Xbox



"Life is short. Play more."

The original behemoth. The most powerful system of the 6th Generation. Lead the way in future consoles designs by basically being a PC in a box. Helped Pioneer online gaming with Xbox Live and its built-in Ethernet port. Since the system was very similar to PCs of the time, it received a bunch of direct ports to/from the platform are missing on competing systems. It's also hueg. Due to the deal MS made with nVidia over the chip, they would never make a profit off the system. Due to this, MS unceremoniously stopped production and rushed its successor out the door after only 4 years on the market. It didn't dethrone its main competor (the PS2), but did help establish the ground for the 360's domination in the 7th Gen.

Unlike the PS2 and Gamecube, emulating the Xbox on PCs is pretty poor. There are a few emulators in development but they don't run games at full speed. If you want play Xbox games, you need to get a system. There are other options (see below).

IMPORTANT NOTICE: As of April 15, 2010, Xbox LIVE support for all Original Xbox titles has ceased. You will not be able to connect and play online games or download downloadable content packs. If you're looking for an online game to play on your Original Xbox, You're out of luck. Try a tunneling program if you're desperate, Such as XBConnect or Xlink Kai to emulate a LAN game. Shitsux.

360's Backwards Compatibility
The Xbox 360's backwards compatibility with original Xbox games is an absolute mess. The games are emulated, so many suffer from technical hiccups. Not all games are even supported! If you're planning on playing these games on your Xbox 360 rather than the original Xbox, check this list to make sure it plays fine, if at all. In most cases, playing on an original Xbox will give you a far better experience overall. Also, not that the limited backward compatibility for 360 games on the XBOne does not extend to original Xbox games Microsoft has started rolling out original Xbox games backward compatibility every couple of months. Only 32 titles so far. They are noted below.

 * This game cannot be played on the Xbox 360.

Hacking
If you own a system now of days, you'll probably want to hack it. It's pretty easy to hack and there's a ton of advantages to do so.
 * Upgrading your HDD
 * Backing up your games to the HDD and running them from it (or pirating games)
 * Emulators (Everything through 5th Gen (minus Saturn) runs pretty well)
 * Customer Dashboards (XBMC4XBOX, Unleashed X)

There's a wide variety of methods to mod your system. The most common is a softmod. Follow this video and you should be good to go.