The Honeymoon is Over

Remember when the Xbox 360 first came out? Remember how excited you were about the cool new interface? It looked so next-generation with all those panels whizzing around. I believe there were even a few people who said, “I can’t believe this is a Microsoft product it’s soo good”.

Two years (and several replacements) later, the honeymoon is over. We’ve gotten used to one another and even taught each other a few new tricks. The 360 can play videos streamed from my computers, music, has an HD-DVD drive sitting on the floor beside it. But wait, the drive isn’t even plugged in. The noises that come out of the 360 even when it’s working well are at the least annoying, at worst alarming. Sometimes these noises signal a “disc unreadable” error that’ll require a reboot. Each time that happens I half expect the machine to not boot. And then there’s the hard-drive making those clicking noises usually followed by a crash. It’s getting old.

And that interface? Man is that thing tired. Every time I turn on my Xbox it’s like a kick in the nuts. Those goddamned sliding interface panels annoy the hell out of me every time I see them. I want to go back to the dashboard. Click the big X. A panel slides out (delaying me by a couple of seconds). I press the Y button. The panel slides back, another panel slides out from the other side asking me if I’m sure because it’ll unload whatever awesome game of Halo I’m playing. (another 2-4 seconds) I click “OK”, the panel slides away and then the dashboard comes up. Total elapsed time? Somewhere around 10s.

Every operation is like this. Chat with a friend. Pick some music. Eject a disc. Most operations come with helpful “Are you sure?” panels. This is without a doubt, my most frustrated and frequent complaint about this device. Oh, and the noises.