At Last, My Xbox 360 Arrives -- And Now I Don't Want It

Xbox 360s are finally beginning to flow into Britain again, after the initial shipment last November came and went to the dedicated few who had preordered. I put my name down at Game two weeks ago and was shocked to get a call this weekend that one unit had come in. Lucky me! Or so I thought. It turns out that the backwards compatibility with old Xbox games is woefully poor, something I cover in more detail in my Xbox 360 Backward Compatibility - Not! post. It was the straw the broke the camel's back in terms of making me go off the Xbox 360 -- and possibly the Xbox platform entirely.

I've written before that we're not a huge gaming family, but we do play the occasional game. We finally got an Xbox about two years ago, after we'd been staying at a holiday cottage where someone had a unit for visitors staying to use. I loved Project Gotham and one of the snowboarding games. After that, I dropped a few hints that an Xbox for my birthday would be an excellent idea.

Since then, we've acquired a number of games, mostly for the kids. Why get the Xbox 360? We don't have an HD TV yet, but we will after we move in about two months. The better image quality the 360 offers sounded great. Plus, since we've got a library of old games already, staying with the Xbox platform also made sense. Finally, I had a good excuse to get one of the latest and greatest toys. I explained to my wife that by getting the Xbox 360, I could then take the old unit down to her mother's, so we had it handy for me and the boys when we just wanted to kick back down there. All excellent reasons, I'm sure you'll agree.

I picked up the unit last Saturday, unpacked everything and got going. The instructions are dismal. We don't have an HD TV, as I said. But the AV unit can be set to HDTV, then the resolution set to 480p. What's 480p? Would my TV support it? Is 480p better than standard PAL or PAL 60? No advice.

My TV is a Toshiba 32ZP, about a year and a half old and one of those that does picture processing and progressive scan display. Since it had all the right composite inputs for the AV cable, I tried the HD mode. At 480p (I'm guessing that's a smooth, 480 progressive display similar to what a DVD player would output), everything seemed fine. At 720p, I got a blank screen. At 1080i, I got a half-size picture. I figured 480p must work, guessed it was probably a little better than standard AV, hoped it wasn't somehow going to damage my TV and stuck with it.

I did try checking up on this via the Microsoft Xbox site. I didn't find any particular help. What I did find was a big lack of advice for the poor slobs over here in the UK paying far more for the machines than those in the US. I'll talk support first, prices next.

Here's the Xbox support area for the US, which in turn has tons of How To info, though still no advice even on the AV page on the various HD modes or if 480p is better than standard AV. In contrast, this third party article suggests 480p is better than standard resolution, as does this. This forum post and this excellent article reassure that if you can feed your TV a composite signal, then it can play 480p just fine. This article interestingly explains that 720p may be better than 1080i.

Now head to the support area for the UK. There's no How To advice. What is there is far less than on the US site. Sure, much of what's on the US site is applicable. But if so, then don't bother having a separate UK area. Just have an English language area. It's just insulting to feel like you're an afterthought, especially when you pay so much more.

Ah, prices. What's the price of an Xbox 360 on Amazon in the US? The Platinum System (the unit with the hard drive) is around $375 to $400. Over in the UK, it's £280, or around $490 to $500.

The price hikes don't end there. Want a play and charge kit for your wireless controller? That will be $20 in the US, versus £15 ($26) in the UK. Universal Media Remote? That $20 in the US, £20 ($35) in the UK. The Wireless Networking Adapter? That's $80 versus £60 ($105).

I haven't tested this, but I'm virtually certain any of the accessories for a US Xbox 360 will work just fine for a UK one. That was the case with the old units. I'd pick up a memory unit or extra controller in the US, and it would work perfectly in the UK. So got a trip back to the US? Pick up your accessories there.

Games are another matter. Xbox games for the US in the past wouldn't run, to my understanding, on UK Xboxes unless the Xbox had been chipped or modified. You also needed a TV that could play NTSC signals (mine does; many do) or have the game output in PAL 60, to my understanding. I never bothered trying, even though the US seemed to have a bigger selection of games and at a cheaper prices.

Prices are still cheaper in the US. Want to play King Kong on your Xbox 360 in the UK? That will be £50 new right now, $88. Cost to buy it in the US? About $55.

If that's not annoying enough, what's the deal with the price difference between old and new Xbox games? King Kong for "old" Xbox is only £20. Is the HD version of the game really worth a 150 percent premium? Somehow, I doubt it.

Another surprise was that the 20 GB hard drive reports as having only 13 GB free. Why? It's preloaded with some "bonus" content along with other material you can't remove. It's also apparently a pretty bad hard drive. I don't really think I need that much space, of course -- and I could stream music from our Windows Media Center PC. But it's just another annoyance.

In the end, I decided I could do without my Xbox 360 for now. Game, where I got it, has a great 10 day refund policy in theory. Then it turns out, they won't issue a refund. They don't specifically say consoles are excluded for a refund -- look here at their policy and tell me if you spot what I've missed. They were willing to issue a credit, but since Xbox 360s are selling at a premium still on eBay, I might try giving that a go first.

It's really not an issue of money, however. I can afford the box even at the usual rip-off UK prices. It's more a matter of feeling annoyed with Microsoft overall. They stuck with regionally coded games for no good reason. They overpriced the units here. Then the xbox 360 backwards compatibility turns out to be more myth than reality. I don't need the Xbox 360 right now. When I do get an HD TV in a month or two, the Playstation 3 will be near to launch. Perhaps I'll just wait for that and shift over to an entirely new platform.

After all, that's what Xbox is trying to make me do. Since my old library is pretty much useless, they want me on an entirely new gaming platform. Well, good job. If I'm going to buy all new games, I don't have to buy them for your platform. Alternatively, if I am going with the Xbox 360, I'll wait a bit for better deals or just bring one back from the US.

Great post (seriously). It's a lot easier to take comments/suggestions/feedback from those who take the time to write up their experiences so clearly.

I'm forwarding along to our UI (user interface) and UE (user education) folks, who should appreciate hearing your experience...

Comment by John Porcaro | January 31, 2006 10:57 PM

Chill out. You're a real pathetic loser to tell you the truth. Only half of your Xbox games are even worth playing and your bitching about not being able to play them. PGR2 is the only game that I'm really disapointed about not being able to play. You should've really done some research about backward compatibility, but oh, you're too stupid to find anything, well try googling it! You can find tons of crap as long as you're smart enough to know what keywords to put in. The PS3 will be an even bigger waste of money and the games and quality of sony systems completely sucks. You really need to get out of the stoneage with TVs. By turning your switch to a certain resolution isn't going to damage your TV...geez...just be logical about that one...Congradulations on acting like a little whining brat.

Comment by Jqwerty | September 19, 2006 1:50 AM

It doesn't matter if you don't think half my games are worth playing. It matters if I care. If I want to play them, or if my kids want to play them, then they are important to us. And if the Xbox 360 won't play them, then we aren't likely to buy it. And if we don't, that's a lost Microsoft sale.

In terms of research on backwards compatibility, I've done that -- in the post above. Perhaps you missed that in your rush to post a flame. There was no need to research this beforehand given Microsoft really hadn't made any suggestions that backwards compatibility would be so limited. That's the point. If you call something backwards compatible, reasonable people don't expect that to mean only a small number of titles will actually work on it.

In terms of being in the stone age on TVs, did you miss the part where I said I was purchasing an HD TV in about two months? To further enlighten you, there was no HD transmission in the UK until recently. There was no compelling reason to have an HD TV unless you were into gaming. I do have one now -- purchased exactly as I said I was going to do.

As for having a higher resolution damage your TV, sorry if that fear seemed so illogical to you. Considering how the wrong resolution or scanning rate can damage an LCD monitor, it wasn't so illogical to question it to me.

FYI, in the end, I did purchase an XBox 360 again. Nintendo Wii To Be Region Free covers this more, and I'm planning a separate follow-up post. Now having an HD TV -- plus more games -- it was more compelling to have it in addition to the old Xbox.

Comment by Danny Sullivan | September 19, 2006 2:45 PM

Oh you live in the UK, well that's hella different. My bad. I know they have limited games there and that does make since for your kids and stuff. Sorry about the flame..

Comment by Jqwerty | September 21, 2006 3:54 AM

I'd just like to point out a few things. (I don't know how relevant this is seeing as you've purchased another 360.)

You're perfectly welcome in your opinion that the 360 isn't worth it, and I've been burned by Microsoft a few times myself, but I do think you have a few misconceptions about the console.

First off, prices. The 360 costs $400 in the U.S. for the premium model. Anything less than that is a sale (which I'm sure the U.K. has) and really shouldn't be considered in your argument. Yes, it does cost more over there. Why, I don't know. I've heard this is pretty standard for electronics over there, and the PS3 I imagine will be doing the same.

Your Amazon price points for accessories also seem off. Amazon basically runs sales prices all the time, which means THEIR prices could be biased in differences between the UK and US. If you walk into a typical store (I checked the Best Buy website, a place I imagine many Americans buy consoles, games, and accessories) you'll see the Play and Charge is $20 (as you said), the Media Remote is $30, and the Wireless Networking Adapter is a whopping $100.

Now, I'm not saying any of those things aren't OVERPRICED, but it does reduce the price DIFFERENCE considerably.

I don't understand your confusion over the HDTV matters, especially since you said you plan on buying one yourself, I'd imagine you'd have researched it. 480p is progressive can, progressive scan is 480p. It's like talking about a dollar and 100 pennies, same thing. Now, I'm not sure what you're EXPECTING of Microsoft, but for them to explain what's better (especially the debate between 720p and 1080i) in their console is a bit much. It really CAN be subjective, and if you get and HDTV, try both and find out what you like better.

I don't know what to tell you about original Xbox games. I was pretty sure region lockouts were standard on most systems (I know the DS DOESN'T do it, but that's all I know about). The backwards compatibility FAQ is deceiving, but when asked directly Microsoft hasn't shied away about not all games working.

And your last issue, the hard drive. I believe the article you linked to about how bad it is was really talking about future uses for it. Downloadable games, download movies, etc. It is, admittedly, a small hard drive for these uses. Download games I don't think are in the plan, but the movies are already out there. It is annoying to have to constantly delete and re-download stuff, but that's ALL that article is saying.

As to why there's only 13 GB. Yes, some of that is pre-loaded stuff. But why you would complain about free stuff is beyond me. Delete it if you don't want it. After deleting everything, the rest of the space being used is reserved for console stuff, I believe. You know how EVERY Xbox had a hard drive? Well that's why it's required for backwards compatibility. Space is reserved for that use, JUST like it was on the original Xbox.

Anyways... that's all I can think of. Hope you're enjoying whatever games you're playing nowadays!

Comment by Infininja | February 5, 2007 4:52 AM

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