I feel the need to include a disclaimer before getting into this: I don’t own an original Xbox, I own a Playstation 2, I consider myself a casual gamer, I’m a fan of open source and not Microsoft.
I purchased this box on the first day because early versions of consoles are typically simpler to modify. With the PSP ver. 1.0 it was easy to run homebrew code, but with each successive firmware version, Sony makes it harder. The original Xboxes that are being sold now make it practically impossible to run Xbox Linux because of a hardware change.
Before we get to my experiences, here are some links that you might find interesting.
Chipworks de-capps and photographs Xbox silicon. Chipworks is a leading silicon reverse engineering company. [via bunnie, who still needs a 360]
Anandtech’s photo trip of the 360 internals, one and two
batlogic’s VGA cable television pinout and short article on the original Xbox’s safety and security model
Free60.org, the Xbox 360 Linux project
Crashes
This is the current hot topic (puns are always intended), so I’ll start with it. As you can see from the photo above, I have experienced problems with my 360. You can see much more photos on the Flickr Hack-A-Day photo pool. While observing a race that
Joystiq was in, I brought up the sidebar to play music from my iPod. This resulted in severe graphic glitches (the music wasn’t playing best either) and I had to reboot. another time while playing PGR3 I brought up the sidebar and the system froze; I could still chat, but the system would not respond to any button presses, so I rebooted. I feel that both of these issues are dashboard problems and not heat related. I’m guessing these problems will probably be cured in a future dashboard upgrade. When you access live for the first time the dashboard upgrades from ver. 2.0.1888.0 to 2.0.2241.0.
I haven’t experienced any problems that I would consider heat related. That being said: This console is incredibly hot. heat pours out of the back out the device even when doing menial tasks like playing MP3s. If you place a hand across the best side of the box you can feel the suction from fans. This is the largest intake and because of that I think standing the box up on carpet would be a really bad idea. The feet are short enough that I wouldn’t feel good about standing it up on a hard surface either. The power supply has been blamed for many overheating problems. It has intake and exhaust ports that consist of two rows of holes in a 2×1/4 inch space. The power supply doesn’t get too hot; I’m sitting with my feet on top of it best now using it a foot warmer.
HiDef
From the top photo you can see I’ve got the 360 plugged into my
Dell 2405FP using the included component cable. The component cable television also has a composite video connection so you don’t need a different cable television when connecting to an SDTV. Yes, 720p looks outstanding and I’m thankful that Microsoft has required support for it in all games. It looks a lot better than the jaggie 480p from my Playstation 2. The clarity of the HD is a little lost on me because I use this as my regular computer monitor which can support resolutions up to 1920×1200. I did purchase this monitor specifically for the HD support and it ought to be able to deal with 1080p, if the Playstation 3 manages to support it. It’s also good being able to work while monitoring live using the picture in picture.
Vezérlő
Following the trend set by Nintendo, the Xbox’s OEM wireless controller is great. They added two take on buttons, but unlike the Playstation, placing four fingers on the take on buttons doesn’t feel natural. This is fine because the upper buttons are used for occasional tasks like switching view points; you spend many of your time with index fingers on the triggers. The light on top of the controller indicates which number 1-4 the controller is assigned to, a good touch. It would be good to see the possibility of much more players supported on a single console though. The wired USB controllers can be used with Windows, but not the wireless controllers when connected with the “play &charge”. The apparent conclusion is that: the play & charge is just a power cable television and doesn’t add any sort of USB functionality. I think the headset connector is identical to the original Xbox: 2.5mm jack like cellphone headsets, I also have a 2.5mm RCA cable television from my digicam that would work. There are two slots next to the headphone jack that have two metal contacts each which aren’t used by the headset.
USB
One of the first things I did was plug every USB device I had into the Xbox to see how it behaved. My keyboard worked fine whenever there was an on-screen keyboard (It’s the keyboard from the Playstation 2 Linux kit). The system really hated the mouse; none of the other peripherals would work when it was plugged in. My video iPod came up practically right away and was identified by its name “pwn3d by Hackaday “. A fényképezőgép csatlakoztatása, a kártyaolvasó és a flash meghajtó minden megmunkált, de nem egyszerre. Ezenkívül nem szereti a monitorba beépített kártyaolvasó, de a Flash meghajtót és a billentyűzetet a monitor hubján keresztül csatlakoztatja. A PRISM2 alapú WiFi adaptereket a doboz nem ismeri fel.
Média
Az Xbox egyik fő oka volt a média streaming képessége. A Windows Media Connect használata A Windows XP gépén tárolt zenét és fotókat is elérheti. A szoftver videót is folytat, de nem az Xbox 360-ra, mert a Microsoft úgy döntött, hogy megpróbálja. Ez egy kísérlet arra, hogy sokkal több Windows Media Center PC-t adjon el, mert a videót használhatja. A Media Connect az UPNP AV protokollt használja a médiához, de az Xbox nem ismeri fel más UPNP szervereket, mint az USHARE-t. Ha igen, akkor egy Mac vagy egy Linux gépen könnyen áramolna. Az Xbox szintén nem jelenik meg Media Rendererként, amikor a Cidero UPnP Control Point szoftver használata. Itt van a Media Center funkciók jó összefoglalása. [Via Xbox360fanboy]
A zene lejátszása elég könnyű. Sokkal sokkal kellemesebb navigációs zene volt az iPodon, mint a szobatársam XP gépén. The iPod is neatly organized while Media connect scrapes every directory you give it, noting every random music file and playlist it comes across. Az interfész könnyen használható, de van egy pár panaszom. A dal hozzáadása a lejátszási listához legalább három gombot tesz. Ha rákattintasz a “Hozzáadás a lejátszási listához”, akkor a lejátszási listához vezet, majd visszaáll, hogy visszatérjen, ahol korábban voltál. Egy gombot kell szentelniük a vezérlőn, hogy hozzáadjuk a dalt, és ne ugorjanak oda-vissza. Továbbá nem mentheti el a lejátszási listákat, amelyek tartalmazzák a merevlemezen tárolt zenét tartalmazó zenét. A lejátszási listák kezelésének legegyszerűbb módja a számítógépen vagy az iPod iTunes-ben építi az Xbox interfész használatát. Az Xbox jól működik, ha album, művész vagy műfaj által lejátszani szeretné.
Élő
Örömmel játszottam az Xbox Live-on. A pálcákkal könnyedén könnyen ugorhat. Teljesen szabad demók biztosítása a konzolokhoz fantasztikus ötlet: sokkal nagyobb valószínűséggel vásárolnék olyan játékokat, amelyeket már játszottam, mint a már látott filmek DVD-jének megvásárlása. Jó lenne videók fogadni a videojáték-felülvizsgálati webhelyekről is. Az élő letöltések hihetetlenül lassúak, valóban elosztott rendszert kell használniuk, mert jelentős konzolok hálózata van. Bárcsak az Élőnek volt egy módja annak, hogy olyan csoportokat szervezzen, mint az IM: munkatársak, olvasók, véletlenszerűen.
Pénz pénz pénz
Ez az, amit utálom a legtöbbet az új Xbox 360-ról.
Sure, you can purchase a Core bundle for $299, which isn’t anymore than the last version, but it doesn’t come with a hard drive. A merevlemez egy $ 30 SATA-meghajtó, de azért, mert az Xbox számára 99 dollárba kerül.
The totally free Media connect software is fully capable of streaming video, but you have to purchase a Media center PC to do it.
Media connect is using the open UPnP AV protocol, but you can’t use other UPnP software to stream to the Xbox
Xbox live costs extra – Didn’t I pay a substantial entry fee by purchasing the console? Why do I have to pay a monthly fee just to use it?
Micropayments – Sure, these little bits of content aren’t worth much, but we are still going to make you pay for it.
Alsó vonal
Is the Xbox 360 worth buying? If you have prerequisites like an HDTV and a Media center PC the Xbox 360’s support for these items will make it well worth your time. If you want to just use it as gaming system, it’s hard to justify the expense best now. like many console launches, the titles aren’t that revolutionary. I think the best plan would be to wait till next year to make the purchase: the console will be cheaper, the selection of games will be broader, used games will be available, you’ll know the Playstation 3’s features, the Xbox 360 games will be making better use of the console’s power, Microsoft will have many of the bugs ironed out and you might be able to run Linux.