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OG Xbox Appreciation and Lack of Emulation Thread of the big black box of doom

Schrade

Member
I think it was really dumb that Microsoft dropped support for this thing as soon as the 360 came out. Should have done what Sony does and did the 10 year plan.

I guess they wouldn't have sold as many 360s though.. but damn. Stupid they killed this thing too soon.
 
Does anyone remember this awesome game?

Armed_and_Dangerous_box_cover.png


I laughed my ass of while playjnv it. The humour was great. Haven't seen it mentioned much on this board.

This game was amazing. One of my favorite games for the OG Xbox. Wish they still made games like it.
 
I think it was really dumb that Microsoft dropped support for this thing as soon as the 360 came out. Should have done what Sony does and did the 10 year plan.

I guess they wouldn't have sold as many 360s though.. but damn. Stupid they killed this thing too soon.

The thing is, they were losing so much money on each box sold that they couldn't have. There was NO way to ever make money or even break even on the hardware. I guess that's what you get when you slap a system together so fast, but especially the deal with Nvidia was killing them. That's also the reason the 360 had an optional hard drive, At its most expensive, the Xbox was losing roughly $25 dollars a unit supposedly. As they cut the price to battle the PS2 the losses got worse because the BOM didn't decrease all that much.
 

Ceallach

Smells like fresh rosebuds
Fond, fond memories of this one. When my now-wife and I got our first apartment, we had a TV and an XBox sitting in the living room floor and no furniture.

Lots of time on DOA, Ninja Gaiden, KOTORs, Fatal Frames and so much more
 
Run Shenmue II in NullDC. there's your HD remake. Shenmue II xbox is a good option for 360 though. It is funny because the game is glitched on 360 emulation, but this actually makes it better. For instance, playing on the original Xbox reveals a crappy bloom lighting effect that ruins the games atmosphere that was not present in the DC version. Due to an emulation issue, playing it on 360, it doesn't have the bloom lighting. Haha.

Still, I'd suggest playing it on NullDc if you can.



I think most people don't CARE about Xbox emulation because the two most popular games on Xbox (Halo and Halo 2) already got PC ports.

Good to know. Though I'll just probably just get the Xbox version as I got no real issue with the bloom lighting and the Dreamcast in general lighting, even if I discount the bloom was still very flat. They added better texture filtering and some more advance shader effects, so that's a plus for the Xbox version.
 

Alchemy

Member
Man, this thread makes me sad. The OG Xbox was so bad ass, there was zero question on what Microsoft was trying to do with it. Power for games, it was glorious.
 
I think the og Xbox was easily my favorite console. I spent countless hours on unreal championship, rtcw, amped 2, rallisport challenge 2, midtown madness, midnight club , pso ep1&2, halo 2 and ghost recon. Gaming just hasn't been the same since for me even though I still game hard.
 
The thing is, they were losing so much money on each box sold that they couldn't have. There was NO way to ever make money or even break even on the hardware. I guess that's what you get when you slap a system together so fast, but especially the deal with Nvidia was killing them. That's also the reason the 360 had an optional hard drive, At its most expensive, the Xbox was losing roughly $25 dollars a unit supposedly. As they cut the price to battle the PS2 the losses got worse because the BOM didn't decrease all that much.

Makes me all the more sad it was dropped so fast. Just a pure powerhouse. It's sucks though that MS couldn't get a better neogiation going with Nvidia, but Nvidia seemed fairly unmoved to lessen costs as the generation when on; I guess it's no coincidence that ATI/AMD seems with to be with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft now. MS was probably never going back to Nvidia after the OG Xbox conflict.
 

Shaky

Member
OG Xbox got me hooked into online gaming. I don't even want to know how many hours I put into Rainbow Six 3, probably 1000's. PGR2 cat & mouse, Mech Assault, and Counter - Strike were just a few of my favorites. Looking back now it seems like people communicated a lot better and there was legit teamwork. It really is too bad the servers got shut down.



Oh, and I loved the Duke controller.
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
I traded my Duke for an S, then realized I like the Duke more.
 

Teknoman

Member
Live got awful pretty quick though. Now it's awful in a different way as people are either in parties or have their stupid Kinect mics on the whole time.

I still miss classic live / early 360 live more than anything else. Now its either silence or you're in a party with friends and your other team mates cant hear you / you cant talk noise.

I want to find space for my original Xbox to play the Sega greats and Ninja Gaiden, but I cant...
 

mentok15

Member
Halo 2 was great. I think it might have been my first midnight game launch. It's crazy how much of an event that was when the Xbox was a relatively small platform compared to the PS2. Gotta give MS credit for making it an event.

Remember the I Love Bees thing before release? More games need to do that.
 

IrishNinja

Member
damn, XML looks better than even my GC one in the day did, nice

Holy shit there was a Rent A Hero Xbox version?!

+1 to this camp; was just trying to play this one last weekend on DC, couldn't even figure out how to exit the opening house. someone's gotta leak an english copy to finally experience this title!
 

scitek

Member
Splinter Cell: Choas Theory
7dvSDJr.jpg

It happened a lot 360/PS3 gen, but this game was one of the first "WTF how did they make this machine do this!?" I'm a programmer and casually follow the technology of games. Being a PC gamer as well this late card title really pushed the machine to its limits in a way that I couldn't believe they made such amazing water and lighting on what was essentially a really crappy PC spec by the time the system was about to be retired. Also one of the few stealth games I really deeply liked.

I'm grateful they gave this one an awesome PC version, too. Shit'll hold up for years to come.
 

MarkusRJR

Member
My OG Xbox is officially dead. I got so sad taking the corpse out of the entertainment center. So many good memories. I kind of want to pick up a used one, but they'll probably be in such a shitty condition.
 
My OG Xbox is officially dead. I got so sad taking the corpse out of the entertainment center. So many good memories. I kind of want to pick up a used one, but they'll probably be in such a shitty condition.

Eh, the used one I picked up was in pretty good shape, of course that was after I returned the first one I bought that was non working to the dude. I think some repairs aren't TOO tough either, but I'm still looking into it. What happened? Hard Drive die?
 

Borman

Member
damn, XML looks better than even my GC one in the day did, nice



+1 to this camp; was just trying to play this one last weekend on DC, couldn't even figure out how to exit the opening house. someone's gotta leak an english copy to finally experience this title!

Like Ive been saying, its out there. Has been for a number of years now.

And Xboxes are generally pretty easy to fix, especially if you dont mind modding it. Very little really go wrong compared to other consoles, since most of it is swappable.
 

Gunsmithx

Member
Sigh.... I need to stop on the retro kick, After I get my saturn squared away looks like it's time to finally get one of these.

I might be able to get one with a bad HDD but it's stock. Can you get that fixed without a modchip? or does that only work if you have softmodded it first?
 
especially since I was still bitter at Sony at the time for killing my beloved Sega.
This is coming from someone who clearly, did not own a 32X, Saturn, and Sega CD.

  • The Sega CD had a couple of great games, Sonic CD and Snatcher come to mind; however, most of the games on it were awful FMV games. Want to watch a horribly pixelated movie with bad acting in a window the size of a postage stamp? Sega CD has you covered. The load times sucked too.
  • The 32X was the worst of the bunch. It only had a few games before Sega abandoned this half-step console addon.
  • The Saturn wasn't horrible; however, Sega didn't support it as long as the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 were supported. Also, it never got a proper Sonic game. Then again, neither did the 32X.
  • The Dreamcast was one of my favorite consoles of all time and had a lot of great games, especially considering it's short lifespan. Unfortunately, Sega made too many mistakes with the past consoles. Even someone like myself who buys every mainstream console was wary of Sega's previous mistakes and reluctant to buy a Dreamcast initially.

Sony did not 'kill Sega.' Sega was their own worst enemy.
 

Borman

Member
And even with the Dreamcast, you still had the company bleeding money as Sega of America was developing their own console at the same time.
 
What a system. Kotor1/2, Phantom Dust, NBA Street 2, NFL 2K5, Ninja Gaiden, Prince of Persia: SoT, Jedi Academy, Vice City, Fight Night...I didn't have many games but dammit if the ones I had weren't gems.
 

Gunsmithx

Member
This is coming from someone who clearly, did not own a 32X, Saturn, and Sega CD.

Sony did not 'kill Sega.' Sega was their own worst enemy.

As someone whos known bish for almost 15 years thank you what has been a very good laugh :)

Im sure he'll respond himself but he did say earlier that he's long gotten over that part just how he felt at the time(and as I will attest he was pretty bitter at the time)

Sega was thier own worst enemy for a good long while and sadly never did turn it around, this thread really reminded me how the xbox is a bit of a last hurrah for the old sega with several great gems on it.
 

IrishNinja

Member
This is coming from someone who clearly, did not own a 32X, Saturn, and Sega CD.

bish really is one of these newjack sega fans (and ive put in work trying to get him to check out everything from WRPG's to DC animated stuff, because my taste is excellent) but

  • The Sega CD had a couple of great games, Sonic CD and Snatcher come to mind; however, most of the games on it were awful FMV games. Want to watch a horribly pixelated movie with bad acting in a window the size of a postage stamp? Sega CD has you covered. The load times sucked too.

nah, calling bullshit here - you had the wrong games dude. FMV is the stereotype, there's a handful of absolute classics on it, and this is coming from a man whose local TRU never stocked Snatcher.
also: 1x drives were like that, SCD wasn't the only one with such in that era though

not arguing the 32X stopgap though

  • The Saturn wasn't horrible; however, Sega didn't support it as long as the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 were supported. Also, it never got a proper Sonic game. Then again, neither did the 32X.

there were lots of problems on the Saturn, but support...i mean yeah when it welled up lots of great stuff sadly stayed in JP but Sega & Working Designs both put in work to bring over most of the big names. and yeah, Sonic X-Treme fell the fuck apart, i was just reading details on that mess.

Sony did not 'kill Sega.' Sega was their own worst enemy.

this point has been brought up & he addressed it on page 1; we all know this stuff now but recall how scarce a lotta solid info was around '01; bigger IGN like sites had usenet level speculation but the specifics of all that went wrong internally weren't as well known, so other elements like piracy, sony's infamous hype machine etc were go-to bullet points, and to be fair both had a pretty fair hand in the timing of the system's demise.

either way, neither myself nor OP would deny your quote here; rather OP seemed to be saying that was simply his mentality when purchasing an xbox over PS2 in the fall of '01, a rather short time after Sega's tragic exit & feelings were pretty rough for many of us at the time.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
I think it was really dumb that Microsoft dropped support for this thing as soon as the 360 came out. Should have done what Sony does and did the 10 year plan.

I guess they wouldn't have sold as many 360s though.. but damn. Stupid they killed this thing too soon.

blame nvidia.
 
This is coming from someone who clearly, did not own a 32X, Saturn, and Sega CD.

Hmmm,

  • The Sega CD had a couple of great games, Sonic CD and Snatcher come to mind; however, most of the games on it were awful FMV games. Want to watch a horribly pixelated movie with bad acting in a window the size of a postage stamp? Sega CD has you covered. The load times sucked too.

There were plenty of good games, problem was that they sold out quickly leaving shitty FMV games and lazy a=cartridge ports on the store shelves. Not helped by the fact that the marketing pushed the FMV games as being "the future"

Final Fight CD, Thunderhawk, Silpheed, Monkey Island, Lunar, Batman Returns, The Terminator, Keio Flying Squadron and loads more...




  • The 32X was the worst of the bunch. It only had a few games before Sega abandoned this half-step console addon.

Bad idea from the start but it was home to the first console version of doom, best version of Mortal Kombat II, NBA Jam (at the time) and Shadow Squadron was fantastic. Glad it was killed off early, so that's why the libary is small.


  • The Saturn wasn't horrible; however, Sega didn't support it as long as the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 were supported. Also, it never got a proper Sonic game. Then again, neither did the 32X.

I was buying Saturn games from 1994 until 1999 it had load of support just not in the US.


  • The Dreamcast was one of my favorite consoles of all time and had a lot of great games, especially considering it's short lifespan. Unfortunately, Sega made too many mistakes with the past consoles. Even someone like myself who buys every mainstream console was wary of Sega's previous mistakes and reluctant to buy a Dreamcast initially.

Can't argue with this.

Sony did not 'kill Sega.' Sega was their own worst enemy.
Revisionist history at it's best. But then history is written by the victors...

.
 

MarkusRJR

Member
Eh, the used one I picked up was in pretty good shape, of course that was after I returned the first one I bought that was non working to the dude. I think some repairs aren't TOO tough either, but I'm still looking into it. What happened? Hard Drive die?
Not sure. It started making a squealing noise for a few months. Think a slightly lower pitch buzz, similar to CRT but louder. Then it must didn't want to turn on today.
 

Borman

Member
Not sure. It started making a squealing noise for a few months. Think a slightly lower pitch buzz, similar to CRT but louder. Then it must didn't want to turn on today.

Could be the power supply. Either fixable or easily swapped out if that is the case.
 
I said this earlier in the thread, but nobody saw it so I'll say it again:
A dude named espes is attempting to make an xbox emulator with something called qemu

This is the github:
https://github.com/espes/xqemu

Also he replied to some people here:
http://ngemu.com/threads/xqemu-progress.155328/

He's been working on it as recently as a month ago on github so keep hoping people :)

Didn't know that. Good news, I just hope it isn't abandoned and one day I can finally play JSRF in 1080p.
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Still have my OG Xbox but shattered I sold my Mint In Box crystal version.

I threw away the mint condition box for my Halo: CE Xbox literally a day before someone posted on GAF about what it was worth.
 
This is coming from someone who clearly, did not own a 32X, Saturn, and Sega CD.

...snip...

Sony did not 'kill Sega.' Sega was their own worst enemy.

Well, my boys have answered this one, so thanks to them, but yeah I owned all of the above. And honestly the Sega CD was a decent success for a peripheral, around 2 mill in the US alone, not amazing, but I wouldn't call it a failure for a $300 add on. Others have also mentioned that FMV was the most well known genre but not the majority. Still sucks that gaming historians talk about the Sega-CD as if that was all it had.

As for the bottom part, I've said it myself a few times, and I don't know how true it is. In many ways a lot of the bonehead moves Sega made were as a result of pressure from Sony, the redesign of the Saturn, the price cuts they couldn't afford, the attempt to launch early in the US. And yeah, when the dreamcast came around nothing could have saved Sega, save ridiculous software sales, but even then the forced price cuts were a direct result of having to compete with the most hyped system of all time. No other system that gen had a chance against the PS2, it had THAT much momentum, and built on it.

Hell to bring this back to the topic of the thread. I'm still surprised that MS did as well as they did. I really think the huge selection of unique games that were very different than what was available on PS2 were what helped it a ton.
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
If it makes you feel better, the green Halo consoles arent worth all that much compared to other LE's

At the time they had spiked to $600.
They're not exactly cheap now, either.
 

Borman

Member
Halo 2 doesn't really hold up that well, the single player anyway. Really inconsistent. Multiplayer is a bit hit or miss using XBConnect and co.
 

Furyous

Member
We gotta talk about that NBA game and NFL Fever. NFL Fever looked better than Madden at the time. It was NBA 2K14/Live 14 status.

That NBA game was next gen before next gen. It looked PS3 quality back then.
 

HTupolev

Member
Halo 2 doesn't really hold up that well, the single player anyway. Really inconsistent.
"Hold up well?" Halo 2 got good ratings, but its image in the community wasn't exactly pristine in 2004. Not with all the weird expectations, and the still-massive shadow of Halo 1. My core opinion of Halo 2 hasn't changed much at all over the years, but it's a lot easier to be nice to its campaign today than it was in 2004.
 
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