So sometime this fall, we’re all going to be getting that fancy, schmancy new dashboard update from MicroSoft, and on the morning it’s released, we’ll all pray to the Console Gods the update doesn’t cause our boxes to RRoD.
But that’s not why I’m here today.
I’m here because I’ve been looking at those screen caps and new feature lists, and while they’re exciting, they take us even further away from the cool tech promise of the original Xbox.
I got my first Xbox for my 30th birthday. It was the first console I actually owned since the NES. I skipped everything in between and instead played Girls™. Got married when I was 27, however, and gaming once again became a possibility. As it turns out, the wife is the one who bought me my Xbox, a decision she no doubt regrets.
The thing I liked most about it right from go was the sort of hacker/sci-fi thing it had going on in the dashboard. You know what I’m talking about, right? This thing:
I loved that. The sound FX ruled, especially the cool Imperial Probe Droid sounds buzzing around in the background. And I really dug the green Minority Report thing it had going on.
Prior the getting my Xbox, I’d been a casual PC gamer – MechWarrior 4, Jedi Outcast, Majestic, Neverwinter Nights – those are the games I remember playing right before the Xbox. I always have skewed toward sci-fi, so Neverwinter is sort of the anomaly there.
So the first couple games I played on my Xbox? Halo and MechAssault. They sort of fit with the whole theme going on.
And then came the 360.
Talk about killing the aesthetics. Now it was this cheesy Technicolor blade thing, which while moderately easy to use, is pretty lame to look at, even with the customizable wallpapers. It was no longer something I thought cool, but a stop on the way to Halo 2 and Halo 3’s menus. A necessary hazard for gaming, I suppose. Again, I had no gripes with the functionality, but the look of it… ugh. Give me back my black and green industrial sci-fi look.
Sometime in November (I think), we’re getting the third iteration of the Xbox dashboards, and it’s yet another step into casual land, what with its Nintendo-esque avatars and PS3-looking folder access system.
They say they’ve re-invented the Xbox experience through the magic of software, and now it looks like a cartoon. What if I don’t want to make an Avatar? Do they have a gas mask I can put on it? Can I leave its face blank, have it look like something out of a Clive Barker novel instead of the Playskool thing it has going on? I don’t want my avatar to look like me – that almost flies in the face of the whole reason I game.
Having just watched a video on the creation of an avatar, I’m even further chagrined. It’s cutesy. It has Pokemon sound effects, and I might as well be making a Lego minifig. For fuck’s sake, man. Where’s the Rated M version of this crap? We’re not all soccer moms and pre-teen boys.
Again, I realize I’m talking purely about how something looks, but there’s a pride in ownership thing intimately tied to the experience of something, and I think they’re getting further and further away from it.
I understand why, of course. They’re trying to further embrace the casual gaming market Nintendo is currently ruling with its parlor game console.
Doesn’t make me happy, however. I want the sci-fi. I want the impression that this $400 box of electronics is, in fact, high tech and futuristic. But I’m not the target market. I’m the hardcore Xbox fan, and my Xbox experience is left to game developers.
I’m a pessimist by nature, but I’m willing to admit I’m looking forward to some new functionality. I just wish they hadn’t gone for something so cute and fuzzy.
If I wanted that, I’d have bought a Wii.
