Last night I really had it hammered through my brain that new gamers face a rather daunting task that goes far beyond “Do I want a 360, PS3, or Wii?” and “Which games to play?”.
I have this dear friend, referred to as ‘Bert’ for the sake of these articles, who had been asking me about picking up a 360 since the early summer. Initially I was going to repair my old dead Elite for him, unfortunate faceplate and all, and get him going with that. This solution became more trouble than it was worth since, once I gave my HDMI Arcade 360 to my brother, I was short spare controllers to include with that. Then there was the cost of repairing the system. Then the utter lack of any guarantee that the repairs would last more than a little while, whether I did it myself or took it to a modshop. The only reason I was able to pass that system to my brother was because I acquired a 250GB bundle to replace it. The HDMI Arcade was using the 20GB hard drive that came with my first 360. I passed that HD along to every other 360 to follow, thus keeping my saves and giving me room for downloadable content on each subsequent system. Arcade units did not come with a hard drive, nor did my particular Elite, so this was critical for me. With that drive now in a different city, this meant that the Elite would have to make due with the teeny Microsoft Memory Unit or the new ability to use compatible USB sticks.
Here is what readers of this blog, being the tech-savvy people that you are, may not have paid much regard to in the above paragraph. Note the skus. So many different systems that all do slightly different things. How does a new person, capable with the internet and minor PC troubleshooting, jump in? Just think of the dedicated gamers that chose to upgrade to the new 4GB slim. They got their shiny new unit and were unprepared for the disappointment regarding certain multiplayer modes in Halo:Reach since the 4GB counts as a memory unit and not a hard drive. If you want to know more about all the different versions of the 360, Wikipedia has a solid chart. The different version kerfuffle is not exclusive to the 360, of course. Sony has their own extensive version history. Nintendo Wii? Not so much. Would you like White or Black*?
Bert trusted me to make all these decisions for him — as he, and everyone, well should ^_~ — and I lucked into a decent one. I had obtained one of those 4GB Slim models for $150, all in with tax, and Bert was happy to buy it from me at cost. He gets everything he needs to get started, knowing he’s not remotely interested in Halo: Reach, and a warranty with the receipt. I feel good, he feels good. This brings us up to last night and the next obstacle on this path. Hookup. I had helped him purchase a 1080p HDTV when he wanted chuck out the old CRT, but I wanted to double check a few things before I brought everything over. The new slim Xbox does not come with any high-definitely cables, just SD. No composite and no HDMI. Yes, this is incredibly lame. I’ve got a few spares around so I thought I’d bring one with me.
“Hey Bert, you have spare HDMI ports, right?”
“HDI?”
“HDMI. If you check the back of your tv you’ll see some thin, almost rectangular slots. We’ll only need one.”
“Uh, lemme check.”
I instantly remembered that he hasn’t been using his HDTV with any actual HD content yet so I didn’t have to make him look, but I’m glad he did. Now he knows about it, what it does, and what it looks like. Woo, learning. There’s a lot more learning to come in the next chapter of this story, including how ridiculous the avatar system is to new people. And experienced gamers. Why, Mircosoft, why? If you are going to make us create the stupid things, why can’t you at least make the options something approaching human?
*ps: GET BLACK. I have no idea why those two Wii units are priced the same. The black one comes with Wii Motion Plus and the standard Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. You’d have to really really really want a white unit to go for a brand new White system at that price.
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I couldn’t agree more! Even as a seasoned techie, gamer, and geek…all the options are mindboggling. I appreciate options, but they’re not very well explained on the packaging, and even if they are, they’re not COMPARED on the packaging…are they? Not to mention, all the extras you need to get yourself going.
Unfortunately, I think Microsoft and Sony have both had their attempts towards bringing new people to video gaming preempted by their goal of wooing the home theater enthusiast market. I think that Microsoft in particular is trying to lean back towards attracting new players as that market is less likely to build a home theater around a console which plays DVDs (now that HD-DVD has folded) compared to the PS3 being one of the best Blu-ray disc players (if you exclude power consumption and a few other features). I have noticed Kinect advertisements playing in a mall food court, lately, which are obviously geared towards casual gaming. Still, even if stores completely stop selling older 360s, and there are only two SKUs, do they have a way to easily inform people that certain games cannot be played without a hard drive?
I’m curious what your thoughts are on which version of the Xbox 360 dashboard you think is/was easier for new players to use. I have hardly used either, but I did have to troubleshoot someone’s wireless connection to their XBox 360 once, and the relevant settings were fairly easy to find under the original blades UI, as I recall.
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