It is with a heavy heart that I announce the departure of an old gaming console, the Xbox.
No, not that one. And no, not the new one, or even that one.
Jesus, Microsoft really fucked up the naming system for these things didn’t they? I mean, it was so simple to just follow the numbers. Call the sequel “2”. Then after that comes “3”. You don’t even have to do math for that, or look the numbers up. At least you shouldn’t.
Hell, even Sony didn’t fuck that up. Except that the PSOne came out after the PS2. And the PSX that a lot of people refer to is actually just the PlayStation and not the real PSX, which was something else entirely.
Anyway, Microsoft calls #2 the 360, #3 the “One”, and only Microsoft employees with the requisite training can follow along with the clusterfuck after that. I’m guessing that they will start using unpronounceable symbols next.
But I’m rambling, and skipping, and seeking and failing to read, much like the DVD drive inside my original Xbox. It bothers me that I have to call it the Original Xbox, when simply calling it by its name of Xbox should suffice.
Yes, the O.G. The first console that Microsoft ever made. There are 98 exclusive games for the OG Xbox that weren’t released on other platforms at the time. Some of these are available to re-buy and play through emulated backward compatibility on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, but I distinctly remember buying my Xbox to play Xbox games. Weird.
I have 32 Xbox games, and about half of those are on that list. I checked into the whole backward compatibility thing, and it just isn’t an option. I don’t want to re-buy a small selection of the games I already own, and miss out on playing others just because they’re not supported.
So I’m going to have to see if I can softmod my Xbox. The DVD drive is pretty much useless now, and was super loud even when it worked. But even past that concern, the hard drive will probably go next, so I should just replace the hard drive while I’m at it.
Or I could just set my sights on emulation. There are two very promising Xbox emulation projects going on right now – Cxbx-Reloaded and xemu. I’ve watched Xbox emulation progress over the years from “forget about it” to “the dashboard loads” to “some games are playable”. It’s pretty exciting to think what kind of work might get done in a few more years.
But until then, I’ll have to try to work to “fix” and get around the broken state of my own Xbox hardware. There are so many great games that I’d love to play, like Panzer Dragoon Orta and Moto GP 2 and 3. Some of the racing games I bought for that console are just too much fun to never play again.
So farewell, Xbox, but hopefully not forever.