5 Reasons to Thank Xbox

The original Xbox launched on November 15, 2001. The system has not seen a new release in almost two years, but Xbox Live continued to thrive and Halo 2 players acted as if next-gen never happened. All things must come to an end and now, Xbox Live support for Xbox and Xbox originals is officially dead and the system is barely more than a paperweight. This is not a moment of sadness, but a moment to look back at what the Xbox did for gaming. So, in no particular order, I give you five reasons to thank the Xbox.

• 1. Xbox Live.

This feels like a no-brainer. Online play wasn’t new to consoles – the Dreamcast attempted online play, but no one seemed to care – and PC gamers were already killing each other online for years, but console gaming never joined the magical internet in mass until Xbox Live. The simplicity and requirement of a high-speed connection helped Xbox Live become what it is today, but nothing helped more than a game about a guy in a big green suit.

• 2. Halo.

The man in the big green suit goes by the name of Master Chief and it would be hard to find a gamer who doesn’t know the name. Yes, Halo was originally a Mac and PC game, but it was also originally an RTS game. It took time for Halo to become the game we know and love today and it’s hard to think of a video game world without it. Halo brought FPS action to consoles and Halo 2 brought consoles online; two things that were previously attempted, but never fully achieved. I personally never understood the global love for all things Halo at first, but that all changed after ODST. It seems odd to fall in love with a series thanks to its overlooked step-brother, but the narrative structure grabbed me and I have been a fan ever since.

• 3. Hard drives.

There was a certain charm to having a memory card you could take anywhere, but in all honesty, memory cards were a horribly expensive way of saving game data. An officially branded memory card would cost you $20 on the Gamecube and $25 on the PS2. It may not seem like a lot of money, but when some games [Stuntman] could use an entire memory card; the cost could become ridiculous. This, however, was never an issue with the Xbox. Every Xbox came with a hard drive and while it may not seem like the biggest deal, there is a chance we would still be slaves to memory cards if the Xbox never existed.

• 4. Diversity.

It is always nice to have options in any aspect of life and after the death of the Dreamcast, someone needed to fill the gap. This is where the Xbox came in. Not only did the Xbox give people another choice, but it brought PC developers to a new territory. Games like Fable, Morrowind, and Knights of the Old Republic would have never seen a console release had the Xbox never existed. I don’t know about you, but I am thankful that a new audience was able to play such amazing games.

• 5. The Xbox 360.

This one may seem a tad odd, but we would never have the Xbox 360 if we never had the Xbox. Achievements would be something you earned in school and three red lights would just be a traffic annoyance, but now we have achievement whores and one of the worst hardware failures ever seen in video games. There is no denying that the 360 has had its share of problems, but it has brought a lot to the table and delivered some amazing games. Microsoft has continued to build Xbox Live into the definitive online gaming space for consoles and Natal is looking to change the way we play video games. Microsoft has cemented their foot in the video game industry and despite their flaws, we are lucky to have them.