Top 10 Xbox Fails

Kicking off our list is the proof that bigger isn’t always better. When the original Xbox launched in 2001, it was clearly marketed towards giants and ogres! Thankfully, Microsoft quickly refined the controller’s design so 99 percent of the population can play with its Controller “S” and subsequent Xbox 360 version. If you happen to prefer the fat controller, chances are that you’re a wrestler.

When launching a console that will be around for the better part of a decade, have every package include the bare essentials! These include such items as a hard drive and built in Wi-Fi! Failing this, it’s best not to make the accessories proprietary or outrageously expensive! Unfortunately, Xbox is guilty of both of these missteps.

Many Xbox users have been waiting for a web browser to arrive. Instead, Microsoft has created apps for web sites like YouTube and Facebook, which require a paid subscription.

Equally bad, the Dashboard is now filled with advertisements, and Microsoft hasn’t unlocked our game transfers: meaning that downloadable games and save files cannot be shared amongst the users of a single Xbox console.

Worst of all, Microsoft has allowed itself and developers to become dependent on downloadable content, including content locked away on our retail disks. We’re tired of getting nickeled and dimed!

Microsoft has delivered an innovative piece of hardware, despite being just a fancy webcam. Our gripe is that it’s not sensitive enough for real gaming. We would never ditch our gamepads for laggy motion controls, especially when Kinect requires a huge empty room to play in!

You’re playing and all of a sudden you hear a grinding noise! You open the drive to investigate. To your horror, you find etched ring patterns on your disk, leaving it unplayable. How can this be? Simple, Microsoft decided not to put a protective buffer in the disk drive, claiming that you’re good as long as you don’t move it while in use. Sounds reasonable, except that there have been many instances of random disk destruction.

We don’t know about you, but we dig playing old games on new systems. Sure, you can hold on to those old machines, but an all in one package is so much more convenient. You know what isn’t convenient; having to look up a list to see which random games Microsoft decided to make playable on the Xbox 360.

Part of the reason many gamers jumped ship from Nintendo was the news that Microsoft bought Rare, the company responsible for some of the greatest games ever made, such as Goldeneye!

Today, Rare isn’t hard at work making the next Killer Instinct, Battletoads, Wizards and Warriors, or Jet Force Gemini. Instead, they’re making Avatar-based motion games for Kinect. That’s like telling NASA to make bumper cars instead of space shuttles…wait?… What do you mean NASA doesn’t make shuttles anymore?

Online gaming has moved from niche to gaming standard. Nintendo and Sony offer this for free, and Microsoft doesn’t. In fact, they want you to pay for each Xbox user in your household! As a result, you need this to not only play online, but to access YouTube, Facebook, your Netflix account and virtually anything else that you want.

…And good luck finding an online playmate that isn’t a pre-pubescent, filthy-mouthed tea-bagger.

The Xbox was designed as a multimedia hub for the household, yet only uses standard DVD tech! That’s right, no blu ray movies! Worst of all, we already got conned into spending our money on a failed HD-DVD add on attachment, only to still rely on multiple disks for larger games. Lame!

Was there any doubt? Taking the top spot on this list is the biggest blunder in the history of gaming. The RROD is the result of Microsoft rushing their console out the door to be first on the shelves. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knows someone who has watched their beloved system die a horrible death from general hardware failures and overheating. Microsoft used to send shipping coffins as a sign of respect, but they don’t do that anymore. I guess the billion dollars in free extended warranties they handed out really broke the bank.