You Ask For A Wii...

[TwoHeadedBoy]

It's been Xmas! Hope ye all had a good one, happy new year as well.

So yeah, my mum was expecting to just walk into the shop and pick up a Wii for me and a pink DS for my sister. Didn't happen of course, and I now have an XBox (the big beastie one, not the 360).
I was a tad bemused at first, but then I started thinking:

Outrun 2!
Soul Calibur 2!
Burnout 3!
Sonic Heroes!

And then that was enough thinking. My buddy tells me that he'll mod it up for me (free of charge, due to him being a buddy), and stick loads of games on the hard drive, some emulators too. Anyone had any previous experience with this sort of thing? Such as how many games'll fit on the hard drive, and how many good games are there besides those mentioned above? Baring in mind I'm not into the whole Medal of Honour/Tom Clancey scene. How about the emulation thing too? Any good? I'd imagine, with THAT hardware. It's just I've played Sonic Mega Collection on PS2, and the sound on it was TERRIBLE whenever he got any rings. Especially then.

This kinda thing could probably've been answered in Google or something, or even by just asking my buddy, but it's a good excuse to say Happy New Year to you all, so two birds and all that etc.

 

[Samba Pa Ti]

its good if you get a bigger hard drive installed, can play most emulators off dvd's and most of the games run great (mega drive/neo geo/snes/n64) not to mention it will play divx/xvid onto your tv (with xbmc installed)

 

[GeminiDomino]

That's proof that your mom doesn't love you.

Just kidding... It's funny, I've been trying to find a DS Lite to replace my original (I couldn't use it waiting in line for my Wii because of the lousy screen) and I can't find one, but I've seen a dozen PS3s.

 

[Ravnos]

Modded Xboxen are great. I've got a 160GB drive in mine and I've got 39 official games on it, ports of Doom, Quake 1/2, Duke3D, Exult, Noiz2sa, rRootage, and OpenTTD, plus a bunch of emulators and ROMs. There's even room left for me to ftp over DivX files to watch on my TV.

If you're going to mod it, I'd recommend using the XBMC as your dashboard. It's probably the most feature-filled of the bunch and it basically turns the XBox into the hub of your living room.

Emulation on it is great. Pretty much everything up to PSX (excluding Saturn, obviously) runs at or near full-speed with sound. N64 is good too, though a little sketchy.

There are a lot of good games for it too, especially if you're into FPSes. I would recommend:
Half-Life 2
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (1 and 2)
Far Cry Instincts (and Evolution)
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Lego Star Wars games
X-Men Legends (1 and 2)
Shenmue II
and, of course, Halo 1 and 2

 

[shinneri]

And Jet Set Radio Future! That's one of the (very) few reasons I miss having an XBox. Shenmue II, Panzer Dragoon Orta, House of the Dead 3... Sega gave that console a lot of greats even if nobody else did. :rolleyes:

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I hear you can use an XBox as a media device, is that true? i.e. a huge HDD with vids MP3s controled with a Remote. Has anyone done this, if so, if I bought one how would I mod it and what would I need????

 

[slaanesh]

I hear you can use an XBox as a media device, is that true? i.e. a huge HDD with vids MP3s controled with a Remote. Has anyone done this, if so, if I bought one how would I mod it and what would I need????

Apart from playing Half Life 2 and having a very decent version of MAME, this is pretty much all I use my XBOX for. You need to get it modded and slap in a HD. The guy that modded it for me just used a burned CD and a copy of James Bond 007.

It's an EXCELLENT media player, really, as good as you are going to get for SD TV. The software is very mature and does everything you want. Highly recommened!

 

[Shikaku]

I hear you can use an XBox as a media device, is that true? i.e. a huge HDD with vids MP3s controled with a Remote. Has anyone done this, if so, if I bought one how would I mod it and what would I need????

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index...._Formats/Codecs

It plays just about anything you can throw at it. It's almost as if it can play anything your computer can play. The only exceptions are any HD media: too slow.

Another interesting feature is you can adjust how it displays on your TV: there's no need to worry about overscan because you can make a box that fits exactly your TV to display (you'll see what I mean when you get it).

All you need is the XBOX DVD remote (official accessory) if you want a remote.

I had one working myself but the modchip died. I even had DVD-RWs for it, it kicked total ass. Next time I get money I'll repair it.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I hear you can use an XBox as a media device, is that true? i.e. a huge HDD with vids MP3s controled with a Remote. Has anyone done this, if so, if I bought one how would I mod it and what would I need????

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index...._Formats/Codecs

It plays just about anything you can throw at it. It's almost as if it can play anything your computer can play. The only exceptions are any HD media: too slow.

Another interesting feature is you can adjust how it displays on your TV: there's no need to worry about overscan because you can make a box that fits exactly your TV to display (you'll see what I mean when you get it).

All you need is the XBOX DVD remote (official accessory) if you want a remote.

I had one working myself but the modchip died. I even had DVD-RWs for it, it kicked total ass. Next time I get money I'll repair it.

Wow kewl, thanks for that, I am really interested in getting one now. One Q: How noisy is the XBox compared to a PC? Obviously for a media device it would be nice if it was a little quiet! I have modded my PS2 to be almost silent with a better fan, can this be done to the XBox or is it pretty quiet to begin with?

Added: My PC is silent.

 

[Shikaku]

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.....2Freplacements

Note: requires force.

The XBOX might be too loud for your tastes... I don't know, because I don't really care about PC/Console noise.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.....2Freplacements

Note: requires force.

The XBOX might be too loud for your tastes... I don't know, because I don't really care about PC/Console noise.

Ah ok, maybe not then, my PS2 and my PC are virtually silent. The point of a media system would be to play media, not to introduce more background noise into my living space

 

[Shikaku]

It's quieter than an XBOX360 that's for sure...

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Okay I wonder what it is in this thread that is keeping the browser in load-state?

Transfering data from www.google-analytics.com...

 

[Javacat]

I got an XBox a few weeks ago and ripped it apart as soon as I got home to softmod it Softmodding is really easy to do and is completely free (even Sam Fisher has done it ). I followed this tutorial.

I've got a 300GB drive in it now and have got XBMC installed as the dash. You wouldn't believe how much fun you can have hacking away at the software and hardware of a noisy black box. It's like a desktop version of the GP2X .


BTW, You should check out Forza Motorsport when you've got it all up and running.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I got an XBox a few weeks ago and ripped it apart as soon as I got home to softmod it Softmodding is really easy to do and is completely free (even Sam Fisher has done it ). I followed this tutorial.

I've got a 300GB drive in it now and have got XBMC installed as the dash. You wouldn't believe how much fun you can have hacking away at the software and hardware of a noisy black box. It's like a desktop version of the GP2X .


BTW, You should check out Forza Motorsport when you've got it all up and running.

The thing is babes, it's all rather null and void now as the XBox is rather noisey

 

[Orkie]

It isn't that noisy - it is quieter than most PCs, and I've never heard it at all once something is actually playing, even if the volume isn't particularly high.

 

[Nova]

Yeah, if you're gonna be using it for media playing, then the point is going to be moot, as unless you're listening at a very low volume, you're not gonna hear it.

 

[declaration]

I can hear mine when playing DVDs but not really when watching .avi files.

Its not that noisy but it still manages to piss me off. Try putting it under your floorboards or something.

 

[Samba Pa Ti]

if you have XBMC installed you can turn the fan speed down to 10% (cant hear it then) its possible to replace the fans with silent ones as well (i replaced the graphics chip fan in mine for a silent one (version 1.0/1.1 xboxes have graphics fans))

 

[Ganepark32]

An xbox360 is noiser than an xbox. I can hear my 360 downstairs in my kitchen. And the 360 is in my room about 10/15 metres away if u were to walk it.