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McDonaldsGuy on 19 January 2015
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Eddie_Raja said:
McDonaldsGuy said:

A lot of people hate the Xbox and wish Microsoft never entered the gaming market, but look at what they've done for gaming:

- Achievements. First one to do achievements, brilliant innovation. Achievements give games lasting value to many people and also sold many games (I won't lie I have bought games just for the achievement points)

Fair Enough

- Hard drive standard (except for a small percentage of 360 Core machines)

Most 360's sold were core, and the PS2 had Harddrives.  The PS3 was the first console to have "Large" HDD's standard.

- Xbox Live. Seriously, the gold standard for online gaming. So many innovations - friends list, party chat, Xbox Live Arcade/Store, great matchamking, etc. etc. Compare it to the PS2's online! Now online gaming is probably the biggest part of gaming now, and Microsoft is the one that really pushed for it by including ONLY broadband for the Xbox instead of dialup (Sega's huge mistake)

- Halo. Halo was groundbreaking and super popular. Pretty much paved the way for the FPS generation. Even if you don't like it or its influence, you can't deny the facts. Some say Goldeneye was the game that did this but I think it was Halo 2 when the FPS era really took off. Not to mention Halo is the first $350 game ever (what I mean is most people bought an Xbox just to play Halo, the Halo box)

This is one game, and while innovative doesn't say much when FF, Gran Turismo, and Mario games are also genre defining.

- Gears of War. A true killer app. The 360 needed one badly in 2006 and Gears of War also paved the way for many shooters last gen.

Same as before.

- It also helped promote WRPGs on consoles, which are now also a huge genre and bigger than JRPGs now

Really the credit goes to the great studios like Bioware and Bethesda.  MS had almost nothing to do with this.

- Then there are other little innovations (albeit inevitable ones) like the guide button, dashboard, Kinect, etc. etc.

The dashboard was always chided for being confusing to navigate (And it was).  Kinect I would give some credit but really the Wii deserves almost any credit Kinect gets.




Oh yeah no doubt about it. Mario, GT and FF are definitely innovative, but let's face it, for the last 10 years which genre has been king? First person shooter. Like it, or hate it, can't deny the facts. And Halo is more than just "one game" when you think about it. It saved the Xbox from complete failure and paved the way for shooters to become the dominate genre.

PS2's hard drive was optional, the original Xbox had a standard hard drive however.

Bioware and Bethesda deserve tons of credit but so does Microsoft. Their system really made it easier to port/create WRPGs, which is why games like Jade Empire, Star Wars: Kotor, Morrowind, and Mass Effect were on Xbox/Xbox 360 and not the PS2/PS3. Now WRPGs are bigger on consoles than JRPGs and the Xbox is a HUGE reason for this. In fact Sony still doesn't have a killer first party first person shooter franchise or WRPG franchise despite many attempts. It's not as easy as it looks.

Here is a good article on this subject: http://cimeas.kinja.com/did-the-xbox-save-the-western-rpg-508285567