Talking Point: In Your Opinion, What Made The Xbox 360 Era So Incredible?

The 360 had games, a number of them exclusive, which is more than the One or Series X has had. it also let games for the original Xbox disappear a lot quicker, so the games were not held back for too long.

The scale and scope of the games compared to PS2/ original Xbox games. I only got back to gaming in 2017. The likes of Dead Rising and the first Assassin's Creed were amazing. There were so many zombies, people, and buildings. I think both games never made it to the PS3 for some reason.

Primarily that MS seemed to care about creating exclusives in the traditional sense of the word. Not only that, but they seemed more adventurous with IP. There was a Banjo-Kazooie game, Perfect Dark, Kameo and Viva Piñata. While 2 of those weren't that good compared to their predecessors, they were still fun.

Then there was the third parties. Where we got amazing games like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon. It was random exclusives like that that made me decide to stick with Xbox the generation succeeding the 360 (I had a Wii, PS3 and a 360 and ended up with way too big a backlog to manage, so I decided to scale back for my secondary consoles). Also, playing certain third-party games were just more enjoyable on 360 than PS3 for me.
And then X1 being a blunder at launch made me assume MS would double down on exclusives but they kind of didn't...

Long story short, it was a combination of the games and overall experience.

Anyway, tangent aside, that's why I really liked Xbox 360.

So many great exclusives and great games in general we got 4 gears games on that one console it was the peak plus not nearly as much resolution fps crap all the time it was just about the games

As others have said, they had actual exclusives at the time. Real exclusives, but also the sort of timed exclusivity that Sony has managed to great effect as well. They worked with Japanese publishers and developers to get great games on their platform that probably wouldn't have existed otherwise, like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

Games ran best on 360, generally.

They were ambitious with their promotion of unique indies, which weren't as much of a thing back then.

The console was cheaper at the start of the generation.

Just a great console all-around. They felt competitive, bold, and ambitious. and really ate into Sony's market share.

I have no knowledge of the 360

Very simply the games the AAA quality exclusives.
Hit after hit, including new AAA IPs like Gears of war. The halos, the Forza horizons. The third party exclusives like Mass effect etc.
How the mighty Xbox brand had its high, brand recognition and an excited general public, peeked at its second console and will never never never be repeated again.
Xbox is too far gone now and also maybe industry changes mainly forced by Microsoft and Xbox, unfortunately Xbox will never be the same.
I’m still waiting this new generation and apart from Forza Horizon 5 for Xbox actually to produce what I call a true quality AAA game. And they never will, with to many devices and the game focus to wide for their studios now to produce what they used to produce, amazing big quality Xbox console AAA exclusives.

Gaming and games should move forward in every way with each generation so far Xbox has gone backwards. Think about it.
A worse halo game
A worse Forza game
Redfall
Starfield falling short of the mark.
The only game that held its own is Forza Horizon 5. Xbox has taken us backwards not forwards in overall quality game Xbox with their own studios.

I think it was one of the last generation where it felt like development time was long enough to make great games and short enough to ensure there were alot of great games to play on the AAA market. Now days games take too long to make and are expensive to make. Now most of them are filled with ways to make back the money. I just think it's a sign of the industry more than it is my displeasure with xbox. If it wasn't for indie games I think the last two generations would be barren for content alot of the time.

360-PS3-Wii Gen stands out a lot now, because it was the last time you saw a ton of originality in games, and Wii excluded a lot of those 360 & PS3 were a massive graphically jump from PS2/GameCube/Xbox and still look good in 2024. Now half the XBO, Series, PS4, & PS5 libraries are just ports, remasters, & remakes of games from that Generation. It's why more people are interested in Indies & smaller game now.

Good games. Exclusives and multi platform. That’s all a console needs.

It was the ONE generation where Microsoft did a decent job of releasing software on time and in a reasonably good state. It helped that Sony dropped the ball early on, but this was the one truly consistent generation of Xbox.

In true Microsoft fashion they completely obliterated every drop of goodwill they worked so hard for literally at the ANNOUNCEMENT of their follow up system, but that's neither here nor there lol

It wasn't the best generation.

Indie games like Castleminer Warfare or Avatar Miner Paintball. Also games like Xenominer and Mount Your Friends. I miss the cheap indie games. Some were fun.

Xbox live was the driving force of its success. By far the best online experience on a console up to that point and it was the heyday of online shooters.

The game lineup being very strong as well as very varied (both about 1st party and 3rd party). Nowadays you'd never see Microsoft do something like bring back 1 vs. 100.

There was also full backwards compatibility with the original Xbox. Sonic showcased this fantastically as you could play the vast majority of the mainline games all on one system.

In general the focus was all in on the games, nowadays Xbox treats games as nothing more than cannon fodder for Game Pass.

I used a PS3 during the 360 gen. That gen was special for the amount of great games, exclusives and multiplatform. Many of those games where then even better with the next gen versions on the PS4 and Xbone.

Along with great games was the many new features such as HD, dlc, patches, updates, and the multimedia functions. High speed internet and online play became common as the number of games with online play increased. That gen is also when so many of us purchased our first HD flat screen tv.

Overall great games + new features was a good recipe for a gen to be special, and may be why the current gen seems so meh with not much new and and not many great games to date.

Blah blah blah exclusives this exclusives that.

X360 era was amazing because we had good-looking games that didn't take 5+ years to get made and were stuffed with microtransaction crap. Period.

It was exciting great variety of games and no doom and gloom and rumours about it being Xbox’s last console this gen the last two gens have been pretty disappointing

2007: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Modern Warfare, Halo 3, Forza 2, Assassins Creed, Project Gotham 4...

For me, the best year in video game industry.

The red ring of death 😉😉😉

It had an amazing quantity and quality of exclusive first-party releases. It was also the pioneer of “massive appeal” online gaming. It was also during, in my opinion, the golden era of online multiplayer. Pair all of this with competitive pricing and you have the generation of XBOX in my opinion.

The combination of great games, a great digital store, an extremely well integrated community system with XBL and Gamers core and an almost unhinged type of Xbox who pushed for everything they could find to innovate the experience for players. 7th gen stands as the VideoGame peak generation for me. I've yet to see anything come close.

For me it was Rare. I bought an Xbox One to play all of Rare's games via backwards compatibility.

It was the best era in gaming IMHO.

1. Complete game access right out of the box, (besides system updates).
2. No micro transactions.
3. 4 player multiplayer with system link, allowing 8 player local multiplayer with no Internet access required.
4. Accounts could be created without a login online.
5. Saved game content was local, not cloud based.
6. Music overlay using Xbox Music Player while gaming. You can do this now, but it's Spotify instead of local media.
7. I think gold could have been done better, online play is cool, I'm not discounting it at all. I just think that the 360 was made more for friends, family, and THEN strangers.

That generation was probably the pinnacle of gaming as its been diminishing returns ever since and I don't mean xbox by that although they've definitely had the furthest fall

it wasn't great imo, sure a few good exclusive games but way too many low frame games and i personally had 2 red rings of death.

now when the series x launched the future for xbox consoles couldn't look brighter. then the true face of phil and team xbox showed up.

The x360 was original with a wide variety of games that were fun to play. The Wii sold the most consoles but has anyone played the Wii games, most were a near nightmare to actually play. The biggest problems with the X1 was the forced Kinect 2.0 and believing adding a HDMI input for TV would be hugely successful. The ps4 was successful even though it only supports 1 external usb over the 3 the x1 supports and the ps4 can only play DVD in 480p, but blu ray discs are fine. The X1X and X1S have a 4k blu ray player but I doubt many people actually used it.

Great games and no agendas

Everyone else is saying it because it's the obvious answer, the games.
Halo 3, 4, ODST, Reach, CE Anniversary
Gears trilogy and Judgement
Fable 2 and 3
Mass Effect trilogy
Assassin's Creed 1 through Rogue
Crackdown 1 and 2
Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey
Oblivion and Skyrim
Fallout 3 and New Vegas
Bioshock trilogy
Perfect Dark and Banjo 1 and 2 remasters
Final Fantasy 13 trilogy
The Witcher 2
Plus the endless supply of games via XBLA

Not all masterpieces or exclusives, but the 360 and that era alone was filled with so many amazing games and almost all of them were on the 360

The major thing is that Microsoft cared a lot about their own games and about their console gamers during Xbox 360 Era.

I've been a gamer since 92 and the 360 is the only generation where I went to a midnight launch, for Gears 3 in 2011. What an experience that was

The 360, alongside the PS3 and the Wii, was gaming at its best for me. The leap in terms of performance and graphics etc was exceptional, the games in general felt more original, online gaming was beginning to properly find it's feet, DLC wasn't the norm, and even navigating console interfaces felt like a new and fun experience.. all happy memories now!

The key factor that made the 360 such a great system was the technology. Compared to Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft was a pioneer in this department, especially in terms of developing an all-encompassing online infrastructure. From party chat to online multiplayer to a seamless online store, Xbox was at the forefront with its technical offerings. Not to mention achievements, the avatar and so on. All of this, combined with fantastic first-party and third-party games, made it a very compelling system to own.

Achievements giving people a reason to fully complete a game or even buy/play games they usually wouldn't. Games like soul calibur 4, 99 nights, simpsons game were great, would be nice to see them in bc.

It was easy to socialise on the 360.
Chromehounds was a launch game and had such a solid clan/lobby system that was so good. It was affectionately known as Crackhounds for a reason. Maybe it was the age I was, or the time of life, or the point in time of online gaming evolution. But the online social side of it seemed to have hit a peak.

the fact that we all still talk about it 2 generations later.

the xbox360 was an essential part of my adolescent years and was more than a console gen, it was an EXPERIENCE!

hands down MY personal favorite/best console of all time, and objectively the second best console after the PS2. but i have to give it to the wii and ps3 too, 7th generation as a whole was a bold generation that still had that touch of 6th originality and new IPs and ideas.

@LtSarge hell yea. the xbox360 really was a fun console & i loved that about it. it was like a mix of nintendos fun appeal and sonys technical appeal into one that made xbox so special. its just sad how xbox is today, the xbox one really tarnished all the goodwill

I skipped the whole 360/PS3 console gen and was straight PC. But now I get to play the "remasters" of a bunch of games I skipped.

Great exclusives and games, look at GoW when it launched. And games were able to be better are different plataforms nowadays they make deals to every console BE the same.

@OldGamer999 don’t forget a worst gears of war too 4 and 5 should just be on the judgment series

It wasn't for me.
My mum got it as a free gift with her phone contract. Never really used it. But when I did want to use it, it had the red ring of death. So no good memories of it.

@Rodimusprime13 my PS4 has 2 usb slots on the front and 1 in the back.

While it was undoubtedly an amazing generation I do wonder if a lot of people look back with rose tinted glasses due to the time in their life rather than the console and games themselves. Personally for me the 360 generation represents just starting uni, discovering adult freedom while still having very little responsibility, regularly playing online with a group of friends and just having massive amounts of time to devote to gaming. I genuinely believe games nowadays are of a higher quality but nothing will beat that generation for sheer fun…despite 2 red rings of death.

Many games were made by 3rd Party Developers - Gears of War was made by Epic for example and sold the IP to MS after they didn't want to carry on after the Trilogy. Games like Mass Effect, Bioshock, Oblivion etc also helped bolster the 360s 'Exclusives' at the start of the generation, even if by the end, those developers were now releasing games simultaneously on PS3 too and those games stopped being 'exclusive' to Xbox.

That's why by the XB1 era, they had 'few' Studio's of their OWN making games and owning 'few' of their own IP's. They had to create studios to take on Halo (after Bungie left) and Gears (after buying the IP) with Turn 10 making Forza. Rare and Lionhead were 'struggling' too. Hence most of XB1 exclusives made by 1st Party Studios were Halo, Gears or Forza.

That success of the 360 era came because MS was relying on 3rd Party Studios, 3rd Party IP's (inc Call of Duty which became the Juggernaut thanks to MS and their 'Partnership' with Activision). By the XB1 era, those 3rd Party IP's were not 'exclusive' (timed or otherwise) and MS had 'few' studios and IP's of their own. Now of course, they own IP's and Studio's having been building up both in the past 5-6yrs to be 'competitive' with Sony/Nintendo who both own a LOT of IP's.

I loved Xbox live arcade but also (and I know it wasn’t exclusive) one huge highlight and good memories were the guitar games.

Played so many demos on 360 and had fun gaming online with Halo 3 all the time. Also, had a few red ring on me before I got to the one I have now that still works fine.

Starting to get kinda depressed with the articles to do with how great the Xbox 360 era was. Like, Xbox isn’t that bad today is it?

Games, games, games, in two generations Microsoft hasn’t been able to replicate the feeling of getting so many good and some exclusive games on Xbox, those years in which we got Halo 3, Mass Effect, Gears of War and Bioshock have been the best time ever at Xbox.

The controller was great (still one of my all time favorites), the exclusives were awesome (Dead Rising sold me on the console), the various themes/backgrounds you could use on the menus, the music player during games if you wanted your own soundtrack, and having friends to jump online with.

@CutchuSlow Correct but the one in the back doesn't support a standard usb port and only the usb in the front on the right side will support a usb drive. I didn't know about the one in the back or that it wasn't a standard one until I checked.

I remember seeing a commercial for the Xbox 360 and it said Halo 3, Mass Effect and Bioshock, only on the 360. That's what made it so incredible. That was the first time I thought that the Xbox had surpassed the Playstation.

The controller, Xbox LIVE and voice chat!

Apart from excellent exclusive and 3rd-party titles, the Xbox dashboard had customisable avatars which you can change their appearance.
As for 3rd-party titles, they included Max Payne and F.E.A.R. which were top-tear FPSs with unique mechanics and never emulated again for some odd reason.

360 for me was a time of many Japanese games of the OG/360 era being nice. Sure there is AAA third party Japanese publishers on Xbox One but I felt it was better on 360 and not just the AA/brief ones moving to PS3 later either.

To me now it's a collecting/what I missed out on. Back in the day it was the console I played sometimes with family. I don't have those LAN party or other moments. I wasn't that old but I get the appeal for those that did.

I played a few shooters (not as many as I have now collecting the ones I didn't get to on my own), some platformers, some racing sims, co-op campaigns, offline split screen multiplayer. Nowadays it's any genres I can find on older platforms.

Sure I played Halo/Gears/Forza Motorsport, sure Nuts and Bolts or Kameo, sure I did some third parties of JRPGs, shooters, racing or hack n slashes. I've collected or researched more exclusives or particular third parties on 360 moved PS3 over time but still got the 360 version.

I've gotten to like hack n slashes, tactics RPGs, visual novels, rail shooters (more PS4 or Wii there) arcade racers, sci-fi arcade racers, certain adventure games, puzzle games. Some of I've experienced on 360 not really though.

I've played more on 360 now then I did back in the day I think. But I'm collecting now so it would surpass that what games and genres I've expanded to so mostly going to point out bits of then and mostly now.

Indies/third parties going directions I never experienced till I have going back to that era with collecting going ah that's what actually happened. To me it was a continuation of 6th gen fun with some new directions that some I was fine with, some I wasn't that are part of PS4/Xbox One and current gen I still don't care for but they keep pushing for.

I didn't play online/care for online passes. Even then what Wii U/Vita online I tried. They were fine.

I play gameplay focused solo games. I had my split screen multiplayer during PS3/360 for sure with co-op campaigns or the odd multiplayer matches offline. Not anymore. Nowadays it's talking about different games then playing a game together (rarely does that happen playing current co-op games unless it's to help with a section stuck in solo games).

I have bought up many shooters from the 360 understanding their cover based shooting and only caring about their 1 stand out gimmick mechanic each had in their third person design. The stories being ok, level design passable but not exciting. What a formula. XD Some odd ones appear like The Club being Arcadey but modern feeling. It's fair like Blur was of real cars but kart racer. Ah I miss Bizzare Creations.

To me it made sense of Indies to expand but it also showed what IPs worked, what changes were happening and why the IPs they kept are ones I had and still have no interest in at all PS4/Xbox One/PS5/Series eras, it's many others from particular third parties AA/Indies or odd first parties I liked that many got shut down, thanks Sony, thanks Microsoft. Your making it hard for me to want to care about you if you keep shutting down the ones still keeping me close to you and that's why I'm pulling away from you. XD Sigh.

PS4/Xbox One to me is a continuation of PS3/360, adding refinements and I'm the one seeking AA and Indies. Not the third party AAA here.

Even then pulling away from first party of Xbox and PlayStation by their directions. Xbox has variety but they aren't appealing to me in the way Nintendo's varied IPs have and I owned a Wii/DS but didn't care about them that much.

I do my Vita, Wii U, 3DS and Switch but I wanted to buy what I missed out on. I appreciate experiencing them of games or hardware gimmicks which is why I really bought them not just to play and understand Nintendo IPs I never bought but also third parties.

It's always about games for me. 360 had a shed load of good titles that you could not play anywhere else and that's what made it a fantastic platform.

The generation had some great games, but there was also a ton of innovation and experimentation at this time. The 360/PS3 era was a time when there were a lot of "firsts" on console.

True wireless controllers, that could turn the system off and on. Integrated party chat that allowed anyone to talk to anyone else no matter what they were playing. Gamerscore and trophies were introduced in this gen. An integrated, unifying store that you could browse. This generation also introduced digital downloads, disc installs, custom profiles and avatars. It also saw Xbox experiment with several different dashboard styles, some great... some not so great.

We got to play around with the Xbox Vision Cam and Eye Toy, putting photos of ourselves on our driver licenses for Burnout Paradise and mapping our face to our character in Rainbow Six Vegas and NBA 2K.

We got the Kinect and the PS Move.. and while they weren't as successful as we would have liked (it was commercially successful for MS) it was still an experiment in pushing gaming forward.

Xbox Live became much more stable, netcode got more competent and people's internet overall was much better by the time the Xbox 360 rolled around. Games were playable now. I loved the early days of XBL but let's be honest, most of them were a laggy mess.

Social media and digital streaming were really starting to become a thing at this time as well, and while that's not directly related to Xbox or Playstation, it did impact our enjoyment of the generation, as our social reach was beginning to expand and we were communicating in new ways.

No generation will ever be as memorable as that one, because for the most part, technology has gotten faster and better, but innovation has stagnated. We are at a bit of a impasse when it comes to "new" experiences. It will be a case of increasingly diminishing returns until the next big step forward comes about, whether that is VR, AR, or something we haven't even thought of yet.

It's not about just great games. Because there are great games now, too. But they don't or won't have as much impact because they're not "new" experiences.

So congratulations, youngin's. You now understand what nostalgia is and why us old people yearn for the good ol' days.

@Rodimusprime13 do you mean external USB storage? Coz I have a external USB storage on my PS4, it's usually connected to the back, but it works perfectly fine on the 2 at the front too.

The first Xbox I bought was the 360 Arcade.

I bought it to play Saints Row.
I had lots of fun with the madness of Saints Row 2, on PS3. And wanted to play the original game.

I subsequently discovered great Xbox games like Halo.

When the next generation arrived the first console I bought was the Xbox One.

And I also bought a Series X before I got my PS5. But that is possibly because the PS5 was not exactly easy to get hold of at the time.

Even now I still have a handful of 360 games on disc, that I still play.

Dragon Age, Mirrors Edge, Red Dead Redemption

I only replaced the 360 versions of the Mass Effect games once the Legendary Edition arrived.

Even now I think most of their games I own are remakes of older games.

@cardcrusher29

The PS3 is where I played all the AC games. So AC made it. I think you're right with Dead Rising though.

I had a PS3 back then. Never had a 360. It was back when God of War games were cool. The PS3 also got Persona 5. So exclusives I don't I really cared for in the Xbox side.

But talking about gaming in general, it was a really great generation. Amazing games, if you bought your game on disc it actually came on the disc. No installing BS most of the time. Games weren't as mainstream yet so there was still creativity and at least on PS3 I didn't have to pay to play online.

Good times.

Games like Ninja Gaiden 2 and Bayonetta that were games first with top level gameplay.

It was not about production values or mo cap or drama school scripts, it was about making an awesome game and alot of the games from the 360 era still have not been topped from a gameplay perspective.

Just a ton of great games and better performance than the PS3 in third party games until super late in the generation when Sony got their act together. I'm still sad Fable II hasn't been ported to PC.

@Lup You're right AC1 made it to the PS3. It didn't have trophies versus the Xbox version which has achievements. Less than 3% of Xbox AC1 owners managed to kill every Templar. That's a lot of work.

Really good games and great exclusives, Lost oddysey,blue dragon,Fable 2 and 3 , gears,halo and just really good games in general like Two Worlds if only we had that one remastered i would buy it! mass effect was introduce on xbox 360 and change my life forever i finished it 12 times and watched the credit with tears! so great memories on fight night round 3 and oblivion, it was trully a special gen of console if you put aside all its flws red ring of death, a noisy machine! alot of graphic cards defects. For some it must still be their worst console ever own.

Innovation. Tons of original IP's and a lot of creativity being brought to the platform. Not HD remasters, remakes, and sequels.

The online stuff party chat etc was on another level n the dashboard 😎