Equip: Xbox

It happens all the time. I am entertaining a guest in my bohemian writer’s lair, and they glance over to the entertainment corner. The eye slides approvingly over the television, DVD, VCR and PlayStation2, a dance of clean, understated lines and twinkling silver Sony badges. Then they notice something else. “What the hell is that?” they cry, pointing distressedly at a bulging black behemoth, its brutal curves suggestive of something that is about to explode in a cartoon. Ah, I explain apologetically, I’m afraid that is an Xbox. It’s one of those new-fangled videogame console things; it’s made by Microsoft. “And that?” they continue, pointing at a similar obscenity standing on its side next to the stand, now with a note of trembling fear in their voice. Ah yes, that is a *green* Xbox. That’s for playing unfinished games, I add, lamely, knowing it is hardly any excuse for such an aesthetic abomination. I feel almost as though I have been caught by UN weapons inspectors trying to construct a weapon of mass destruction, or at least as though I have made an interior-decoration faux pas that no reader of Wallpaper* could ever forgive.

But that’s the Xbox for you. It’s big and it’s hideous. It’s easily the worst-designed piece of consumer electronics I have allowed into my home. Even my PC, a custom aluminium-case job, is sexier. And it still enrages me every time I plug the thing in that it defaults to a system clock-setting screen. Irrational defenders of the Xbox’s shocking inability to remember the time recommend leaving it permanently plugged in, but a) I already have a Spaghetti Junction of four and six-way adapters coming out of the walls and there still isn’t space to leave everything plugged in, and b) it’s bad for the environment, mmkay?

And shall we talk about the controllers? The original controllers, that is: I didn’t mind the size, since I have big hands, but I was truly astonished by their risibly illogical and impossible-to-internalise face-button layout. The eventual global release of the originally Japan-only Controller S was an effective admission on Microsoft’s part that they had simply got this wrong in the first place.

But then along came Halo. When I first read Edge’s famously reticent review of Halo, I was a bit sceptical, like many readers. Not, of course, that I immediately defaulted to drooling rabid paranoid-conspiracy mode, but I did wonder to myself: can it really be that good? The Doubting Thomas was soon converted. Twenty minutes’ play sufficed to persuade me that it was very good indeed, and three hours’ that it was one of the best games ever made. And the importance of Bungie’s masterpiece to Microsoft’s young progeny can hardly be overstated. Effectively, this one game transformed the Xbox from ungainly Gates vanity project with teething troubles and a wary potential audience into a serious digital-entertainment platform.

So here we are, a couple of years on, and, apart from regular reviewing duties, the mighty Halo is still the disc that spends the most time in my Xbox. It is still the console’s one undeniable crown jewel that should cause any potential PlayStation2 purchaser to consider at least for a moment the alternative. When it became apparent that the Xbox hadn’t a hope of mounting a serious challenge to PS2’s runaway global commercial domination, it seems, various exclusive titles quietly became time-limited exclusives, so that very interesting games like Splinter Cell are no longer USPs for the Microsoft console.

But the advantage of the Xbox’s technical muscle becomes apparent when comparing multiformat releases. It is usually the case that the Xbox version is the most rock-solid in terms of visual detail and framerate. Ergonomically the PlayStation2 may still have an edge, with its two extra shoulder buttons, for releases such as Conflict: Desert Storm II, but for most mainstream videogames that have not been built from day one around Sony’s eccentric architecture, it is the PS2 that comes second in terms of sensory experience.

It is the Japanese connection that, given that market’s widely reported mistrust of the Xbox at its birth, is the most surprising, and presumably the most satisfying for Microsoft. Somehow this hunk of anti-designed extruded plastic, that we were told few Japanese consumers could physically fit into their two-tatami-mat studio apartments even if they wanted to, has become the natural home for hardcore Japanese brilliance: Steel Batallion, Panzer Dragoon Orta and their eye-popping ilk. The straightforward, PC-like architecture of the Xbox, it seems, doesn’t need to be stroked, cajoled and seduced into performing like that of the PS2. It just gets on with the job. And naturally, that is attractive to designers who just want to get on with their art.

And what of the console’s foray into the brave new world of massmarket online play? To be honest, it’s too early to tell. Xbox L!ve (and yes, I detest having to type that exclamation mark, but there you are, that’s Microsoft’s corporate “Hey! We’re really rad!” groovy-dad-talk for you) had rather a subdued launch here, and the numbers are still low, but it has nevertheless got on with providing a relatively transparent and efficient gateway to the social playground. The decision to provide voice-chat as standard was a brilliant one, and games such as Ghost Recon: Island Thunder provide arguably the most instantly and easily enjoyable online experience available on any hardware. But Sony is hanging in there too with SOCOM and its ilk, and one has the feeling that at the moment these two services merely represent corporate wargaming, dress rehearsals for the real battle for online domination that will take place in the next generation.

It’s the next generation, indeed, that will really tell whether Microsoft has what it takes. Rumours of Xbox 2 becoming more of an all-round home-entertainment box, playing movies, recording television and suchlike, are oddly similar to the rumours of PlayStation3’s multimedia capabilities, and Sony’s track record as a producer of desirable living-room hardware, as well as its ownership of a film studio and record label, will surely give it an edge in any such head-to-head fight.

But for the moment, fresh from another four-way Halo bout, I must doff my cap to Microsoft for having belied the sceptics and firmly staked out a credible presence in the market. I still think my Xbox is ugly as all hell, but I must confess I have grown to love it just a little bit.

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