Not Your Older Brother's XBox

One of the greatest days in our life, it's fair to say, was the torrentially rainy night in 2003 when, flush with lucre from an internship, we strode dripping into a Circuit City and ordered the pimple-faced attendant to get an XBox out of the case, we'd be taking it home, thank you. Since then it (and others, belonging to friends) has afforded us thousands of hours of transcendently awesome fun, meaning the stakes couldn't be higher for the new XBox 360, which drops soon. BlogPulse's no. 17 top link today investigates the innards of one of the new machines, in the new Internet tradition of dissecting new gadgets so that timid, penniless geekoids can get their jollies without having to actually plunk down their own cash. For XBoxes this is especially pertinent, as many people loved modifying the original machines to save games, use as basic PCs, etc. The reaction seems to be pleasant surprise, becuase Microsoft swore the 360 model would be immune from meddling. Joystiq: "Listen up future 360 modders, ‘cause they provide step-by-step instructions for splaying your console wide using only standard tools and a couple of metal sticks." Pocketfactory is a little less enthused about Microsoft's new hardware, which, despite earlier promises, won't necessarily be backwards-compatible with old games, unless you pay $100 for the "premium" version: "Now, with backwards compatibility costing you that extra hundred bucks in the XBox 360, the people who own many games will have to get the $400 XBox 360 so they can play their old stuff. Of course, you can keep both consoles, but then, what's the point of an upgrade?" What indeed? Can the 360 model promise transcendent awesomeness, or just different games?

Posted by Philip Ewing at November 17, 2005 10:16 AM

Category: The Gadget Scene