# XBOX 360 - you in? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 11, 2005, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456 "2005-05-11T20:57:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/21 "2005-05-13T16:03:11Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Just curious what the story is here. I’m sorta in the dark about modded X-boxes and what not, but what was the plan? What did that modded X-box do that was worth MS violating his ass? Is it the whole playing copied games thing? Modding an Xbox allows you t!o ^r^&e(n&!t \_+^%g&#a@#$^m&^e%#s a^&(n@#d #%^c^%!o&\*)^p^%#y t%^\*h#@e&^%m t%^&o t!(^%h%$@e h!@a#$$%r^@#d $!d#%r%#4i%!v%311e, t%5a@#k%3i%2n4%g a f%#2e#%!w g5$i&#g e&#ach. My buddy’s has maybe #&2&%0&# g&5a&#m&#e#$5s &#$o&#n &#it. Hmmm, I seemed to run into some interference there. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/22 "2005-05-13T16:08:42Z")
Hmm, thats an advanced dialect of 1337, cool! ---
**Author:** ![Arwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/23 "2005-05-13T16:17:09Z")
I’m going to wait first and have a good look which system I think will be cooler before I purchase one, if any. Right now, I’d say that if I would buy anything, it’d most likely be the Playsation 3 rather than the Xbox. This based on already owning both, but that the Xbox is over at my sister’s where it’s being idle _also_ … perhaps I can buy her Forza, and they’ll have some fun with it again, but otherwise, I think my Live account is going to be cancelled. Live works, and very nicely too, but the Xbox has so far still come up a tiny bit short on everything I want to do with it, and all that it does well, has provided only short-lived joy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it may in fact take a few more years before any of the new console generations proves itself worthy of purchase. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/24 "2005-05-13T16:20:05Z")
PS3 isn’t coming out for another year. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/25 "2005-05-13T18:12:12Z")
I think it looks pretty cool. 🆒 My brother, of course, insists that it is “fugly”. The wisdom of teenagers. :rolleyes: 🙂 He’s the expert gamer, though, so I’ll trust his advice before I pick one up. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/26 "2005-05-13T18:23:45Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Just curious what the story is here. I’m sorta in the dark about modded X-boxes and what not, but what was the plan? What did that modded X-box do that was worth MS violating his ass? Is it the whole playing copied games thing? _I_ did it because the Xbox is a PERFECT end point for media - it’s cheap, supports surround sound and HDTV, and is unobtrusive in the living room. Unfortunately, Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA didn’t want to provide that unless it was DRM’d to within an inch of it’s life (because we’re all criminals, you know?). And forced you to purchase a Media Center PC and buy their $70 software for the Xbox to do the same thing. Hacking the Xbox allows you to do this for very little additional money, above and beyond the initial Xbox purchase. Unfortunately, the online documentatation isn’t written by technical writers, nor has it undergone any QA, and the software to do this is necessarily hard to find. Once you bypass the protections, the software is dirt simple to pirate. (insert game disk, copy to HD, run.) That wasn’t my goal though, and would have gladly purchased a _reasonably priced_ solution. Further, the big problem with PC online gaming is cheating (auto aiming guns, vision thru walls, infinite shields, etc.), if microsoft allows a modded Xbox on their live service, they run the risk of pissing off a lot of paying customers when a 733T K1DD!3 ruins the fun. ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/27 "2005-05-13T18:27:55Z")
> [@Unintentionally Blank](#): > > [snip]…if microsoft allows a modded Xbox on their live service, they run the risk of pissing off a lot of paying customers when a 733T K1DD!3 ruins the fun. Ahem, I believe that’d be _1337_ k1dd13. I’ll go shuffle off in shame now. ---
**Author:** ![Tuco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tuco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuco)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/28 "2005-05-13T18:28:19Z")
Why has it got so little RAM compared to processor speed? 3 3.2 GHZ processors would put most PCs to shame, but 512MB of RAM isn’t anything special. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/29 "2005-05-13T18:34:30Z")
> [@Unintentionally Blank](#): > > _I_ did it because the Xbox is a PERFECT end point for media - it’s cheap, supports surround sound and HDTV, and is unobtrusive in the living room. > Further, the big problem with PC online gaming is cheating (auto aiming guns, vision thru walls, infinite shields, etc.), if microsoft allows a modded Xbox on their live service, they run the risk of pissing off a lot of paying customers when a 733T K1DD!3 ruins the fun. That last part was the thing I was pretty hazy on. Good to know. I haven’t taken the plunge with my Xbox to Live yet, so that never really crossed my mind. Culd justbe that I don;t play often enough to get good, so going online and getting my ass whipped by gamers. I’m perfectly content getting my asswhipped by the AI, it at least doesn’t heckle. Love that idea about turning it into a media center though. Would have been all over that, though looks like Xbox 360 will be doing all the leg work for us. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/30 "2005-05-13T18:49:57Z")
> [@Tuco](#): > > Why has it got so little RAM compared to processor speed? > 3 3.2 GHZ processors would put most PCs to shame, but 512MB of RAM isn’t anything special. That’s a _lot_ of memory when you don’t have to worry about running more than one program at a time. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/31 "2005-05-13T19:54:20Z")
> [@Tuco](#): > > Why has it got so little RAM compared to processor speed? > 3 3.2 GHZ processors would put most PCs to shame, but 512MB of RAM isn’t anything special. It’s worth noting that nobody really knows what those processors are – given the heat factors, the smart money right now is that they’re stripped-down PowerPC cores, with less functionality than a general-purpose computer processor. That’d also help keep the costs down. “Three 3.2 GHz processors” is a neat buzzword sound bite, but I don’t think it means much until we can get them tested against other consoles and home computers. ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456/32 "2005-05-14T05:48:47Z")
Price is $300 to $400. That’s almost as much as I paid for a Neo Geo. I’m out. It’s a small loss…I _need_ my variety, including games that are easy to get into and don’t require me to remember a dozen things at once. Given how big a selling point the system’s sheer power is, I’m not too hopeful. Now, the real question…get the original system? Just for the record, I’m very happy with both the Dreamcast and PS2, so I’ve never been all that driven to get an X-Box. I fail to see any major advantage in graphics, and I’m honestly puzzled as to why this gets trumped up so much. Still, there are a number of X-Box exclusives that I’d like to have, and the price is only going to get better. The one big sticking point is that there’s no Codebreaker for the X-Box (IMHO the best device of its kind), mainly due to online gaming. Let me be clear…if it were not for these type of devices, I would’ve given up console gaming COMPLETELY long before I ever got a Dreamcast. Hey, I can play House of the Dead 3 straight for a while, but reloading every 2 seconds is going to get old fast. So my hope is that the new system draws enough serious gamers…the kind most likely to go online…that the original X-Box’s online games drop off a bit. Then maybe…just mabye…I’ll buy the system. And hope for the best. (Man, I’m sounding more and more foreign in these threads, aren’t I? 😃 ) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xbox-360-you-in/303456.md?page=1)