It’s odd to think of how different the tech world was back in 2005 when the Xbox 360 launched. Cell phones were still primarily phones, a majority of people still owned 4:3 CRT televisions, and there was no guarantee that your home would have broadband internet access. I need not recount the changes that have happened in the ten years since that fateful November 22nd, but it is incredible to think that the Xbox 360 still has a place in the tech world. I fully suspect that in time the system will be considered one of the all time greats, flaws and all, and I give credit to Microsoft for embracing the concept of “good enough” to allow the 360 to succeed.

I actually never purchased the Xbox 360 at launch, which in retrospect seems a bit weird. I was, and still am, a huge fan of the original Xbox. I had owned all three previous generation systems (the Gamecube, Playstation 2, and Xbox), and the hulking black box got the most use by a significant margin. The raw power of the console made multiplatform games look better and load faster, and the system’s exclusives gave me my first real taste of Western developed PC games. It all felt very well thought out and presented a clear and bright picture of where the games industry was headed. But compared to the definitive vision of the Xbox, the 360 at launch seemed unfocused about what it wanted to do. Microsoft clearly wanted to beat Sony to market and at a competitive price point, and the two versions of the Xbox 360 at launch prioritized those two goals above all else. The optional hard drive felt like a step back from the possibilities offered by the Xbox’s mandatory storage. The lack of wi-fi seemed silly since the cheap Nintendo DS included it. Even the jet-liner noise of the system and cheap plasticky design showed Microsoft making weird cost saving decisions at the expense of having the console feel truly next-gen. In many ways the launch mirrored that of the ill-fated Dreamcast, a system that existed in the looming shadow of a high powered new Playstation and as such only felt like a tentative half step rather than a full next-gen leap. However, unlike the mismanagement at Sega tanking a beloved (if flawed) console, Microsoft understood that the Xbox 360 was more than the sum of its parts and used that understanding to engineer one of the most shocking upsets in the history of video games.

Despite the cheap feeling of the 360’s design, the console was a true monster at its core. Launch titles such as Call of Duty 2 and Project Gotham Racing 3 looked as good as games running on PCs that cost 4 times more than the $300-400 launch price. Combined with the increasing number of high definition displays in people’s homes, the sharp and beautiful visuals of the Xbox 360 more than made up for the constant wheezing of the system. Furthermore, the system had a wonderfully designed system interface, a revamped Xbox Live that acted as a social network, and one of the greatest controllers ever made. It was clear that Microsoft focused its resources entirely on making the user experience as pleasant and annoyance free as possible. Not only that, but the system was designed to also be developer friendly, thereby ensuring that multi-platform development started on the 360 and then moved over to the notoriously difficult Playstation 3. This focus on player and developer experience was key to the 360’s success and helped it weather the biggest crisis of its life.

You can’t really talk about the Xbox 360 without making some mention of the Red Ring of Death. Who would have thought that a cheap looking console would also be cheaply built and failure prone! For any other console in any other era, the near 100% failure rate would have been a death sentence in the market place. But no other console had the near endless coffers of Microsoft, which promptly repaired and returned any 360 afflicted with the Red Ring free of charge. This alone would not have saved the system, but with the only other high definition option being the outrageously priced Playstation 3, most game players simply shrugged and moved on. I myself purchased an Xbox 360 in late 2006 knowing full well of its unreliability and proceeded to have two separate Red Rings, but even today I consider the hassle to have been worth it just to play the impressive library of games.

When it comes to the Xbox 360’s lifespan, I categorize them into two eras; the “dominance” era and the “complementary” era. The “dominance” era, which lasted from roughly 2005 to 2009, was categorized by an abundance of exclusives. It was during this time that Microsoft Game Studios was at its height and put out incredible titles like Halo 3, Forza Motorsport 3, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and Crackdown. The ease of designing for the system made it so that the 360 had timed exclusives such as Mass Effect, Bioshock, and TES IV: Oblivion simply because game makers needed more time to make these games work on the Playstation 3. When the games did come out on Sony’s platform it often looked and played noticeably worse than on the 360, effectively neutralizing the argument that Sony had processing power on its side. By 2009 however, the PS3 began to find its footing and the 360 would lose the marketplace dominance it once had.

The Xbox 360’s “complimentary” era, which started in 2009 until ending relatively recently, was a more low-key era than the previous one. Extraordinary games were still coming out for the console, such as Assassin’s Creed II and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but the big difference was that those games were also coming out day and date on the PS3 and PC, and looked either the same or better than on the 360. It became clear that Microsoft no longer wanted to use risky first party exclusives to sell the system and limited their output to safe franchises like Halo and Gears of War. Instead, players were enticed to choose the Xbox 360 for mundane reasons such as timed DLC. But unlike in previous eras where switching consoles was relatively painless, the social hooks of Xbox Live kept many players firmly in Microsoft’s camp. Why abandon your 360 when all your friends are there and you have that shiny gamerscore to show off? It’s not like you were missing much on the other systems, and if you only owned a 360 you were pretty much equipped to play any and all games that “mattered”, be they AAA boxed games or the increasingly experimental and interesting downloadable games of the Xbox Live Arcade. Furthermore, the introduction of apps such as Youtube and Netflix made the Xbox 360 a fantastic option for users to stream content to their TVs. I, like many game enthusiasts, did eventually purchase a PS3 to play that system’s exclusives and even used Steam from time to time, but through it all, the center of my gaming world continued to be the Xbox 360.

It’s still strange to me that the 360 is now considered an old system. Even with the Xbox One out on the market for two years now, the 360 remains a viable modern game console. Just this year we have seen 360 versions of new titles such as Metal Gear Solid V and Rise of the Tomb Raider. The most shocking part of all this is that these ostensibly next-gen titles look and play just fine on 10 year old hardware. Sure you aren’t getting the highest resolution or best framerate as you would on a current console or PC, but the games still look quite good on their own. Compare these games against those launch titles of 2005 and you would be right in wondering if it is even the same system running them.

I have since moved on from the Xbox 360 and am now using my Playstation 4 and PC for most of my gaming. I do however keep the 360 hooked up as it’s still a great streaming box and has a deep library that keeps growing. I suspect that it will stick around for a few more years before properly being retired, but in the meantime I’ll take any excuse to take the wheezing old thing for another spin. Thanks to my PC, the 360’s controller still gets used almost every day, even if the system itself does not. Who would have thought that a rushed console, launched with what seemed to be glue and duct tape holding it together, would prove to be so vital ten years later? The Xbox 360 was and always will be a jack of all trades and master of none, but it is precisely that characteristic that has kept it in the gaming zeitgeist for so long. So here’s to you Xbox 360. You were “good enough”, and sometimes that’s good enough.