Why isn't there much nostalgia for the Original Xbox?

[Casual Shinji]

OG Xbox just never created an image for itself through its games or marketing. The Gamecube wasn't exactly popular either, but it had an image, a way of making the public get a feel for its brand. All the OG Xbox had was the colour green and that Halo was on it.

 

[Chimpzy]

Woof, they're gonna be selling that at a loss then. Like a big one.

Maybe, maybe not. Nvidia is rather known for charging premium prices and Microsoft is obviously not going to be paying $700+ per XSX chip. Bulk discounts alone will make a big difference, and no doubt there are other cost reducing factors in play.

Also, the XSX is getting AMD RDNA2 7nm, not Nvidia, so a better comparison would be to likewise AMD GPU's which unfortunately aren't on the market yet. Tho looking at the technical specs for the XSX chip, it is in roughly the same ballpark as the 2080 Super, a little above in some aspects, and could theoretically offer similar or better performance. Key word here being theoretically.

 

[Gordon_4]

Maybe, maybe not. Nvidia is rather known for charging premium prices and Microsoft is obviously not going to be paying $700+ per XSX chip. Bulk discounts alone will make a big difference, and no doubt there are other cost reducing factors in play.

Also, the XSX is getting AMD RDNA2 7nm, not Nvidia, so a better comparison would be to likewise AMD GPU's which unfortunately aren't on the market yet. Tho looking at the technical specs for the XSX chip, it is in roughly the same ballpark as the 2080 Super, a little above in some aspects, and could theoretically offer similar or better performance. Key word here being theoretically.

Are they just putting the GPU chip onto the motherboard? I mean I've opened up a PS3 once to extract a game disc and well, its not like they had a graphics card as I would know them. I just assumed its all put into the motherboard, memory and all.

 

[Kyrian007]

Durability was an issue as well. A friend and I split the cost and bought one. We played through halo on it, we both played through MGS2 on it. Then my friend bought KOTOR, got a little ways into it... and it bricked. So it was only good for 2 and 1/3 games before breaking down. A valuable lesson in only buying quality products. PS2's were far more durable (I still have a working one, although I've worn out a couple.) And my original Gamecube and Dreamcast still work. Basically, I only think of the original Xbox (and the Xbox 360 as well) as those badly made pieces of junk that wound up as expensive paperweights after a couple of months.

 

[Chimpzy]

Are they just putting the GPU chip onto the motherboard? I mean I've opened up a PS3 once to extract a game disc and well, its not like they had a graphics card as I would know them. I just assumed its all put into the motherboard, memory and all.

The chip in the new Sony and Microsoft consoles, as well as the existing consoles and Zen 2 CPUs for PC, uses what AMD calls an APU, Accelerated Processing Unit, basically a CPU and GPU on a single die. Kind of like a CPU with integrated graphics, except the GPU part of an APU is a fair bit beefier than what is normally considered integrated graphics (tho generally not as powerful as an actual discrete GPU). Tho in the case of the PS5 and XSX APU, they've been given specs that match those of discrete GPUs, or even slightly exceed all but the highest end in the case of the XSX APU. Tho actual performance depends on a lot more than just technical specs. For example, heat management has always been a major factor in consoles and while both seem to have taken steps to remedy this, I suspect it'll still play a role.

Durability was an issue as well. A friend and I split the cost and bought one. We played through halo on it, we both played through MGS2 on it. Then my friend bought KOTOR, got a little ways into it... and it bricked. So it was only good for 2 and 1/3 games before breaking down. A valuable lesson in only buying quality products. PS2's were far more durable (I still have a working one, although I've worn out a couple.) And my original Gamecube and Dreamcast still work. Basically, I only think of the original Xbox (and the Xbox 360 as well) as those badly made pieces of junk that wound up as expensive paperweights after a couple of months.

Iirc, that had to do with the Capacitor Plague. Basically, tons of capacitors produced during the early 2000's were faulty, resulting in a lot of computer hardware bricking. This affected all the consoles to some degree, but the original Xbox got the worst of it. Didn't help that MS cheaped out either. In most cases, it was actually a single specific capacitor (the one that kept the internal clock going) that broke, spilling corrosive fluid all over the motherboard. A late hardware revisions fixed this problem, but I would advise anyone with an OG Xbox to open it up for a check and remove/replace it if there. It will go bust eventually, taking the rest of the console with it. There's step-by-guides for the process online.

 

[BrawlMan]

Durability was an issue as well. A friend and I split the cost and bought one. We played through halo on it, we both played through MGS2 on it. Then my friend bought KOTOR, got a little ways into it... and it bricked. So it was only good for 2 and 1/3 games before breaking down. A valuable lesson in only buying quality products. PS2's were far more durable (I still have a working one, although I've worn out a couple.) And my original Gamecube and Dreamcast still work. Basically, I only think of the original Xbox (and the Xbox 360 as well) as those badly made pieces of junk that wound up as expensive paperweights after a couple of months.

The PS2's were known breaking down or bricking. Mainly the original fat PS2 models did this. Our PS2 bricked in 2004, and we basically had to wait a month in a half, just before the slim version launched. The slim model lasted way longer than the original. My brother and I both have our own slims and they still work. He kept the slim from 2004, and I have my refurbished model from 2011.

 

[Yoshi]

 

[CriticalGaming]

The XboxX GPU equivalent is supposedly the GeForce RTX 2080 Super, which the lowest price on Newegg for one of those is $710.

I dont believe that for a second unless that console is gonna cost $1200 at launch. They always like to brag about how powerful their consoles are and the PC equivalents and they never actually are. They say that to make it sound impressive to people who don't know any better. I know they tend to sell consoles at a loss but the rest of the system would have to be trash to make selling it with that kind of GPU in it viable.

And that besides, you can have an insane GPU, but without the CPU and the RAM to make use of it you are still under performing a PC. Unless that ugly rectangle has some other serious hardware in it as well as a serious price tag.