Talking Point: What Are Your Fondest Memories Of The Original Xbox?

Leaving tech to go and play a Japanese import console at the local game store.

Chronicles of Riddick!

That was excitement when xbox first came out i stood on line at bestbuys but it was too long so i went to Toys-R-Us no line and picked one up in a few mins still have fond memories of those days !

I got mine when they launched the smaller controller and played Halo for hours on end with friends. I loved the OG. Well built too, mine never broke or failed in any way.

No original Xbox, I had the Gamecube, but the Xbox One with Rare Replay. It was the greatest thing and I was no longer a kid.

I think I bought mine from a Gamestop and the guys there were laughing at me asking why I didn't just get a PS2.

Loved the original, played a ton of Halo, Burnout Revenge online and GTA Vice City. Everything looked so much better on the Xbox than on the PS2. Wish I still had it.

I loved the original Xbox halo 1&2 the wrestling games were great aswell and it was head and shoulders more advanced and powerful than all the other consoles of that generation which was a great generation I played on all of them only owned an Xbox and PS2 would love if they did a mini digital version of the Xbox with a load of games built in it would be amazing!

@GeeEssEff
Heck yeah. I didn't own an original Xbox until summer 2004 but Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay was the game that made me go out and get one. I had an off day from work, bought the system and game and spent pretty much all day playing it. Of course, I also caught up on some gems that I missed like Dead or Alive 3 and Ninja Gaiden. And also had to buy Halo. That was a good summer.

Back then, I had to travel to Istanbul in order to buy one. It was well worth for the trouble. My friends thrilled with Halo: Combat Evolved, Jade Empire, Halo 2, Cold Fear, Ninja Gaiden Black, Forza Motorsport, Conker Live Reloaded, Burnout 3 Takedown, Dead or Alive, Far Cry Instincts and many others...
I still keeping my Xbox in my room along with the game disks... I'll never give it away...

I have a few: 1. Going to Times Square right around the midnight launch(I didn't get one THERE, but I got one in the morning); 2. Seeing and playing Halo the first time; 3. Bringing it, and the games I bought that first day, with me to Springfield, MO, to see my best friend; 4. Coming back to Springfield the following year and seeing how much the Xbox community had grown; and so much more...

I am probably one of the few people that still has one setup in and use.

I think my earliest memory of the XBOX was going to a friends house and seeing "the duke". I remember asking why it was so huge and deciding that I would never be getting one of those.

Of course, I bought one anyway. Luckily, the controller s also came not too long after and made playing the xbox a lot more fun.

The games I remember the most on the XBOX were probably not the big name games that most people associate with it.

I loved the Buffy the Vampire Slayer games, especially the first one.

I remember getting the GTA double-pack and being blown away at how much better those games worked that on the PS2. You could even rip CDs to the hard drive and use your own music in-game.

I absolutely loved the much maligned Oddworld, Munch's Oddysee

I also played Beyond Good and Evil, Robotech Battlecry and the PoP, Sands of Time on the XBOX.

That being said, my favorite games on the platform were KOTOR and KOTOR II. I played those games so many times.

The Halo 2 midnight launch for the OG Xbox. November 9, 2004 I believe. It looked like we were all sleeping out for concert tickets (like people used to do). The line was all the way around the Gamestop building and they had vendors, music. It is probably my best Xbox memory. I remember thinking "it doesn't get much bigger than this." Everyone was sharing their gamertag with everyone else so we could all send friend requests and play some Halo 2 multiplayer. Now, all my Xbox friends see to be ok playing by themselves with almost all of them showing "offline" status. Lol.

Rallisport, running the hill climb maps

I had a GameCube at the time as well. I do remember going around a friend’s house and seeing Halo 1. The size of the levels and the scorpion tank were something else.

Fable is definitely my favourite game to come from the OG era, which I think only comes second to the 360. But honestly my fondest memory of playing the original Xbox was playing it in Curry's on a demo stand whilst my mum looked about. It was a time when you could go the high street and discover something in-person as opposed to always reading about stuff on the internet these days!

I remember playing Halo coop at a friend's house and being on the edge, then we played RAW and that got it on the old Christmas list.

It sat next to our gamecube for multiplayer.

16 player Halo LAN where we recruited sisters to make up the extra players. Played overnight, got drunk, and learned how to blast the Warthog across the map using sticky bombs. The physics were amazing.

Second best was playing Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball with my brother and trying to convince his girlfriend (who was not impressed) that we only bought it for the amazing the gameplay.

I wasn't old enough to know what an xbox was back then. But I knew about PlayStation and Nintendo, coz that's what I had.

I remember getting a used one from Gamestop back in the day and then going to BestBuy to pick up copies of Halo and KotOR. I couldn't afford a new Xbox out of the box but I was damned if I wasn't going to experience that glorious scent of a freshly opened game and a virgin manual.

Waking up on Christmas morning aged 10 and going from Tomb Raider 3 to Blinx: Time Sweeper thinking it was insane graphically.

I never owned one but my cousin had one. We would play in the van, hotel rooms and tents. Crimson skies and halo were the game I remember. I had a PlayStation 1 and GameCube.

JSRF! The game everyone traded in.

The last Christmas gift I received from my grandparents was the original Xbox. I loved that system so much. I brought it with me to my two deployments to Iraq and still have it to this day. I have been an avid Microsoft supporter ever since I first fired up that console.

Playing Burnout 3: takedown with my friends. Loved the original Xbox, it was my first console.

Driving over to Sears on launch day and buying it, while being forced into a bundle with some very mediocre games - I want to say Mad Dash Racing and a Nascar game. Nothing was going to stop me and my buddy from playing Halo on launch day.

Tons of great games like KOTOR and Halo but my favorite game on the system that's outside the usual suspects is Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders. Extremely fun RTS action game hybrid that had a tremendous sense of scale. Japanese take on European fantasy, set to some blasty rock music. I always think of it when I think of the OG Xbox.

All that said, most of my time during that era was spent playing Everquest.

Mostly great memories of the original Xbox. So many unique gems, Japanese exclusives and fresh gameplay ideas during this time it was hard not to find something to like. The original controller was an abomination, and the type S wasn’t much better, but it hardly mattered when a good chunk of third party stuff looked and ran considerably better than on the competition. I was fortunate enough to have all 3 consoles of the era (minus the Dreamcast which I sadly never owned), so I had access to Nintendo’s S-tier first party stuff, PS2’s S-tier exclusives and Xbox’s S-tier third party ports. Great times, back before it all went downhill.

Games that I remember playing were the obvious Halo along with KOTOR, Otogi and Burnout 3. The latter I remember getting for Xmas and playing all morning and getting told off when I went down for Xmas dinner still in my pyjamas as the game kept me too busy to even get dressed.

Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Jade Empire, Ralisport Challenge 1&2 and I'll never forget the day Xbox Live launched. It's my favorite console.

Halo 2 easy ! I got it for my bday fall season the vibes were perfect

Some of my fondest memories of the Original Xbox are: all the insane fun of Halo 1's multiplayer, both of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer games, and having fun playing Sudeki and Dynasty Warriors 3! I never got to buy a lot of games for OG Xbox, but I loved playing the games I did have for it. and have been buying some of my old favorites from that era on my Series S.

I just read every single comment on here. What happened to Xbox? Seeing all your memories and mine. I could see and feel what it felt like again back then. Then the 360 was so great. Xbox one and Series consoles just got so turned around from what they were doing and just how great Xbox was. I mean it still is in many ways, but man those OG and 360 days were special. Some of my favorite memories in all of gaming and i started on Super Nes.

I had a GameCube but I bought my mate’s Xbox plus games off him for £50 - he was raising funds for a 360. I traded most of the games in for GTA San Andreas (I can remember looking enviously at the PS2 owners queuing for it in Game while I looked at the sparse selection of ‘Cube games!) and played it and played it and played it…

I was a ps2 guy but my friend had an Xbox. Remember enjoying a few games on it such as wwe games, some shooter set in World of Darkness and couple others. Didn't get on Xbox till 2008 when I got promoted to a GM in my trade, picked up a 360 eith my first enhanced wages!

During that generation I had both a PS2 and Gamecube. I honestly associated Microsoft with PCs, so wasn’t interested in an Xbox. Plus the price was too high. When I graduated and moved into my own flat I befriended another guy in the block, who had the ultimate Xbox set up: the top of the line flat screen tv (this was in 2004, so it was a real unit!) and 7.2(!) surround sound. We played through the first few levels of Halo, driving around in the Warthog. I still remember just standing still and looking up as the Halo itself stretched onto the heavens. It didn’t make me want an Xbox (I didn’t get involved until 2012 with the 360) but it is a very distinct memory. Before that I knew the family PC could do similar graphics, but now it was possible from a device connected to the TV…

Halo Combat Evolved, The Chronicles Of Riddick & the original Splinter Cell,

AAAHHHHH, the good old times!

too little to have one of my own so i was stuck with a gamecube , because xbox was for “big kids” .

@Gamecuber speaking of gamecube!

@HonestHick the online experience xbox360 brought to consoles is absolutely unmatched. i adore the 360 so much and it’ll always be a staple of better times in gaming..and the world!

greatest console of all time

@nomither6 i couldn’t agree more buddy. I too have the 360 as my greatest of all time. Me and my friends were all in different parts of the country at that age. We used Xbox live to play games together on the weekends and it was just different and special. Gears of War just became gears and beers weekends with the friends. I loved the console and can’t believe the follow up to that was TV TV TV. It just don’t make sense.

@HonestHick hell yeah , those weekend nights on gears 2 running the campaign on insane with some friends for achievements & playing horde when we were frustrated with multiplayer 😂 man it was so fun . no beers though , at least not on my end , hahaha.

& i agree about the tv crap with the xbox one . i have no idea what the hell it had to do with the console or gaming . why would they try and market a hardcore game console as a cable box??

@nomither6 no clue my friend. That was just a dumb move when they had Sony on the ropes. They were that close to keeping all those 360 fans and at the least only being outsold in Japan and a few European markets. But we are talking they gave HUGE chunks of players back to Sony with the Xbox One. We would have better competition in the industry right now if they would have released a great follow up to the 360. They gave away all the hard work 360 did from them, i just can’t believe it in many ways. Now with the Series consoles they are just a bag of mixed words and confusing us all the time. I still don’t know what their plans are for the series consoles and we are 4 years in.

My fondest memory is that I was only 23 with my whole life ahead of me, before the world crushed my spirits and left me the broken husk of a human being I am today.

Crimson Skies, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Burnout Revenge, Darkwatch, Ninja Gaiden, etc. I could go on forever.

Just compare games like that, to the boring crap we have today...

Be able to put every cd on your HDD and playing your music of choice in a game is feature that I miss today.

Loved the Brothers In Arms series, PGR Series, RalliSport Challenge Series, Half Life 2, Max Payne Series, Prince of Persia Series, Splinter Cell Series, ... and so many other good games.

The Xbox Live experience, for example, with playing many, many Top Spin matches with some Scots from across the channel was a blast.

IIRC there also was a "get 2 games for free" for early adopters because they lowered the price soon after launch.

As the era of the original Xbox was at a time when I was still living at home but was working full time, I had a ton of disposable income so I bought waaaay too many Xbox games. However, I spent most of my time with that console online playing Project Gotham Racing 2, Rainbow Six 3 and Midtown Madness 3 with a mate and a load of friends we made online, back when people actually used voice chat and weren't complete tossers. I would kill for another Midtown Madness game; the online modes were probably the most fun I've ever had with a game.

@evan23 Do you have yours connected to an OLED or monitor & if so, how do you connect it? I've just rescued mine out of storage & would love to boot it up as I have loads of games that aren't on the backwards compat list, but I have no idea how to connect it.

@XxHyperspudxX I am using component cables connected to a scaler. That then converts to hdmi which goes to my OLED TV.

If this is only for the xbox, you could also use one of the HDMI adapters made for the OG XBOX. I think the Kaiko one is one of the better ones still being made.

Still a great console and one I still collect for and play. Modern Xbox has lost their way.

Crashing after leaving the Pillar of Autumn, I looked up and realized I was on a actual Halo. The Final Run section in Halo was pretty cool too. Great times.

I never had one, but a friend of mine did and yeah, they were good times. Project Gotham Racing was played a lot.
My first xbox was the 360, i bloody loved it.