As I promised earlier today, here comes the third installment in our mini-series of what the Xboxic crew individually thinks of the Xbox 360’s first year. Read on!

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Xploited13

So here we are, it is November 22nd, 2006. One year ago we saw Microsoft unleash it’s newest baby to hungry gamers across the globe. This early next-generation console release gave them a healthy lead on their competitors - Sony and Nintendo. How Microsoft handled the time is a question that has been on my mind now that we’ve reached the one year point and both competitors have catered in their own products.

The software giant’s attempt to garner the attention of mainstream gamers and become the dominant product on the market is respectable. The Xbox 360 team managed to implement many excellent features that console gamers would come to appreciate and soon pave the way for future consoles to take in account. One of these features, the idea of the Xbox 360 being “always online” brought an unparalleled interactivity between gamers and the industry itself. This opened up new avenues for the gaming industry to reach gamers and mainstream audiences with various types of media. We saw the inclusion of industry event coverage, patches, content download, and today marks the newest addition – the electronic delivery of high-definition movies and TV shows to gamers right at their finger tips. This new direction for the console gaming market may have been bold, but has also brought an increasing amount of doubts; as to whether this direction is to the advantage of the player or the developer.

As we saw with some of the launch titles and even some of the second generation titles, there has been an increasing amount of flaws or missing features. Of course, one could mention that with a more complex game there will be more room for error. And to that I say the gaming industry (and perhaps even Microsoft themselves) may not have been ready to fully utilize the capabilities of Xbox Live. What was once intended as a service to deliver additional content that would only enrich player experiences, has been used to repair broken and undeveloped games or even supplement a barebones release. This usage of Xbox Live and the “always online” integration has left a sour taste in many gamers – not just Xbox 360 gamers – but everyone. With one year into the fledgling consoles’ release, expectations will become immensely high. Here’s to hoping that developers have had ample time to learn the hardware and how to better utilize the Xbox 360’s service now that we’re a year in. Microsoft has done a respectable job in its attempt to change the tide of the console war and how gamers play this generation – but it still remains to be seen if its services can lead the charge in the gamers favor.

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Parm

It’s coming up to a year since I first got my hands on an Xbox 360 and yet it still feels like yesterday, how time flies. I still remember sitting at work on December 2nd 2005 listening to colleagues talk about how they’d tried to buy an Xbox 360 that morning only to find that they were sold out everywhere.

Having pre-ordered mine online with Dixons, I thought my chances of getting it on release day were slim. Nonetheless I phoned home on my lunch break and I heard the golden words from my mom, “Yes Parm, you have a parcel here”. The day just wouldn’t go quickly enough but I soon arrived home to find this awaiting:

I can still remember the excitement! The joy of opening it and seeing it for the first time, my brother phoning all his friends exclaiming “we’ve got one, we’ve got one”. I had it up and running in no time on my Plasma screen and fired up Project Gotham Racing 3. I was impressed at that very moment and have been impressed ever since. My 360 still sits proudly at the top of my AV equipment and it is undoubtedly the entertainment centre in my house (see the pictures here).

Experiencing the Xbox 360 for the past year and watching it evolve has been a joyful experience which I expect will continue for many years to come. The dashboard updates have particularly been one of the key features I’ve enjoyed, it’s great to see new functionality added and even more so when it addresses what the consumers have been asking for. Do you remember back in the day when we weren’t able to do anything else with our Xbox 360’s whilst we were downloading from Marketplace? How did we ever cope!?

Having always been an avid PC gamer the Xbox 360 is a breath of fresh air, it is the only console I’ve thoroughly enjoyed since the Super Nintendo. Even the original Xbox and Playstation 2 didn’t interest me. With truly fantastic features such as Live Marketplace, Live Arcade and Media Connectivity, the Xbox 360 has managed to make my PC gaming all but a redundant past time. With Viva Pinata, Forza 2, Halo 3 and more to look forward to, I’m as happy with my Xbox 360 now as I was 30,758,400 seconds ago (356 days for those who don’t work in seconds).

Favourite Xbox 360 game to date: Project Gotham Racing 3
Worst Xbox 360 game to date: FIFA World Cup 2006

Favourite Xbox 360 moment: Playing with friends on Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter’s co-op mode.
Worst Xbox 360 moment: Don’t have one yet but my 12 month warranty expires soon. Come on baby, you’ve done me proud so far, don’t die on me now!

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Cybermans

For me it’s almost a year as the Xbox 360 launched December the 2^nd in Europe. Got it on day one with Project Gotham Racing 3, Perfect Dark Zero, second controller, VGA cable and 2 play & charge kits. The first moments after getting everything out of the box I was amazed how much better it looked then my crystal Xbox. With connecting everything to my HDTV and booting up Perfect Dark Zero I made my dive into the next generation of gaming.

During the first year of Xbox 360 I had the pleasure of getting a lot of games. Some of them I liked a hell lot more then other. Some of the games were lacking good gameplay and some of the games made it clear in the graphics department that they were nothing more then enhanced ports of the old-gen version. The initial wave of games were mostly ports or rushed games. With the introduction of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter the real powers of the Xbox 360 were used for the first time. These days more and more games that are showing off the true power of next-gen consoles are getting released. Gears of War is just one of the examples of what we can expect in the next year to be the standard.

What also raised the bar for next-gen consoles is the option for multiplayer games and communication between players. With Xbox 360 Microsoft introduced the prepay cards with points and Live membership. This opened the way for hordes of players from parts of the world were creditcards are not that common. With the latest addition in communication the Vision Microsoft will also have the option to create games that are using the camera’s in ways we can’t even imagine right now. Rainbow Six: Vegas is the first one that allows you to create your own head with using the camera images. In my opinion this should be a feature that is used in every new online shooter.

Microsoft has also added this year a bunch of great and not so great accessories for Xbox 360. The Quick Charger is one of the examples that come in handy for lots of people. But the most important add-on is for me the HD-DVD player as it allowed people to watch for HD-DVD’s without buying an expensive stand-alone player. Also the Wireless headset can be usefull for people who don’t like cables.

For the next year I expect that the current standard set by Gears of War will be superseded with newer games. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that developers will sacrifice gameplay in favor of graphics. This holiday will be overcrowded with great games like DDR2 and Guitar Hero 2. These games will also open up the Xbox 360 to gamers that liked the prequels of this games on mostly Sony Playstation 2.

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Still more coming up for your pleasure