5% – 15% Off Select TVs. Valid 1/25-12/31
Guys play games. It’s a fact. Don’t try to counter it, dispute it, or deny it. Guys play games like women shop for shoes: obsessively, and with a language all our own.
Every guy at some point plays Xbox 360, Playstation 3, or the PC (currently). Most guys don’t play Wii. But don’t discount the Wii; it’s a powerful tool, and when used properly, can bring you more happiness than you thought possible. And no, I don’t mean like that! Get your mind outta your pants.
The Xbox is this generation’s undisputed King of Consoles. Sure, the Wii has sold more total, and the Playstation 3 has Blu-Ray. But due to the sheer numbers of gamers actively using the console, the number of AAA games, and the amount of time spent playing the console on average, the Xbox 360 is the King.
So, without further delay, here are the Top 7 Reasons YOU Need an Xbox 360 Right Now!
1. HD Content
a. I Know the PS3 Has Blu-Ray right out of the box, and a lot of fanbois are going to bash this article for that. This is not an article bashing the PS3 or the Wii. Simply, the Xbox 360 has the ability to play games in HD (which the Wii can’t) and it has the HD DVD Drive add on, and the widest library of HD titles easily available through its partnership with Netflix. Now, I know HD DVD is a dead format now, but that is actually an advantage. The HD DVD drive, which used to cost over $129, can now be had for as little as $39, and high quality, 1080p movies are going for as little as $5 at major retailers (Fry’s). On top of that, many movies in the HD DVD format are actually superior to their Blu-Ray counterparts. While it is true that Blu-Ray holds more content, the HD DVD program structure lent itself to more interactive disks, and in many cases, the movies had a superior picture. Want proof? Google reviews for “300” on HD DVD and look at the reviews comparing it to Blu-Ray. In addition to this, Blu-Ray players, are (for the most part) not upgradeable. Early BD players shipped with firmware 1.0 cannot upgrade to the current 1.3 software, and so cannot take advantage of the newer picture quality, menu settings, etc.
b. The real HD Advantage that Xbox has is Microsoft’s agreement with Netflix. As we all know, Netflix has shipped over 1,000,000,000 movies worldwide already. Did you know they currently have over 100,000 titles on DVD and over 12,000 available for instant download via the Xbox 360? I know that 12,000 seems like a small number compared to the 100,000 but if you remember when the iPhone launched, only a small fraction of Youtube’s videos were viewable. Now, virtually every video in Youtube’s library is available on the iPhone. Netflix is working hard to convert their entire library into downloadable virtual formats, and the Xbox 360 is the only console poised to take advantage of this.
Come back tomorrow, when I post Reason 2, of 7 Reasons You Need an Xbox 360.
Ok, Day 2 of the Top 7 Reasons You Need an Xbox 360. I think this Reason is probably the biggest Reason YOU Need an Xbox 360 Right Now!
2. Exclusive Games
a. Only 2 words are needed 2 adequately cover this topic: Halo. Franchise. The Halo franchise is probably the best known game franchise outside of Mario. In fact, the Halo trilogy is single handidly responsible for carrying the 1st Xbox, and bringing the Xbox division out of red ink in 2007. The Halo trilogy obviously covers 3 games, but beyond that, the games have spawned numerous books, a possible movie deal, and recently, Halo Wars (a real-time strategy) and a spin-off game called Halo 3: Recon. The Halo franchise also holds records for the total number of games played online, the total number of hours logged, the fastest selling launch day, the highest number of pre-sells, and a number of other cool statistics. Halo 2 sold $125 million worth of copies in the first 24 hours of its launch. Blockbuster summer movies only dream of making that much back over the entire summer. Halo 3 crushed this figure with $170,000,000 in sales its first night, and over $300 million its first week. Of the 7 million subscribers on Xbox Live, 5.5 million of them have played Halo 2, as of September 2007. Think about those numbers for a minute. You can clearly see why Halo is the leading franchise of this game generation, and last.
b. Gears of War. Gears of War is the other huge juggernaut in Microsoft’s arsenal. This dual-game series has set numerous records of its own for number of concurrent Xbox Live subscribers playing a game, and sold over 2 million copies the first day. And it accomplished all of this within the backdrop of the Election of 2008. This is important, because probably the only things more talked about than Gears, were Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. Their media appearances, campaign ads, and the liberal media’s biased news stories about Sarah’s wardrobe were pretty much on every channel on TV. So, Gears’ sales figures reached ¾ of Halo 3’s, and all in all it was pretty impressive. Beyond just impressive sales figures though, the games is absolutely amazing. The graphics are the best in the business, just short of “real”. There are times when I literally could not believe what I was looking at on my TV was not completely scripted actors. The way the characters move, from the ducks and rolls behind cover, to the rounds of spent ammunition cases bouncing off of the ground. The red tip of the gun barrel glowing from the heat of running hundreds of rounds through it, a slight smoke ring drifting into the air, was one of the highlights for me. The shadow work is spot on. The scenes inside a creepy “abandoned” building in the middle of a lightning and “razor hail” storm, are some of the most amazing, creepy ones you will ever come across. There is lightning every so often, lighting up all of your surroundings in a brilliant white glow, and the sound of thunder is deafening. I recommend a really good sound system when you play this game, and nothing less than a 32” HDTV. Preferably something larger, Plasma or LCD 1080p, to really see all of the effects, like the way the light gleams off of metal pieces on Marcus Phoenix’s armor, but is duller against cloth. This game is amazing.
Day 3 is here. Today is tax day, so I expect fewer people will show up, but who knows. Wanna take a break from taxes? Disagree with my list? Post a comment and let me know.
3. The Number of Quality Games.
The Xbox 360 has the highest number of quality games in its library right now, thanks to a large, loyal fan base, an easy development system based off of Windows XP, and Microsoft’s aggressive attempts to snap up exclusive licenses, extra content, and buy out the exclusivity of other franchises (see Metal Gear Solid series). The Xbox 360 has the highest number of AAA titles (AAA is defined as receiving a rating of 90% or better by Metacritic) this generation (http://tinyurl.com/cwfqa6). That’s pretty much the bulk of this argument. If you are looking for the console that will definitely give you the most fun for your money, than the 360 is it. In addition to having the highest number of AAA games, when we remove the cross platform ones like Call of Duty, or Rainbow 6, the Xbox 360 has the most exclusives. So, in simple Enhlish, the Xbox has the highest number of top quality games, and if there’s a particular one on your list, it will more likely be on the 360 than the Wii or PS3.