Should I Buy an Xbox 360? |
Posted: November 27, 2017 |
Quick Disclaimer: The author of these articles loves video games and does not have any bias towards any of the video games systems. He reviews them objectively based on many different factors including games available, other features, price etc. End Disclaimer. The Xbox 360 was the first system of this generation to be released and it had nearly a year head start over the competition from Sony and Nintendo. It had some early hardware issues that took hit some gamers hard but that now that it has been updated the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" should be gone for good. Microsoft's system has the largest library of games including some awesome exclusives and the biggest online community in the console world. Now that the competition has had some time to catch up is it still worth it to purchase an Xbox 360? A huge benefit of the Xbox 360 is the games. It has a huge library of exclusives and also many games that were originally headed exclusively to Sony's system are now available or soon will be on the 360 as well. Games such as Halo and Gears of War have huge followings online and Mass Effect and Lost Odyssey are there to appeal to RPG fans. Microsoft has worked hard to make sure its library stays varied and the previous RPG examples are a perfect case of that. No one coming into this generation of video games thought the Xbox 360 would be the system for RPGs but it has managed to be just that. Microsoft has even gotten Square-Enix to put Star Ocean 4 exclusively on the Xbox 360 and also convince them to make Final Fantasy XIII go multiplatform. This is huge because Final Fantasy has long been a system seller for Sony but now it is available on both. Multiplatform games usually have their definitive versions on Microsoft's system. Since the 360 is available without a hard drive mandatory installs were out of the question for Xbox 360. However third party developers made due and despite what seemed to be a limitation the system has flourished with those developers. Since the system is very similar to PC in development many games like Bioshock and Mass Effect start out on either PC or 360 and then are moved to the other quickly and easily. Xbox Live is Microsoft's online service. For a measly 50 dollars a year gamers are presented with plenty of options that make playing online with friends simple. A player can send their friends invites no matter what game they are playing and also hold chats with them while playing different games! The majority of games released nowadays have some kind of Live connectivity whether it is achievements to showcase a player's accomplishments in games or downloadable content of varying value; starting with the near useless Horse Armor in Oblivion to new map packs in games like Halo and Gears of War to the oft-delayed Grand Theft Auto content that promises to be huge. The Xbox 360 is a DVD player and also has plenty of media available to download. The only problem with this is the astronomical price that Microsoft charges for the proprietary hard drives for the 360. A 120GB drive can cost as much as 180 dollars! A standard drive for the PS3 could have double the space for that cost. Media wise the 360 also loses a little ground to the PS3 because it only supports DVD (and for a while the ill-fated HD-DVD). What Microsoft plans to do in the future is unknown but on and off rumors have hinted that maybe a blu-ray drive is in the works for the Xbox 360. Find more info Overall the Xbox 360 is a great system that has such a large community backing it. Because of this gamers looking to play online a lot are probably best suited jumping into Microsoft's camp. While the system is criticized due to its durability it seems like new systems are much more reliable than the first batch of machines. It has a wide variety of games and like PS3 gamers will be able to find something that fits their interest on it. It is now available for as little as 200 dollars though, making it a cheaper alternative to those that do not necessarily need a blu-ray player or the exclusives available on the PS3.
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