We're lucky to have valve. They actually managed to make a console without the downsides of a console.
My OLED deck has arrived today, can't wait to use it.
I'm so glad Xbox One toned down some of the always online rubbish before it actually launched. It wasn't that bad, fortunately. I have to say Xbox One user experience was pretty meh compared to Xbox 360 in the first year and half or so.
These days, Xbox One and Series S/X are pretty great, but unfortunately ever since the Xbox One launch I've adopted the "let's not get too hyped up about this because Microsoft just might drop the ball a little bit" mindset. Especially as a Halo fangirl.
It is a tough time to be a Halo fan. I feel your pain.
I'm on PC and Halo stutters hard on a system that meets the recommended systems requirements. Tough time indeed.
Yeah I still remember back when MS just yeeted all this shit out. Basically killed their sales for their generation. And gave Sony that absolute banger of a trolling chance.
They lost me forever just by trying that shit. I've been PS ever since.
I've personally had a grudge against sony for years now after they robbed me of otherOS, that combined with their rootkit BS and blocking me from paying for something with a giftcard because I don't remember the 3 digit code on a credit card that stopped existing years ago.
For reference, I don't trust either Sony or MS to do the "right thing" but MS hasn't slighted me yet
Fun to play with? Xbox: no Brick: yes
I would contend that bricks are technically region locked, for the majority of people.
That is, if you see the shipping cost of getting one to a different region, you're absolutely going to leave it in its country of origin.
I've worked for a company that supplied key-in-hand clinics for developing countries; picture a three room rectangular building with an x-ray room, a doctors office and a central reception/waiting room.
We had tender from Angola where the client - a local aid organization - wanted us to supply everything for the clinic, including building materials, from Europe to the small lost in wilderness area the clinic would be built.
It was standard practice to source construction and materials locally because good sense.
Took several meetings to convince the client there was no added value to the project by having all building materials imported.
One of the most painful experiences in dealing with human beings I have ever had.
That's why your mom doesn't have a passport.
And your mom's regions are easy to get to.
If a brick stops working, can it really be used as a brick?
If an xbox stops working, can it really be used as an xbox?
I had to put my xbox one on a smart plug so it doesn't have power when not in use.
Otherwise it turns itself on constantly. Every time I came home it was on, and sitting in the livingroom with it off, it would randomly turn on. It does this both with and without network access.
HDMI CEC
TVs off too. Xbox is connected via a stereo system that doesn't support CEC.
If you mean that it spins up connected USB drives when "off", I've seen that as it tries to keep games updated in the background. But I've never had any fully turn on (power button lit up, on the main menu if you switch to the input) on their own. That's weird.
No, I mean fully starting up as if I'd pressed the power on button.
Plays the three beep startup sound, power light comes on, I then turn on the tv and it's sitting in it's dashboard doing nothing waiting for input.
Manually press the power button and it shuts down, then starts again a random amount of time later. Sometimes only a few minutes, usually within an hour or two.
That is super odd. Can’t say I’ve ever had that issue… that I’m aware of.
But my brick won't brick no more after it broke :(
What you have now, it's two portable half-bricks. :)
So you're saying you bricked your brick?
This is a deeply unfair comparison. There are bricks of different (somewhat incompatible) sizes between regions, and sometimes in the same region. While a brick is not "region locked" per se, they are only really a suitable material when replacements of the same size and general color are easily available.
Secondly, if your brick stops working, it is no longer useful as a brick, and has to be used as fill material, or disposed of. Indeed, broken bricks are pretty common, sometimes appearing in large piles.
Thirdly, the games you can play with a brick provide many hours of enjoyment, which is a major selling point of bricks that you've left out of the discussion.
This post is 5 hours old and no-one has made a Father Jack reference yet?
I still have all my xboxes and they all still work flawlessly. The OG, the base model xbone, and even the original white 360. I'm also not an achievement hunter at all but still have over 130k gamerscore, which just goes to show how much use each of these consoles got over the years. I had the 360 through college with four roommates! Hell up until they recently made Lucasarts' Gladius backwards compatible on my series x I was getting out the OG Box once a year just to play that masterpiece again.
I used to mod XB1's. They're basically a computer inside. Had XBMC (the precursor to KODI) installed as my dashboard. My games were all copied to the 250GB hard disk I had put into it so they loaded and ran extremely efficiently. I had emulators for PS1 games and Nintendo.
At one point, I even paid a very talented chap for an Xbox board with double RAM and a 2x faster processor soldered onto it.
You had to get a tool from online to patch your executables to be able to handle the extra processing power, otherwise many of them would run at 2x speed because they were pegged to the clock speed.
Love those things. Lots of nostalgia.
"Extra fee if used" should be conditionally true for bricks... it depends on how you use them.
Do pavers, CMUs, and other concrete blocks count?
I remember they were really selling it as a media center in their pitches. It's interesting how they fucked that up. Streaming was still taking off, everyone was about to give voice activated personal assistants / spy devices to their relatives for Christmas.
If Microsoft had been smarter and sold it as a 'this has all the streaming apps on it', they probably could have had some Wii like success with cordcutters
hmm idk, that were competing with other products coming out at that time doing the same this for way less money. chrome cast, apple tv, Amazon fire stick, etc... a $100+ device already seemed like a tough tough sell to me in that market when the apple tv was that much, but that's just the apple tax...
That's cool and all but Smashing a brick isn't as satisfying as smashing a Xbox!
coding competition has brick for prize
I didn't buy my Xbox One; my partner did when she was still with her ex. He made her get it on release day. It still works perfectly fine, and I'm very happy with it :)
If anything, I kinda just want a new controller or two
