Published in Ciao
Okay, I am an old lady well not quite but I am a middle-aged woman and at the time I was growing up with had board games like monopoly and risk, I am not familiar with these new video games. When the game Pacman came out, I couldn’t even get out of the first level. I kept dieing. Well after about 10 minutes I announced to my son that I am not ever going to play those crazy games again. Just give me Scrabble online and I will be fine.
The video machines are way beyond my very weak technical understanding, and though they may say that the eye and hand co-ordination would be good for me to help prevent Alzheimer’s from setting in, I think it is too late, I am a goner.
Names of things fly by me and I don’t know one from the other, Wii, blackberry, or Xbox what the heck does it all mean? Okay I know what a Nintendo was because my son had one, and I know what a playstation is because he has one now, but the Xbox or Xbox 360 is something I have not even seen.
Apparently the Xbox is gaming device which is already sixth generation (I don’t remember the first 5 generations of gaming machines). It is made by Microsoft and was intended to compete with Sony’s Playstation 2 and the Nintendo Game Cube. I asked my son if it was as good or better he told me it depended on the games and the version, so that certainly clears things up – not!
The Xbox came out because Microsoft was afraid that the gaming industry would leave the P.C’s behind. What – they never asked me, I had my computer since 1992 and I still have one. My son has playstation 2 and his computer, he finds need for both devices and just about every kid I know has both.
Microsoft wanted to increase its sales and of course stay in the market so it priced its Xbox right in the middle of the Nintendo and Playstation counterparts. Guess what, by 2005, Microsoft reported a 4 billion dollar loss. Now I am not an accountant I leave that up to my boyfriend, but I am scratching my head here, increase in sales = a 4 billion dollar loss? Am I missing something here?
Microsoft ceased production of the Xbox in 2005 and brought out the Xbox360. So the Xbox is older than the Xbox 360 but how come there wasn’t 359 Xboxes before this new version, I just don’t get it!
Anyhow this advanced model allows for online gaming, and can play movies and do pretty much what a P. C. does. It has a hard drive, and competes with the playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. According to Microsoft they sold 22 million units. There are 4 different models: The Arcade, Pro, Premium, and the Elite. My son tells me there was a 33% failure rate in those systems when they first came out, which equates to one out of every three units that had to be returned. That sure the heck doesn’t convince me to buy a unit. Many of the earlier models have been discontinued and replaced with Xbox newer models, the most expensive is the Elite of course and in 2007 the priced was $499.99 while the playstation 2 was $700.00.
Apparently the Xbox is compatible with a bunch of stuff, like MP3, Apple iPod without Apple iPod touch and phone, and zune. Don’t come back and ask me what this all means it is all Greek to me, oops I mean geek not Greek, geek as in Computer Geek.
However, I do understand that the Xbox has three different size hard drives and three different size memory cards (that is easy it is the same as a computer so I can relate) webcam accessories, exercize functionality and ma bunch of other goodies.
Well that is it I did it I just explained something I know nothing about, maybe there is hope for me yet.
