Distaste on this website for one console or another takes many forms, but typically, results in immature, derogatory comments by one group of Fanboys, quickly retorted by more derogatory remarks coming from the opposing group of Fanboys. Such bickering gets us nowhere. In this relatively short blog post I will clearly explain my reasons for my distaste (I did not say hate) of the Xbox 360. Upon completion, I will ask a simple question and I encourage anyone and everyone to answer me with a comment composed as logically as possible. I do not want to start a flame war, what I hope to accomplish is more of an intellectual discussion of my question posed to N4G's gaming community. That question is, Is my distaste not reasonable?
I recently read a report of an adolescent getting arrested at a Toys'r'us for writing "Playstation Sucks" on the cases of PS3 games. His response to the police was "I have an Xbox and hate Playstation." This is clearly unreasonable and I brought that up for a simple reason, If that's your answer as to why you hate one console or the other, please leave it at the door and do not post a comment on this blog.
Ok, back to the point at hand.
Like I said before, I do not hate the Xbox 360, actually, I like it for the most part for what it does. It has a great online service and has a few great exclusives. What leaves a sour taste in my mouth though is how it has failed me over the years.
I'll start with the most blatant of those failures, that's the RROD / hardware malfunctions. I'm on my fourth Xbox 360 and on my third year of RROD warranty. Number 3 broke just before Killzone 2 came out, so I wasn't really that upset when I had to ship it out for repairs. But what did make me upset is what I had to deal with six months prior to it getting the dreaded RROD. For six months, my xbox would routinely hitch up with dropped framerates and freeze while playing games. After the debut of the NXE, it would take up to five minutes sometimes to bring up my dashboard friends list. Worst of all, sometimes it wouldn't even read games - including mint condition brand new ones! I would have to repeatedly open and close my disc tray untill ole' Bessy decided it was time to read the disc. Sometimes it would take up to a half hour of jimmying it just to play a game! My best friend had a similar problem (doesn't matter to him though, he still equates the Xbox to gold), the only difference was that we had to get a butter knife, insert it beneath the right side of the disc tray, find the cog, and open it manually because the button ceased to work after playing with it so much. We tried to call Microsoft only to be told that, basically, our Xbox's were not broken 'enough'. They NEEDED the RROD to be fixed under warranty. I toughed through it until February 2009 when those three red lights finally appeared and I was able to send my Xbox in for repairs. My best friend on the other hand wasn't so lucky, he instead picked it up and spiked it on a concrete sidewalk repeatedly untill he was satisfied and coughed up the $150 to get it fixed. Why should loyal consumers have to wait for a technicality to have their consoles fixed? I'm sure the revenue brought in by Xbox live would cover their meager expenses. But no, it's all black and white, or should I say red or green. Either wait for the RROD, or pay up. To me, that's unacceptable. Microsoft chose to release the console early to get a jump on the competition. Good business move, the only problem is that they did it at the expense of their customers, effectively biting the hand that feeds them. And what did loyal Xbox fans do? Did they rebel with a boycott? Did they file class action law suits? Some did, but they were snuffed out by the masses that chose to pay up and take the unethical abuse that that company was churning out.
Xbox live is another sore spot of mine. Yes, it's a good service, but is it enough to justify a $50 annual price-tag? I'll admit, since the first Xbox premeired, I've payed it. What have they done to pay us back? Absolutely nothing. I've been a PC gamer all my life. I have COD 4 & 5 for PC. Not only were the games $10 cheaper, but I have also received every map pack for them for FREE. Why can't Xbox live provide something like that? I'm sure it's Activision's will to have the Map Packs at a fee, but other things, like, for instance, avatars clothing, why can't we use our gamerscore as a currency of sorts to 'buy' more clothing? We already purchased those games or rented them at least so a portion of those proceeds were already going to Microsoft to begin with, but now they started CHARGING? No Microsoft, I will not pay 80 points for that hoodie or 120 points for that COG helmet. I could have been mistaken, but hadn't they said at one point that we would be able to use our gamerscore in the future to buy clothing? That would be an incentive for me to BUY and PLAY MORE Xbox games... But instead, just as it always has throughout the course of mankind, greed has won yet another round.
My final point has to do with the games themselves. I know I said earlier that this blog post was going to be relatively short, but please bear with me.
It has long been said by Sony that the PS3 is more powerful than the Xbox. That statement has been responded to by Microsoft many times as false. But from what I have observed first-hand, I now believe it to be true. I have never played a game with the same graphical fidelity as Killzone 2 or Uncharted on anything other than an amped PC. And the next line of Playstation 3 exclusives appear to be continuing in that tradition. They look utterly spectatular up to the point of photo-realism as with Gran Tursimo 5.
As I said before, I'm used to playing PC games. I own CoD 4 & WaW for both the PC and Xbox 360. I only play them on the PC, with the exception of when my friends are on the Xbox, then I hop on an play with them. Yes, I do have a top-of-the-line PC, and with that said, when I play those games, especially WaW, they are as crisp as can be and look utterly spectactular. The Xbox versions on the other hand, for lack of a better term, look 'muddy', as if they are at a lower resolution with 'muddy' corners/outlines to compensate for a lack of Anti-Alaising. I play these on a very nice HDTV with a 10,000/1 contrast ratio so it's not my TV.
With that said, I have never seen a multi-platform game on the Xbox 360 or the PS3 look anywhere as good as a PS3 exclusive. Is it that unreasonable to deduce that the Xbox 360's graphical limitations may be limiting the developers of ALL multiplatform games? On top of that, they sometimes look even worst on the PS3, which shows that developers care more about making money and getting the game to a wider audience than developing a quality product that works and looks equally well on both consoles. Hopefully, with the PS3 price cut, developers will pay closer attention to that audience and develop an equal or better product with the hardware presented to them depending on each respective console instead of taking the easy way out.
Now to summarize, with the historically high failure rate of Xbox 360's, with the unrivaled greed Microsoft exhibits with the Xbox Live "Gold" service, and with the reasonable deduction that that console is holding back current generation games from what they can really be...
Microsoft, is my distaste for the Xbox 360 not reasonable?
Please, comment intelligently below, hopefully reason and logic will prevail and blind ignorance will be ignored.
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stories like that toy r us thing and stuff like kid runs away from home because parents took away halo scares me.
just goes to show how far fanboys and addicts go.
I share your sentiments to the letter and feel for ya. I was a huge MS supporter until I realized that they did not support me as a gamer but would rather rip me off and sell me something I could get free elsewhere. I am now an avid PC and PS3 user. Kudos for putting your neck out there and making me proud to know there are others out there like me in nearly every single way.
Sounds reasonable enough but something tells me you already knew that. You probably just wanted to write a blog to point out what you don't like without completely sounding like a fanboy. An interesting way to flamebait, I'm sure.
"Microsoft, Is my distaste not reasonable?"
"How Microsoft rips you off"
"What Sony can do to easily win next gen"
"Buy Wipeout HD + Fury Now"
The last couple of days it's been impossible to post anything remotely positive about the 360 (in 360 news articles) without getting 10 disagrees and just as many comments from rabid fanboys calling you names because you like games that are on the 360.
Example: http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-...
I read your blog and it basically brings up a subject we see posted on N4G every 5 minutes or so. RROD sucks. I don't like it either but unlike you I haven't had it 4 times and the awesome games line-up and online service is something that imo I can only experience on the 360. And yes, I have plenty of experience with the PS3.
"No Microsoft, I will not pay 80 points for that hoodie or 120 points for that COG helmet."
The PS3 has the same kind of things in Home. Do you pay for those?
Then the stealth trolling gets even more visible with you writing about teh graphics and how impressive they are on the PS3. Personally I think gameplay is what matters.
Great graphics can be a bonus but it's never the deciding factor for me since I buy games to play them, not to hang them on the wall. Though I'd like to add that technical issues such as framerate issues and screentearing can affect gameplay negatively. But that's not what you are talking about in your blog.
The Dirt 2 demo is a perfect example, mind you it's a multiplat title that looks better than many PS3 exclusives as well. The graphics are extremely impressive but the controls are just as p!ss poor as in the first game. If I got to choose I'd rather play a rally game with lesser graphics and better controls and gameplay. Like the old classic Rallisport Challenge 2 for instance.
I do wonder why Halo 3 is so popular when it's graphics are no match for Killzone 2...
"with the unrivaled greed Microsoft exhibits with the Xbox Live "Gold" service, and with the reasonable deduction that that console is holding back current generation games from what they can really be..."
So Sony's decision to remove BC (a feature previously available) from the PS3 Slim wasn't greedy? Microsoft holding back the PS3 by offering the architecture that is easiest to program for? Tell me, in what way are MS holding back Polyphony Digital, Naughty Dog and all the other PS3 first party devs from fully utilizing the Cell? Are they somehow forcing Sony into making certain decisions that aren't good for gaming? Or perhaps you are blaming MS for Sony's decisions?
What was your point with this blog again? If not to say "Sony and the PS3 are better than MS and the 360" in a stealth trolling way, what was it you wanted us t know that we haven't heard 2000 times before?