The Xbox 360 Two Decades Later - An LGR Retrospective
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Date: 2025-12-12
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Comments and reviews: 20
lazygamereviews
Man not gonna lie. I was not a fan of this console, this era of gaming and am not looking forward to the wave of nostolgia that appears to be coming. There's a lot of bad ideas that we are still dealing with that started in this era and honestly. it wasn't that great of a console. I mean you spent half this video talking about all the technical problems with it. I can't think of any other mainstream console that had a 50% failure rate that like that. There were some really bad trends that started from 2006-2013
- The deprioritization of single player. It was not abnormal at the time to have a game with a 4-5 hour single player campaign and that's it. It was expected that you would spend most of your time playing whatever COD ripoff multiplayer the game offered.
- The ugly two tone gray and brown graphics. Let's be real a lot of these games looked like shit. A game can be gritty and dark and still have colors, but devs at this time did not seem to understand that. I never liked that dusty look that a lot of FPSs had and I still don't
- The complete death of the RPG, Stealth and Tactical shooter genre. These are my 3 favorite genres and needless to say I was not a happy camper between 2006 and 2013ish. Once Gears of War and COD happened it was over. Every game dev wanted call of duty's audience and my 3 favorite genres of games suffered immensely. Thankfully RPGs have made a full recovery and imo are better than ever before, but Tactical Shooters and Stealth games are still lacking
- DLC
- The complete nuking of PC gaming with awful ports and insane amounts of DRM. Some of these games are still unplayable due to some of the garbage malware they put on those discs
As much as I hate the greedy nonsense that a lot of game companies are pulling these days. Im actually a much happier gamer now than i was back then. Now there are options. Emulation is miles ahead of what it was back then, there are awesome AA and indie titles coming out and a lot of these crappy Ubisoft games will at least pop up in steam sales for dirt cheap for a fun afternoon of messing around. I feel like a lot of the hype in gaming has died down and honestly. that's a good thing. No one should be hyped about a product put out by the companies that gave us Horse Armor, on disc DLC and always online DRM, all started during the 360 era mind you.
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Man not gonna lie. I was not a fan of this console, this era of gaming and am not looking forward to the wave of nostolgia that appears to be coming. There's a lot of bad ideas that we are still dealing with that started in this era and honestly. it wasn't that great of a console. I mean you spent half this video talking about all the technical problems with it. I can't think of any other mainstream console that had a 50% failure rate that like that. There were some really bad trends that started from 2006-2013
- The deprioritization of single player. It was not abnormal at the time to have a game with a 4-5 hour single player campaign and that's it. It was expected that you would spend most of your time playing whatever COD ripoff multiplayer the game offered.
- The ugly two tone gray and brown graphics. Let's be real a lot of these games looked like shit. A game can be gritty and dark and still have colors, but devs at this time did not seem to understand that. I never liked that dusty look that a lot of FPSs had and I still don't
- The complete death of the RPG, Stealth and Tactical shooter genre. These are my 3 favorite genres and needless to say I was not a happy camper between 2006 and 2013ish. Once Gears of War and COD happened it was over. Every game dev wanted call of duty's audience and my 3 favorite genres of games suffered immensely. Thankfully RPGs have made a full recovery and imo are better than ever before, but Tactical Shooters and Stealth games are still lacking
- DLC
- The complete nuking of PC gaming with awful ports and insane amounts of DRM. Some of these games are still unplayable due to some of the garbage malware they put on those discs
As much as I hate the greedy nonsense that a lot of game companies are pulling these days. Im actually a much happier gamer now than i was back then. Now there are options. Emulation is miles ahead of what it was back then, there are awesome AA and indie titles coming out and a lot of these crappy Ubisoft games will at least pop up in steam sales for dirt cheap for a fun afternoon of messing around. I feel like a lot of the hype in gaming has died down and honestly. that's a good thing. No one should be hyped about a product put out by the companies that gave us Horse Armor, on disc DLC and always online DRM, all started during the 360 era mind you.
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diebesgrab
I know we have very different taste in games, but it’s still wild hearing how different our perceptions of the 7th console generation was. I was initially excited, of course, though had no interest in the 360 (I was staunchly anti-Microsoft back then) or the Wii (I’d already experienced remote control gameplay with my CD-i as a kid and had not been impressed, so I was waiting for the PS3 to get cheapand in that time, ended up with a Wii in 2008 and a 360 in 2011 (I did finally pick up a PS3 in 2013. And despite that being the only console generation I (eventually) owned all the major consoles for, it’s the one I look back on with the least interest. It feels to me like the 7th generation is where creativity in game design died; graphics were some of the ugliest they had ever been (I don’t think most studios knew what to do with the higher resolutions back then, plus of course everything was brown and grey); horrible stagnation was rampant in Japanese game design, and we were seeing nothing but derivative shooters and open world games from the West. A lot of gameplay basics that we take for granted now did get their start, or at least became standard, in the 7th gen, but there’s just so little in the way of interesting gameplay experiences I can easily recall from that era, at least outside portables and indie PC games. That was the generation where I first stopped wanting the latest consoles as soon as I could afford them.
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I know we have very different taste in games, but it’s still wild hearing how different our perceptions of the 7th console generation was. I was initially excited, of course, though had no interest in the 360 (I was staunchly anti-Microsoft back then) or the Wii (I’d already experienced remote control gameplay with my CD-i as a kid and had not been impressed, so I was waiting for the PS3 to get cheapand in that time, ended up with a Wii in 2008 and a 360 in 2011 (I did finally pick up a PS3 in 2013. And despite that being the only console generation I (eventually) owned all the major consoles for, it’s the one I look back on with the least interest. It feels to me like the 7th generation is where creativity in game design died; graphics were some of the ugliest they had ever been (I don’t think most studios knew what to do with the higher resolutions back then, plus of course everything was brown and grey); horrible stagnation was rampant in Japanese game design, and we were seeing nothing but derivative shooters and open world games from the West. A lot of gameplay basics that we take for granted now did get their start, or at least became standard, in the 7th gen, but there’s just so little in the way of interesting gameplay experiences I can easily recall from that era, at least outside portables and indie PC games. That was the generation where I first stopped wanting the latest consoles as soon as I could afford them.
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vicolin6126
We didn't have a lot of money, mom and me, when I grew up. For Christmas 2008 I (14) dared to dream of a 360, mom always said you can always wish, and that meant that I'll try but don't expect anything. Same year mom had gotten a not-so-serious cancer diagnosis. Treatable, but a bit scary. Mom appealed to every cancer-charity she could find for a small contribution, as she was on sick-leave and money was tighter than usual. Eventually she got 1 charity to help her out, she had asked for the equivalent of $500, but was awarded $300. She was ofc very grateful to even get anything at all. Mom used that money toward getting me a Xbox 360 60GB Halo 3.
I played that console for years, all the way up to around 2015. Lots of Halo was played. I still have the fully working console, in its original box, to this day. These days it sits on a shelf, and a more disposable 360 S sits under the TV for occasional use.
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We didn't have a lot of money, mom and me, when I grew up. For Christmas 2008 I (14) dared to dream of a 360, mom always said you can always wish, and that meant that I'll try but don't expect anything. Same year mom had gotten a not-so-serious cancer diagnosis. Treatable, but a bit scary. Mom appealed to every cancer-charity she could find for a small contribution, as she was on sick-leave and money was tighter than usual. Eventually she got 1 charity to help her out, she had asked for the equivalent of $500, but was awarded $300. She was ofc very grateful to even get anything at all. Mom used that money toward getting me a Xbox 360 60GB Halo 3.
I played that console for years, all the way up to around 2015. Lots of Halo was played. I still have the fully working console, in its original box, to this day. These days it sits on a shelf, and a more disposable 360 S sits under the TV for occasional use.
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letthedustset
I remember the hype. Than, i forgot about this thing, even existing at all. My imagination was that it should have been an alien thing, but with an x on it.
Anyway, these electronics age so bad. All the ones i see are sticky an rather ugly, can't tell if i'm even interested in having these around. I modded my old console, a psp. Aging hardware, aging hardware. even just keeping it together is going to be a challenge. In many such ways, i used to think that i wanted things like this. Now i fear these are just collecting dust. Interesting, the design in the 2000's was futuristic, in a way.
Now, for the tiny breaks in the circuit, early on led modules for certain watches and digital timer used to have a ceramic circuit board. More robust to the heat, not much to other shocks.
Seiko uses a flexible plastic films instead.
These old circuit board are also very funnh for making decorations.
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I remember the hype. Than, i forgot about this thing, even existing at all. My imagination was that it should have been an alien thing, but with an x on it.
Anyway, these electronics age so bad. All the ones i see are sticky an rather ugly, can't tell if i'm even interested in having these around. I modded my old console, a psp. Aging hardware, aging hardware. even just keeping it together is going to be a challenge. In many such ways, i used to think that i wanted things like this. Now i fear these are just collecting dust. Interesting, the design in the 2000's was futuristic, in a way.
Now, for the tiny breaks in the circuit, early on led modules for certain watches and digital timer used to have a ceramic circuit board. More robust to the heat, not much to other shocks.
Seiko uses a flexible plastic films instead.
These old circuit board are also very funnh for making decorations.
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lazygamereviews
games still hold up today. 360 was a big jump over PS2 and XBOX, and games matched or very similiar to PC games at the time. I still play 360 games (on Series X) and dont ever feel they a very dated. I had to get a second 360, not because my original got a red screen of death but my nephew broke the CD tray and kept ejecting games. At the time it was cheap enough to replace with the arcade version and pop my original HD on it. Also the newer one had HDMI which was nice as TVs had much fewer Component inputs. Where I upgraded my PS3 to 512gb, I never upgraded from the original 20gb on XBOX 360, but most games ran from disc and everything going forward mostly ran from HD requiring at least a partial HD install. It was a great time and glad microsoft did a good job at backwards compatibility even if every game doesnt play, many do.
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games still hold up today. 360 was a big jump over PS2 and XBOX, and games matched or very similiar to PC games at the time. I still play 360 games (on Series X) and dont ever feel they a very dated. I had to get a second 360, not because my original got a red screen of death but my nephew broke the CD tray and kept ejecting games. At the time it was cheap enough to replace with the arcade version and pop my original HD on it. Also the newer one had HDMI which was nice as TVs had much fewer Component inputs. Where I upgraded my PS3 to 512gb, I never upgraded from the original 20gb on XBOX 360, but most games ran from disc and everything going forward mostly ran from HD requiring at least a partial HD install. It was a great time and glad microsoft did a good job at backwards compatibility even if every game doesnt play, many do.
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davelazenby77255
I have such fond memories of the 360, it really was the last time I felt a console was truly next Gen. I was always a PC gamer and at the time the 360 was released my funds couldn't quite justify the upgrade required to play Oblivion on my PC. I ended up just going for the 360 and was very happy with it. It did red ring a couple of years after I bought it, but MS did send me a new one that I still have to this day, I booted it up the a while back and I still have saves on the HDD from the release of Oblivion and Skyrim. Such very good memories from my youth. Probably my favorite console of all time with my favorite games. The Xbox One that followed was a such a disappointment. As for today's offerings, I don't even own a current gen console, but I may buy a PS5 to play GTA6 if it ever actually comes out.
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I have such fond memories of the 360, it really was the last time I felt a console was truly next Gen. I was always a PC gamer and at the time the 360 was released my funds couldn't quite justify the upgrade required to play Oblivion on my PC. I ended up just going for the 360 and was very happy with it. It did red ring a couple of years after I bought it, but MS did send me a new one that I still have to this day, I booted it up the a while back and I still have saves on the HDD from the release of Oblivion and Skyrim. Such very good memories from my youth. Probably my favorite console of all time with my favorite games. The Xbox One that followed was a such a disappointment. As for today's offerings, I don't even own a current gen console, but I may buy a PS5 to play GTA6 if it ever actually comes out.
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OsakaSan
Man, i have such a complicated relationship with this console. Back in the day, i was a Nintendo and PC user, and i hated what it brought to the table to the PC World: GFWL, Microsoft's attempt to implement paid online on PC, and the Xinput protocol wich i still consider an outdated mistake (no gyro, a limited set of buttons. come on) to the point that i swore off Xbox consoles, and sure, today it makes sense to not have one if you have a PC, but somehow i find myself swaying towards getting myself a functioning Xbox 360, even though the used market is a goddamn minefield.
I haven't finished the video yet, but this is quality content. I wish i could get a boxed one in a good state and experience the whole thing, even if it's 20 years later and i'm now a jaded 40something man.
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Man, i have such a complicated relationship with this console. Back in the day, i was a Nintendo and PC user, and i hated what it brought to the table to the PC World: GFWL, Microsoft's attempt to implement paid online on PC, and the Xinput protocol wich i still consider an outdated mistake (no gyro, a limited set of buttons. come on) to the point that i swore off Xbox consoles, and sure, today it makes sense to not have one if you have a PC, but somehow i find myself swaying towards getting myself a functioning Xbox 360, even though the used market is a goddamn minefield.
I haven't finished the video yet, but this is quality content. I wish i could get a boxed one in a good state and experience the whole thing, even if it's 20 years later and i'm now a jaded 40something man.
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dansitami
As of writing this in December 2025 - the Xbox 360 represents the absolute pinnacle of triple A gaming en masse. It was mind blowing to see the graphical leap and playing Halo and other games online with even a basic headset. It brought all my friends and some of my family together. Halo became super competitive and we played countless hours. The blades layout felt clean and uncluttered. Gaming marketing was also going full blast at this time - midnight release/ launch parties were frequent. Overall Microsoft delivered on the promise of the Xbox 360 and provided the games and experience that people actually wanted rather than some weird market approach. I still hope Xbox can find its way again someday.
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As of writing this in December 2025 - the Xbox 360 represents the absolute pinnacle of triple A gaming en masse. It was mind blowing to see the graphical leap and playing Halo and other games online with even a basic headset. It brought all my friends and some of my family together. Halo became super competitive and we played countless hours. The blades layout felt clean and uncluttered. Gaming marketing was also going full blast at this time - midnight release/ launch parties were frequent. Overall Microsoft delivered on the promise of the Xbox 360 and provided the games and experience that people actually wanted rather than some weird market approach. I still hope Xbox can find its way again someday.
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PardnerFresco
The 360 was the last great console, and so revolutionary for its time. For better or worse, every modern console since has only followed the trends the 360 set.
As bad as the red ring was, the 360 maintained an attachment rate greater than the PS3 and Wii during its lifespan (games sold per console sold. If you could imagine that half of 360s sold were defective, and only 40 million are/were operational, it means the 360 was selling games at a 4: 1 ratio compared to other platforms. It was a gaming beast and it is no wonder why so many devs focused their efforts on the 360 during that era. I miss it.
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The 360 was the last great console, and so revolutionary for its time. For better or worse, every modern console since has only followed the trends the 360 set.
As bad as the red ring was, the 360 maintained an attachment rate greater than the PS3 and Wii during its lifespan (games sold per console sold. If you could imagine that half of 360s sold were defective, and only 40 million are/were operational, it means the 360 was selling games at a 4: 1 ratio compared to other platforms. It was a gaming beast and it is no wonder why so many devs focused their efforts on the 360 during that era. I miss it.
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SUP3RB34ST
I have a similar history. Relatively skint college student, venerable old laptop wasn't up to playing games. Fallout 3 was announced and coming out very soon and I was really interested in it, I wanted a PC but the cost was just too high. I found a refurbished 360 complete set with its box for something like $250, had a joyous time playing FO3, ChromeHounds, and Halo 2 for about 3 months and then it red ring'd. Sent it off for repair under the warranty that MS provided, got it back a month later, still didn't work. I ended up living on rice & beans for a while and saved up enough for a decent PC.
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I have a similar history. Relatively skint college student, venerable old laptop wasn't up to playing games. Fallout 3 was announced and coming out very soon and I was really interested in it, I wanted a PC but the cost was just too high. I found a refurbished 360 complete set with its box for something like $250, had a joyous time playing FO3, ChromeHounds, and Halo 2 for about 3 months and then it red ring'd. Sent it off for repair under the warranty that MS provided, got it back a month later, still didn't work. I ended up living on rice & beans for a while and saved up enough for a decent PC.
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nutherefurlong
I wonder if there's a term for new graphics looking almost perfect but when you look back on the same thing many years later it seems very primitive. Like around this era things starting to seem mindblowing but now I have to remind myself it was considered cutting edge at the time
You get the original soundtrack on GTA IV, too: )
My old XBox is still working, but it was one of the last so it had some of that generation's problems fixed up. Did every XBox have early versions with internal problems Yeesh
Wouldn't mind watching you go through more games. I sort of skipped that generation
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I wonder if there's a term for new graphics looking almost perfect but when you look back on the same thing many years later it seems very primitive. Like around this era things starting to seem mindblowing but now I have to remind myself it was considered cutting edge at the time
You get the original soundtrack on GTA IV, too: )
My old XBox is still working, but it was one of the last so it had some of that generation's problems fixed up. Did every XBox have early versions with internal problems Yeesh
Wouldn't mind watching you go through more games. I sort of skipped that generation
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arkangel64
Great video. I'm sure pretty much everyone on here will have a RRoD story and I do believe this original one you have will unfortunately RRoD at some point - I had 3 consoles all do the same thing and eventually led me to defect to PS3 for a couple of years, then the Xbox 360 slim came out that seemed to resolve all the bad cooling designs of the original, so bought one specifically to play Forza 4 and that console is still working without issue to this day! Microsoft dropped a major ball with the RRoD and probably accounts as a major reason more gamers avoided the brand later in life!
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Great video. I'm sure pretty much everyone on here will have a RRoD story and I do believe this original one you have will unfortunately RRoD at some point - I had 3 consoles all do the same thing and eventually led me to defect to PS3 for a couple of years, then the Xbox 360 slim came out that seemed to resolve all the bad cooling designs of the original, so bought one specifically to play Forza 4 and that console is still working without issue to this day! Microsoft dropped a major ball with the RRoD and probably accounts as a major reason more gamers avoided the brand later in life!
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treahblade
Honestly if someone is going to buy a 360 they should buy a slim. They fixed the whole RR problem by that point and the last one was much smaller the 360E which I found at a goodwill for like 20bucks I think. . I have one of the last 360's ever made and the problem these days is finding a controller that is not 3rd party that is not having some issue. Pretty much all of my controllers now have some problem with at least one of the buttons. I really wish you could just use a xbox one controller with them as they are functionally the same thing but alas no.
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Honestly if someone is going to buy a 360 they should buy a slim. They fixed the whole RR problem by that point and the last one was much smaller the 360E which I found at a goodwill for like 20bucks I think. . I have one of the last 360's ever made and the problem these days is finding a controller that is not 3rd party that is not having some issue. Pretty much all of my controllers now have some problem with at least one of the buttons. I really wish you could just use a xbox one controller with them as they are functionally the same thing but alas no.
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Ryandaman1216
I remember when the red ring of death thing first started happening, i thought wow that would suck if that happened to me. Sure enough, within a month it happened to me and they were having a 1 month turn around time on consoles. I didn't have an xbox for 8 months. I would send one in, get it back a month later and it would IMMEDIATELY red ring of death again. It was horrible. Also, trying to play Dead Rising on a non-HD TV was impossible because you couldn't read the dialogue at the bottom of the screen. Still my favorite console by far.
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I remember when the red ring of death thing first started happening, i thought wow that would suck if that happened to me. Sure enough, within a month it happened to me and they were having a 1 month turn around time on consoles. I didn't have an xbox for 8 months. I would send one in, get it back a month later and it would IMMEDIATELY red ring of death again. It was horrible. Also, trying to play Dead Rising on a non-HD TV was impossible because you couldn't read the dialogue at the bottom of the screen. Still my favorite console by far.
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treetreem
Yet another extremely nostalgic retrospective! I think I bought my 360 around 2009-2010. I was a broke college student but I wanted to play games so badly. I played an immeasurable amount of Left 4 Dead and Red Dead Redemption. I ended up selling it to a friend to make some money and it would be another four years or so until I bought my PS3 (which I still own.
Recently I was checking out my Microsoft account to get some things set up for my kiddo on Minecraft, and it still had my old 360 avatar. Amazing. Thanks for another great video!
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Yet another extremely nostalgic retrospective! I think I bought my 360 around 2009-2010. I was a broke college student but I wanted to play games so badly. I played an immeasurable amount of Left 4 Dead and Red Dead Redemption. I ended up selling it to a friend to make some money and it would be another four years or so until I bought my PS3 (which I still own.
Recently I was checking out my Microsoft account to get some things set up for my kiddo on Minecraft, and it still had my old 360 avatar. Amazing. Thanks for another great video!
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Plutonia001
For me it's surreal to see GTA4 running so smoothly on an Xbox 360. I played the game for the first time in 2021, on a PC orders of magnitude more powerful than that console, and it ran at an unstable 40fps on beyond-ultra-low settings at 720p. Worse graphics than the game normally allows you to set in the options. Rockstar had somehow completely broken the graphics engine, causing it to use about 1% of the GPU's performance and the game was nearly unplayable.
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For me it's surreal to see GTA4 running so smoothly on an Xbox 360. I played the game for the first time in 2021, on a PC orders of magnitude more powerful than that console, and it ran at an unstable 40fps on beyond-ultra-low settings at 720p. Worse graphics than the game normally allows you to set in the options. Rockstar had somehow completely broken the graphics engine, causing it to use about 1% of the GPU's performance and the game was nearly unplayable.
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TheOfficialJopp
Tbh my absolute goat of retro consoles (20 yrs ago being a young kid) is GameCube, being almost smack-dab target demographic for Luigi's mansion, OG animal crossing, Mario Sunshine, Kirby air ride, and obviously melee. Plus like you said. It was MINE. BUT my preteen years and further into my adolescence, the 360 (Halo 3 and COD: WAW and MW2 specifically) definitely dominated them all.
Great spread of games cool memories, nice retrospective
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Tbh my absolute goat of retro consoles (20 yrs ago being a young kid) is GameCube, being almost smack-dab target demographic for Luigi's mansion, OG animal crossing, Mario Sunshine, Kirby air ride, and obviously melee. Plus like you said. It was MINE. BUT my preteen years and further into my adolescence, the 360 (Halo 3 and COD: WAW and MW2 specifically) definitely dominated them all.
Great spread of games cool memories, nice retrospective
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babab_m
i remember being so paranoid about the red ring of death, living in a place where temperatures get ridiculously hot, and having issues with my controller's shoulder buttons, i decided to return mine and trade it for a brand new ps3 slim with 120gb instead of 20gb of storage and Free multiplayer. While i loved my ps3 a lot i feel i missed out on the xbox 360, part of me will always regret having made that choice.
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i remember being so paranoid about the red ring of death, living in a place where temperatures get ridiculously hot, and having issues with my controller's shoulder buttons, i decided to return mine and trade it for a brand new ps3 slim with 120gb instead of 20gb of storage and Free multiplayer. While i loved my ps3 a lot i feel i missed out on the xbox 360, part of me will always regret having made that choice.
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afterdeathfilms
Got one for Christmas when I was in 8th grade, 2006. Luckily we actually purchased the extended warranty at Best Buy. Red ring within 6 months and we just walked in and got a new one free. twice the last one I got is still kicking around, although it did eventually red ring again and I’ve since repaired it myself. But I just use a slim now if I’m dusting off the ol’ 360
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Got one for Christmas when I was in 8th grade, 2006. Luckily we actually purchased the extended warranty at Best Buy. Red ring within 6 months and we just walked in and got a new one free. twice the last one I got is still kicking around, although it did eventually red ring again and I’ve since repaired it myself. But I just use a slim now if I’m dusting off the ol’ 360
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awesomeguysuncle
4: 30 I don't know if anyone pointed this out already or you knew, but this is actually a Falcon console, you can tell from there being 1 bar not 2 on the power port and lack of hdmi.
On the back is a service date, your console was serviced by microsoft ) in 2010, cause it probably red ringed then.
Hope this helps, this confused me too lol so had to research
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4: 30 I don't know if anyone pointed this out already or you knew, but this is actually a Falcon console, you can tell from there being 1 bar not 2 on the power port and lack of hdmi.
On the back is a service date, your console was serviced by microsoft ) in 2010, cause it probably red ringed then.
Hope this helps, this confused me too lol so had to research
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