It’s odd to think of how different the tech world was back in 2005 when the Xbox 360 launched. Cell phones were still primarily phones, a majority of people still owned 4:3 CRT televisions, and there was no guarantee that your home would have broadband internet access. I need not recount the changes that have happened in the ten years since that fateful November 22nd, but it is incredible to think that the Xbox 360 still has a place in the tech world. I fully suspect that in time the system will be considered one of the all time greats, flaws and all, and I give credit to Microsoft for embracing the concept of “good enough” to allow the 360 to succeed.

I actually never purchased the Xbox 360 at launch, which in retrospect seems a bit weird. I was, and still am, a huge fan of the original Xbox. I had owned all three previous generation systems (the Gamecube, Playstation 2, and Xbox), and the hulking black box got the most use by a significant margin. The raw power of the console made multiplatform games look better and load faster, and the system’s exclusives gave me my first real taste of Western developed PC games. It all felt very well thought out and presented a clear and bright picture of where the games industry was headed. But compared to the definitive vision of the Xbox, the 360 at launch seemed unfocused about what it wanted to do. Microsoft clearly wanted to beat Sony to market and at a competitive price point, and the two versions of the Xbox 360 at launch prioritized those two goals above all else. The optional hard drive felt like a step back from the possibilities offered by the Xbox’s mandatory storage. The lack of wi-fi seemed silly since the cheap Nintendo DS included it. Even the jet-liner noise of the system and cheap plasticky design showed Microsoft making weird cost saving decisions at the expense of having the console feel truly next-gen. In many ways the launch mirrored that of the ill-fated Dreamcast, a system that existed in the looming shadow of a high powered new Playstation and as such only felt like a tentative half step rather than a full next-gen leap. However, unlike the mismanagement at Sega tanking a beloved (if flawed) console, Microsoft understood that the Xbox 360 was more than the sum of its parts and used that understanding to engineer one of the most shocking upsets in the history of video games.

Despite the cheap feeling of the 360’s design, the console was a true monster at its core. Launch titles such as Call of Duty 2 and Project Gotham Racing 3 looked as good as games running on PCs that cost 4 times more than the $300-400 launch price. Combined with the increasing number of high definition displays in people’s homes, the sharp and beautiful visuals of the Xbox 360 more than made up for the constant wheezing of the system. Furthermore, the system had a wonderfully designed system interface, a revamped Xbox Live that acted as a social network, and one of the greatest controllers ever made. It was clear that Microsoft focused its resources entirely on making the user experience as pleasant and annoyance free as possible. Not only that, but the system was designed to also be developer friendly, thereby ensuring that multi-platform development started on the 360 and then moved over to the notoriously difficult Playstation 3. This focus on player and developer experience was key to the 360’s success and helped it weather the biggest crisis of its life.

You can’t really talk about the Xbox 360 without making some mention of the Red Ring of Death. Who would have thought that a cheap looking console would also be cheaply built and failure prone! For any other console in any other era, the near 100% failure rate would have been a death sentence in the market place. But no other console had the near endless coffers of Microsoft, which promptly repaired and returned any 360 afflicted with the Red Ring free of charge. This alone would not have saved the system, but with the only other high definition option being the outrageously priced Playstation 3, most game players simply shrugged and moved on. I myself purchased an Xbox 360 in late 2006 knowing full well of its unreliability and proceeded to have two separate Red Rings, but even today I consider the hassle to have been worth it just to play the impressive library of games.

When it comes to the Xbox 360’s lifespan, I categorize them into two eras; the “dominance” era and the “complementary” era. The “dominance” era, which lasted from roughly 2005 to 2009, was categorized by an abundance of exclusives. It was during this time that Microsoft Game Studios was at its height and put out incredible titles like Halo 3, Forza Motorsport 3, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and Crackdown. The ease of designing for the system made it so that the 360 had timed exclusives such as Mass Effect, Bioshock, and TES IV: Oblivion simply because game makers needed more time to make these games work on the Playstation 3. When the games did come out on Sony’s platform it often looked and played noticeably worse than on the 360, effectively neutralizing the argument that Sony had processing power on its side. By 2009 however, the PS3 began to find its footing and the 360 would lose the marketplace dominance it once had.

The Xbox 360’s “complimentary” era, which started in 2009 until ending relatively recently, was a more low-key era than the previous one. Extraordinary games were still coming out for the console, such as Assassin’s Creed II and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but the big difference was that those games were also coming out day and date on the PS3 and PC, and looked either the same or better than on the 360. It became clear that Microsoft no longer wanted to use risky first party exclusives to sell the system and limited their output to safe franchises like Halo and Gears of War. Instead, players were enticed to choose the Xbox 360 for mundane reasons such as timed DLC. But unlike in previous eras where switching consoles was relatively painless, the social hooks of Xbox Live kept many players firmly in Microsoft’s camp. Why abandon your 360 when all your friends are there and you have that shiny gamerscore to show off? It’s not like you were missing much on the other systems, and if you only owned a 360 you were pretty much equipped to play any and all games that “mattered”, be they AAA boxed games or the increasingly experimental and interesting downloadable games of the Xbox Live Arcade. Furthermore, the introduction of apps such as Youtube and Netflix made the Xbox 360 a fantastic option for users to stream content to their TVs. I, like many game enthusiasts, did eventually purchase a PS3 to play that system’s exclusives and even used Steam from time to time, but through it all, the center of my gaming world continued to be the Xbox 360.

It’s still strange to me that the 360 is now considered an old system. Even with the Xbox One out on the market for two years now, the 360 remains a viable modern game console. Just this year we have seen 360 versions of new titles such as Metal Gear Solid V and Rise of the Tomb Raider. The most shocking part of all this is that these ostensibly next-gen titles look and play just fine on 10 year old hardware. Sure you aren’t getting the highest resolution or best framerate as you would on a current console or PC, but the games still look quite good on their own. Compare these games against those launch titles of 2005 and you would be right in wondering if it is even the same system running them.

I have since moved on from the Xbox 360 and am now using my Playstation 4 and PC for most of my gaming. I do however keep the 360 hooked up as it’s still a great streaming box and has a deep library that keeps growing. I suspect that it will stick around for a few more years before properly being retired, but in the meantime I’ll take any excuse to take the wheezing old thing for another spin. Thanks to my PC, the 360’s controller still gets used almost every day, even if the system itself does not. Who would have thought that a rushed console, launched with what seemed to be glue and duct tape holding it together, would prove to be so vital ten years later? The Xbox 360 was and always will be a jack of all trades and master of none, but it is precisely that characteristic that has kept it in the gaming zeitgeist for so long. So here’s to you Xbox 360. You were “good enough”, and sometimes that’s good enough.

I only ever had a 20 GB hard drive with my 360, and in hindsight that is an almost unfathomable idea today.

@zombiepie: The 20 GB (13 of which was usable) was almost unfathomable back then too! Admittedly that was at a time when Xbox Live Arcade games had a size limit of 50 MB and the high point of DLC was the Oblivion's Horse Armor, so it wasn't like it was an impossibly small amount. I eventually relented and bought a 250 GB Slim model a few years back to ensure that I had the entire Mass Effect trilogy, including DLC, installed and ready to go at a moment's notice. I have yet to regret this decision.

I don't think the RROD thing was nearly a hundred percent, was it?

@believer258: Honestly that was me being a little hyperbolic. That being said, have you seen a launch Xbox 360 that still runs? Because I haven't.

I still hate that they got rid of the blades dashboard, I'd love if in an update now that the X1 is out the door and in homes, they at some point say here have the old dash if you want it on the 360!

Great write-up, especially now that they've ceased manufacturing the console. So long, XB360. :)

Terrible console. A console is only as good as its exclusives, and the Xbox 360 had almost none. There's not a single game that I want to play on mine. I wish MS would leave gaming, because they're contributing nothing.

@ezekiel: this is stale bait

I'm dead serious. I've always criticized Microsoft for their lack of exclusives, and now that I have an Xbox 360, it makes me upset. The only game I've played on it is part of the Bayonetta demo, which was even lamer than I remember it being on the PS3. It's now a stand for my monitor.

@ezekiel: The 360 certainly lacked a large amount of exclusive titles across its lifespan, but I'd argue that that was beside the point. In an era where PC gaming was still coalescing into a more user friendly and reasonably priced ecosystem and the PS3 was commanding a premium price for a console, the Xbox 360 provided a mass market option to keep up with the gaming zeitgeist. Also, the few exclusives that Microsoft put out (e.g. Gears, Halo, Forza) absolutely has their fans. But hey, opinions right?

The one assertion of yours that I will absolutely disagree with is that Microsoft has contributed nothing to gaming. Even if you haven't owned an Xbox console ever you would still have to credit Microsoft with pushing forward such benefits as robust online networks, bringing Western PC game development to the mainstream, and emphasizing the importance of intuitive and useful development tools. I'd argue that the success of the PS4 is in large part due to the influence that the Xbox 360 had, as its online ecosystem, off-the-shelf chipset, and redesigned controller feel closer to the 360's legacy than the PS3's.

I have been wanting to hook my 360 up and play Mass effect 3 multiplayer for a while, but then i'd have to buy some sorta gold account again. I think 360 kinda still holds up because framerate on current consoles really aren't that much better(if better at all) and higher fidelity graphics don't really add much to gameplay.

And as far as exclusives, they had some at first like the original Mass Effect but i guess the deals weren't worth it in the long run. The system pretty much became the best place for third party games and online as mostly everything just ran better on it than it did on ps3

Nice not-quite post-mortem! I'm with you on the 360 becoming a landmark console in the eyes of history; the HD generation changed the gaming landscape, and for Microsoft to dominate the space in spite of horrendous technical problems is a tremendous achievement. Couple that with the longest console generation by a large margin, and the plasticky box warrants all the fond memories I share with it.

That was a good read! I have had a XOne since summer 2014 but I still have my 360 hooked up and use it as much, if not more than my One. Between the Cloud saves and the XOne backwards compatibility it seems like there is less of a hard break between this generation and last than there has been in the past; the two consoles are a fairly integrated experience because of the shared log-in. I agree with your division between the two 360 eras, I bought the console in 2006 and was definitely most excited about the console in the era when games like Oblivion, Mass Effect, Halo 3, and Gears were exclusive to the platform. In later years the PS3 and 360 seemed to basically offer identical experiences.

All the modern controllers are basically the DualShock from eighteen years ago. They still have the same layout and the same problems. The controller is one of the things I feel is most in need of change on both platforms, so I wouldn't give Microsoft any credit for that.

Microsoft killed online gaming for me. I'm not gonna pay for a subscription to have full access to the games I pay for, so now I'm just not gonna play MP at all. At least not on consoles, if I ever get another one.

I don't like the mainstream. They have no idea what you're talking about when you mention games. Gears and Halo have always seemed really unappealing to me. The mainstream made dumb first-person shooters explode on consoles, but the controller isn't even ideal for FPS.

Nice read. Still my favorite console ever.

Nice read, disagree about the controller though. The terrible d-pad and the bumpers made it borderline unusable for me. I found the triggers really irritating too compared to old shoulder buttons. Maybe because I don't really play console shooters, but I guess the only thing I really liked about the 360 controller was how heavy it was.