twesterm said:
The 360 has three really major things going for it:
Wireless controllers weren't a new thing when the 360 came out, but they were never really standard before the 360. Today, gamers hate wires for the most part and the 360 was a big helper in that. They didn't pioneer wireless gaming, but they were a big reason everyone else is doing it, or at least they made it the standard first. Online multiplayer also wasn't new for the 360 and the Xbox did have it, but the 360 really integrated it and with the addition of your friends list, made it a superstar. Before the 360, co-op games and online multiplayer games existed on the consoles, but since the 360 made those things standard, there is an endless amount of bitching if games don't have it. And achievements, so simple but so genius. Games had rewards before but the 360 unified all that and mandated all games must have it. Whoever had that idea, that was just a stroke of brilliance. I really think that was the greatest thing the 360 did for gaming. |
You realize you're not actually arguing with me, here. The Wavebird, the first Xbox's Live service... those are just continuations of values that were already set down. Same with Achievements, jsut made into a universal system.
You can argue that the integration of these elements defined the console, but integration of disparate elements doesn't exactly define a generation; it hasn't made for any real paradigm shifts in game design or even how he average gamer approaches games.