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Electric Posse is a blog about tech and video game stuffs. Leave a comment or email EP. We like feedback and we're always looking to recruit more posters.

   

Roy and GM

GM, San Francisco
likes: fighting games, 2D, big breasted video game characters, podcasts, coffee, Star Trek, getting into fist fights
dislikes: Sony, HALO, organic food, iPods, EB Games, macs

Roy, Los Angeles
likes: meat, polyester twill pants, cuddling, Pride FC, sweaters, PDAs, Tekken
dislikes: Itagaki's face, RPG players, HALO/HALO players, The Beatles, "brahs", winter, Xbox controllers, crooked titties, Star Wars fans

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003 :: State of Affairs

filed:9/30/2005 by GM


or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Xbox360

Over the years, my allegiance to Sony has wavered. My cellphone may still be an Ericsson, my portable music player may still be a Hi-MD player, my nice flatscreen monitor is still a Sony (and so is my TV) and I still own a PlayStation (first gen) and PlayStation2. But with the new wave of consoles coming out, I've decided to give up my loyalty to a faulty company and buy an Xbox360.

For me, the only reason to possibly buy an Xbox before was to mod. However, what's the point when I can play all these emulators on my computer? Needless to say, I never bought an Xbox, instead opting to live vicariously through my brother's. My video game tastes tend to lean towards whatever perverts in Japan like. I admit one of my favourite Xbox games is Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, to a point where I actually own one of the licensed swimsuits. (Lamina) I like pretty graphics and ginormous breasts.. in addition to liking fighting games with good systems (VF4). But all the Team Ninja tits in the world couldn't have gotten me to waste my money on an Xbox.

Microsoft made a lot of mistakes with the Xbox. Selling only one third of their units in Japan, there was no reason for Japanese to buy the system. Itagaki believing firmly in the capabilities of the Xbox system made a deal so that a limited edition bundle would be released with Kasumi love pillows. The only reason why Xbox did okay in the states was because of all the PC-ported games and HALO. Then the release of Street Fighter Anniversary edition (3s on XboxLive) and CvS2 (XboxLive). Fat white kids everywhere who use Ken and Terry didn't have to leave their homes and play on arcade joysticks that they don't understand how to use!

But something happened. A year and a half after PS2 was released, I realised that the system was obsolete. It had been released just a little bit ago and it was already obsolete. Hell, the Dreamcast isn't around anymore but it isn't obsolete even just yet. Compare Street Fighter Third Strike for PS2 to Third Strike for Dreamcast, and anyone who seriously plays 3s would opt more for the Dreamcast version. And I respect Gamecube as a system. But all the games seem completely intangible to me. I don't want to play Mario games or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. I might want to play Animal Crossing, but I lost my life temporarily to that game and it scares me.

Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox are all in the past. We have the Revolution, PS3, and Xbox360 now. I still intend on buying a Revolution and a PS3, but my Xbox360 will be my baby.

The feeling of redneck-ness has kind of dissipated from the Xbox franchise. You have to admit that the only people who bought Xboxes to begin with were people who lived in the middle of nowhere, knew no better, and didn't care about importing video games over from Japan. People who just owned an Xbox and no other console were the kinds of people who played LAN'd HALO, sports games, and crushed beer cans on their foreheads. That's why none of my friends bought an Xbox for the longest time.. it had that pig-American stigma attached to it.

Microsoft not wanting to repeat the same mistakes has recruited Japanese video game makers. They see the problems that Sony will be facing with the PlayStation3 and are taking advantage. Microsoft has no pride. They don't care. They just want to be taken seriously, and up to this point no one has been taking them seriously. Remember what happened with Fable? The poor creator had to apologise for leading people on. How embarrassing.

Itagaki and I believe that the Xbox360 is a lot more tangible to game creators than the PS3 is. Sony has been very stingy with their releases, especially in America. Sony would prefer to just release their own in-house created games and make money for themselves as opposed to letting other people make money for a change. Yoichi Wada actually confirmed this briefly in his announcement to diversify SquareEnix. ".. game machine makers such as Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment controlled everything, including software development, manufacture, and distribution.."

Hopefully I won't be disappointed by the releases for Xbox360.

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