Xbox Addiction
“In Soviet Russia, Xbox gets addicted to You!”
Similar to how food addiction in the 20th century has led to the introduction of fat camps, game addiction camps have been introduced to help those who cannot keep under the 16 hours a day that Microsoft recommends as a maximum. Some of the practices used to help camp inductees are quite controversial, however. There have been reports of shock therapy, in which an individual is subjected to an electric shock when an image of Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John-117 is displayed, intending to reinforce a subconscious aversion to the character. Addicts are also forced to exercise in the yard for hours on end, while a camp counselor shouts through a megaphone, "Video games characters are not your friends. No matter how hard you try, you will never reach that last level. You will never top that high score."
Xbox Modding
The act of modding an Xbox for purposes at odds with Microsoft's terms and conditions is an act punishable by death in most countries, even ones that do not normally allow the death penalty. The following statement is displayed everytime a console is powered on.
"Modding, or even looking at the word "Modding" (excluding this and the last) is a violation of the terms of your end-user license agreement and automatically grants Bill Gates the right to burn down your house, slaughter your family, relatives and close friends, sexually assault your dog/dead grandmother, replace your internal organs with molten lead, and use the attachment that came with your Xbox to enslave your soul and send it to Microsoft headquarters for remunerative purposes.
We hope you enjoy your time gaming on this fine day."
Misleading Name
“There wasn't a single bit of porn on that damn thing!”
Erm... maybe this one isn't Bill Gates' fault.