I Believe..The End Of The 360 - A 360 Fanboy's Point Of View

[SlorgNet]

OK, here's the deal with the 360: see, we gamers are crazy. We want to love our systems. Because even the worst games on the worst-selling consoles are more fun than watching a barrel of monkeys with degrees in particle physics jerry-rig a gluon gun. We want to love the 360. But since 2005, Microsoft has been trampling all over our romance-dazzled hearts.

First, they simply kill off the Xbox - no slimline version, no entry-level system. 1 billion videogamers in China, Russia, Brazil have no choice but to buy PS2/Wiis.

Second, they messed up backwards compatibility. Take a good long look at the 360 back-comp webpage:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardscompatibility.htm

Ye gods. Disc burning, software emulators, ordering a CD... not acceptable. Consoles are a HOME APPLIANCE. It should play all those old games automatically, no fuss, no muss.

Third: the long and winding saga of RRoD. They made bad manufacturing decisions, refused to deal seriously with the problem, and are now shelling out a billion dollars to cover the cost. But there are still no explanations, no attempt to reestablish our shaken trust.

Fourth: disc scratching. Dutch consumer TV program Kasse showed pretty conclusively that, yes, the drives are shoddy and scratch disks. Microsoft continues to stonewall. This one is headed for the courts, both in the US and the EU, and it won't be pretty.

Fifth: Microsoft branding. 20GB isn't enough for a high-end game system, but if we buy the console, we're stuck with that drive forever. Can't change it, can't do anything about it. For the price of an Elite, might as well buy a PS3.

Sixth: no built-in HD-DVD or BluRay support. Microsoft really should have known better; after all, the first rule of PCs is that you can never have too much storage.

It's all horribly frustrating, because as a gamer, I want the 360 to succeed and provide genuine competition for Sony and Nintendo. That's the only way gaming has ever gotten better. But right now, the only future I see for this relationship is a hearing in divorce court.