Xbox 360
Xbox 360 is Microsoft's second attempt at a gaming console. The term "360" used in its title is suggestive that its development, based on improving the design of its predecessor, the Xbox, went around in a circle and changed nothing at all. A prominent feature of the Xbox 360 is its integrated Xbox Live service that allows squeaky kids to abuse players online and download content such as arcade games, game demos, viruses, trailers, TV shows, pornography and movies.
Other major features of the console include its Windows Media Center multimedia capabilities (encouraging you to buy Microsoft computers), mandatory support of high definition in all games (making standard definition appear obsolete, encouraging you to buy a new TV), movie rentals (encouraging you to buy from Microsoft's Xbox Live system), game downloads from its online marketplace (encouraging you to buy Microsoft's video games) and the ability to watch movies on the (now discontinued) HD DVD format via an add-on drive (although Sony have since proved Microsoft backed the wrong horse, Microsoft still encourages you to buy HD add-on drives and HD-Disc formats). People who use more than one of these services are approximately $2,300 in debt.
The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), receiving lukewarm response and a compulsory 5-second applause from the audience. Surprisingly to many game analysts and developers, the console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan, and as of 2013, over 78,2 million units have been sold worldwide. The Xbox 360 is currently available in two configurations—the "Arkade" and the "E-l33t"—and each has its own selection of useless but highly customisable accessories.
Development
Known during development as Xenubox, Xbox 2, Xbox FS (Fat Station), Xbox Episode 2: Microsoft Strikes Back, Xbox Next, or NextBox, the Xbox 360 was conceived in early 2003. Gates originally conceived simply just selling the original Xbox again, but with a different cardboard box packaging to fool consumers into thinking they were buying something new. However, his market-research team warned him that if this genius idea was exposed, the consequences could be disastrous for Microsoft. Gates then pursued a new direction, and strived to create a console that would be able to justify its inclusion in the league of next-generation gaming by having one thing: Better Graphics.
During development, Gates got slightly carried away with himself and integrated even more new features than the aforementioned graphics improvement. He also did extensive market research by observing small focus groups of families and friends playing on the Xbox 360 together. Through this, he came up with the idea of using wireless controllers to solve the problem of gamers trying to strangle each other with the controller cables.
Features
- Powered by a 3.2 GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xenu processor which are more commonly used in 347 Jet airliners, subsequently making the noise from the console's fan system similar to an aircraft taking off. Rather than acknowledge this as the complete irritance that it is, Gates kept the feature, as he felt the extra noise made the the console powering up sound more grand, more exciting, more powerful... and more expensive!
- Can also act as central heating system to ensure you room stays at a constant 50 degrees C all year round. Adding some coals and water can convert the Xbox 360 into your very own Swedish style sauna, or an be used to make fantastic boiled eggs.
- Included in the console is a complex algorithm that ensures 1 in every 6 disc loads will result in a disk scratched beyond repair, meaning the user has an excuse to treat themselves to a replacement game, making sure their collection never gathers dust for long. Gates also implemented the same idea with the Xbox itself, giving it a built-in lifespan of 6 months.
Variants
Feeling highly experimental, Bill Gates also tried to introduce different social classes to gaming by releasing alternate versions of the Xbox 360.
Xbox Arkade
The Xbox 360 Arkade is the working-class level for the Xbox 360. It was initially priced at $279.99, until Bill Gates was informed that $279.99 was too expensive for any working class individual to afford, and he redyced the price to $199.99. It includes a wireless controller, composite AV cable, HDMI 1.2 output, an internal 512 MB memory chip, and 5 Xbox Live Arcade titles: Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and Uno on a single disk. The Arkade version does not include a hard drive or any real Xbox 360 games in its bundle, as Gates assumes that poor people do not possess the sufficient currency or intelligence to play them.
Xbox Pro
The Xbox 360 Pro is the middle-class level for the Xbox 360. It retailed at $299.99 and has a reasonable 60 GB Hard Disk Drive. However, due to the the growing divide between working and upper-classes, Bill Gates is discontinuing this version of the Xbox 360.
Xbox E-l33t
The Xbox 360 E-l33t is the upper-class level for the Xbox 360, and is generally held to be the best and most desired version of the 360. It retailed at $479.99 and includes a 120 GB hard drive and a matte black finish in response to the comments of one upper-class test subject. Despite having very little different between the E-l33t and its less sophisticated brethren, this version of the Xbox 360 declares that the owner is of high status in society, making it highly sought after. There are few outside of the Forbes' 400 rich list that have the privilege to own such a piece of innovation in Engineering and Modern Art.
Competitors
Since what feels like the dawn of time, Microsoft has been in a three-way console war with Sony and Nintendo. Bill Gates, in his campaign to monopolize and obliterate any other competition he deems to be a threat to Microsoft, has utilised many tactics and strategies to win the war and save his 360ian subjects. Many believe he will fail, as an increasingly large amount of users are being swayed to the dark side of the Gaming force, but others remain devout in their belief that he will smash the competition, just like he did with Apple and Lotus...
PlayStation 3
In an attempt to copy the 360's wildly popular Red Ring of Death, Sony created a monster of science, defying the laws of relativity and imagination, as well as acquiring a mythical artifact known colloquially as theblu-ray drive. Born like Darth Vader, but without the melodramatic and oh-so laughable "NOOOOOOOO!", it was then knighted the PlayStation 3. Due to its ability to play Blu-ray discs, it is technically superior to the Xbox 360, as the discs contain 1.7x the amount of space a HD DVD does, allowing almost twice as much gaming detail.
However, the PS3 is holding itself back from global domination for several reasons. Developers are unkeen on actually bothering to do anything with the extra space available. Whilst attributable to laziness, this could also be due to the fact that the PS3 has very few games that are not shared multi-platform with the Xbox 360, and they are therefore limited to what the 360's specifications allow. Another similar point is that the Xbox 360 has more exclusive games than the PS3 does — 185 to be precise, far more than the PS3's measley two.
Though the PS3 does have some very interesting features (ability to play a DVD above black & white picture quality, hentai screensaver, Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Sea Cucumber series), until it has an interesting red circle, the ability to sound like a large aircraft taking off, and an online gaming system where one can be adequately abused by nine year olds, the Xbox 360 will remain ahead of its competitor.
Wii
The Wii is also considered to be one of Xbox 360's most dangerous competitors. In a shameless sellout campaign to get people aged 3–12 years old playing videogames under the "casual gamer" moniker, Nintendo may not only be stealing gamers from the Xbox community, but also from the human community as a whole. Consequently, they may also be taking away revenue from games once considered just average games, now considered "Hardcore", and investing money in stupid, trivial, casual games which revolve around one basic concept, such as "Wii Bowling", "Wii Fishing", "Wii Sumo Wrestling" and "Wii McDonalds Worker". It appears the extinction of the average gamer is nigh.
Fortunately, the Nintendo Wii and its "shit" "casual" games are hampered by having Playstation 2 standard graphics and limited gameplay which usually grows tiresome after 2 hours. Hopefully, this will only be a fad born from adverts displaying people of all ethnicities, ages, cultures and backgrounds playing together joyfully in harmony. On the other hand, the Wii could win the Nobel Peace Prize, which would make us royally f***ed.
Game library
- Assassin's Creed – Go mad in Jerusalem as you play a anti-semitic assassin with a hoodie, an ASBO, and a concealed blade.
- Bioshock – Inject yourself with crystal meth a new superdrug, and overdose yourself into a coma. Still high are you? Why don't you explore the underwater dystopian city or Rapture, inject yourself some more, but this time, you'll think the drugs have given you superpowers. Still not had enough? Under a hallucination, kill 500-pound diver-suit monsters (Obese Fathers), and mutilate already-freakishly deformed little girls (The aforementioned obese fathers' daughters). Still not maxed out? Kill your own father and then murder that dick you know who pretends to be from Ireland when he's not.
- Black and White 3 – Now starring Michael Jackson!!!!
- Blank 2: Even More Emptiness – A very successful game, with a special edition Xbox created for it that appeared to be an empty box - mainly because it WAS an empty box. However, YOU still bought it, and actually imagined that you had an advanced game system, because you are completely under Bill's dark, dubious, Michael Jackson-like powers.
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – A first person shooter that revolutionized gaming, it included many new features such as new enemies like the screaming little kids only found in online matches. The ability to commit terrorist attacks and massacre airport visitors was also critically heralded.
- Dead or Alive – Incredibly successful breast physics simulator.
- Doom II – Developed by Lucifer Software in 1993, a critical error caused any console that tried to play this game to turn into a portal to Hell. Fortunately, the millions of demons that poured through the gateways were all destroyed by one soldier (Gordan Freeman), who started fighting them with only a pistol, but found many conveniently placed weapons, health, and armor pickups, eventually managing to destroy the hordes of demons. However, critics of the game accused him of playing on 'Easy' mode, and many believe he used cheats.
- Elderscrolls 5: Fallout - Made from the faulty Skynet AI, this is the newest installment in the Elder Scrolls Franchise set in the year no one gives a damn about. The story line revolves around hunting down a hooker who has given you herpes.
- Fable – Some guy with a crooked nose. Get drunk, get laid, murder, steal. Basically, Grand Theft Auto in the middle ages, except now you have magical powers and can only go straight which makes it so much better.
- Fable 2 - Now with more hookers and you can play as a woman.
- Forza Motorsport 2/Forza Motorsport 3/Forza Motorsport 4 - All ripoffs of Gran Turismo.
- Forza Horizon - Ripoff version of Test Drive Unlimited.
- Gears of War - Run, cover, shoot, run, cover, shoot, run, cover, shoot, run, cover, shoot, run, cover, shoot, run, cover, shoot...
- GTA 4 - Go around in a car and shoot, rape, run over and toy with pedestrians, whilst ignoring any and all story line and listening to JNR. Its Jass all the way baby!
- Guitar Hero 21: Fake-Ass Wannabe Rock-Fags - Too untalented to play a real instrument? Then Guitar Hero may be for YOU!
- Halo ODST - What the fuck is an ODST?
- Harry Potter series (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) – A game nothing like the movies (which in turn are nothing like the books). You run around casting spells no one has ever heard of and fight weird things like gaytrashes and the final boss: Caramello Koala!!!!
- Hitman: Blood's Funny – Realistic Murder Simulator for you to practice your techniques at taking out people who require more than just the usual wait in the back-alley scenario. Comes free with Question and Answer Cards to defend yourself when The Daily Mail stands outside your house, harrassing you for buying a violent video game.
- Jet Set Radio Future – A completely fucked up game where you ride around on roller blades spraying grafitti and taking down rival gangs (amazingly thinking they can take over the world by riding around spraying retarded tags)all the while doing almost physically impossible tricks. Avoid at all costs (which is about $750).
- Knight Rider – A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.
- Mass Effect – Lift Sequences just got a little longer...
- Midtown Madness 3 – A racing game with absolutely no plot, crappy car physics, too many jumps, and no cars that will explode.
- Mortal Kombat VS. DC Universe – A slightly censored version of all the other Mortal Kombats. And now ITS KALLED A HEROIK BRUTALITY BITCH!!!!
- Ninja Gaiden – Ninja simulator in techno-future feudal Japan and a crazy tough fighter chick with huge boobs who totally gets slimed and oiled up.
- Ninja Gaiden 2 – Ninja simulator with werewolves in techno-future world with a CIA agent with gigantic boobs and little attire. Also, a button to rip the limbs off things.
- Red Ring of Death – One of the xBox's highest selling games, it made Bill Gates a fortune because of a glitch that made the user have to buy a new Xbox 360. However, by this time the player is so addicted to the xBox that they do this repeatedly, until they run out of money, but not stupidity.
- Resident Evil 5 – Kill the African colonies under the pretense that they are infected with a zombie virus, albeit a different one from the first 3 games, which makes them act almost like normal human beings...almost.
- Rock Band – Know some other people who are just as untalented at playing real instruments than you? Get together over Rock Band and share the pain! PLEASE NOTE: In larger groups, it is recommended that the gayest person use the Microphone, so at least everyone else gets to enjoy the game.
- Saints Row – A so-called GTA clone.
- Viva Piñata – Get murdered by your friends and shot again for good measure, end up in hell and fight for survival and revenge. Oh, you wanted to know about the game? Heck if I know, I'm not buying that piece of crap.
- WWE Wrestlemania XXX: Uncut Edition' – The yearly WWE cash-in.
- WWE Chris Benoit Stories – Follow Chris Benoit's career in this game capitalizing on his death.
Technical issues
Red Ring of Death
“With Xbox 360 we wanted to create something to calm gamers down in the very rare case that the console should break, and we all know that there is nothing more soothing than 3 soft-glowing red blinking lights.”
Despite having jet airliner cooling fans, the Xbox 360's powerful processer never fails to overheat. This results in the most original feature that Bill Gates has come up with in his suckcessor to the original Xbox, the Red Ring of Death. It indicates a "General Hardware Fuckup", and is recognized by three quadrants of the ring around the power button flashing red. Despite being solvable by simply waiting 12 months for the hardware to cool down (6 months if placed in a freezer), many owners find waiting any longer than 30 seconds with the RRoD blinking at them will cause them to enter into a fit of blinding rage, in which they will perform one of two options:
- a) Angrily call customer services, get even more angry for having to wait ages trying to connect to the call centre that Microsoft has cleverly decided to base in India. Then after half an hour of the call centre assistant trying to sell you Perfect Dark Zero at "cheap retail price of $59.99", a claim will be filed and Microsoft will collect your console for repair.
- b) Throw your console out of the window. Then follow the above...
Some 360 owners try to find a silver lining by engaging in 1-on-1 contests of staring at the RRoD, with the winner being the person who manages to stay calm the longest. The loser is the one who has to call customer services to get it repaired. Some absolutely stupid 360 owners (see Casual gamers) also compete to see who can get a RRoD fastest, by covering the fans, placing it next to the fireplace, forgetting to turn it off, or with the even quicker method of playing a game on it.
Xbox addiction
Similar to how food addiction in the 20th century has led to the introduction of fat camps, game addiction camps have been introduced to help those who cannot keep under the 16 hours a day that Microsoft recommends as a maximum. Some of the practices used to help camp inductees are quite controversial, however. There have been reports of shock therapy, in which an individual is subjected to an electric shock when an image of Super Mario is displayed, intending to reinforce a subconscious aversion to the character. Addicts are also forced to exercise in the yard for hours on end, while a camp counsellor shouts through a megaphone, "Video games characters are not your friends. No matter how hard you try, you will never reach that last level. You will never top that high score."
Modding
The act of modding an Xbox for purposes at odds with Microsoft's terms and conditions is an act punishable by death in most countries, even ones that do not normally allow the death penalty. The following disclaimer is presented every time a console is powered on:
| “ | Modding, or even looking at the word "Modding" (excluding this and the last) is a violation of the terms of your end-user license agreement and automatically grants Bill Gates the right to burn down your house, slaughter your family, relatives and close friends, sexually assault your dog/dead grandmother, replace your internal organs with molten lead, and use the attachment that came with your Xbox to enslave your soul and send it to Microsoft headquarters for remunerative purposes.
We hope you enjoy your time gaming on this fine day. |
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See also
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