You have to spare a sympathetic thought for Microsoft at the moment. Wait! Don't leave an enraged comment just yet and hear me out. Microsoft screwed up in a big way with the Xbox One, running quite possible the worst console marketing campaign in history and showing a brutal disregard for gamers in their pitch. But they've adapted and they've listened, making an unprecedented number of post-launch changes to their existing ethos that suggest they're really trying to make amends; backwards compatibility, streaming between Windows and Xbox, and bolstered support for indie games among other things. Yet unforgiving gamers that we are, we're just having none of it. So in a twisted-logic way of diverting the spotlight away from Microsoft's current console woes, here's a look at all the other calamities and catastrophes that Microsoft has imparted on their console over the years, dating all the way back to the launch of the original Xbox back in 2001. It's worth saying that Microsoft wouldn't be worthy of having its many flaws highlighted if it wasn't a giant of the video game industry. To think that the same guys who were best known for the dry functionality of Windows made one of the most successful series of consoles in the world is pretty spectacular... ... but let's save the kowtowing for another day. Fails are, by their very nature, way more fun than successes (isn't humanity wonderful?), so here are the biggest ones suffered by all outings of the Xbox consoles.
11. Original Xbox Controller
Awww, look at that. For the original Xbox, Microsoft designed the first ever console to accommodate the hands of people suffering from gigantism. Good thing regular-handed gamers will get smaller controllers though, right? Right, Microsoft? Nope, the original Xbox controllers were monstrosities that looked like a pair of stumpy legs with a swollen sagging gut hanging down between them. It looked a bit like the Dreamcast controller, but just... wrong. The only thing that could've redeemed it would've been if that useless oversized Xbox logo in the middle was actually a giant button that you could smash with your fist when it glowed green to launch a nuke on the game world, no matter what you were playing; the slavery and injustices of the Morrowind world getting you down? Just nuke the damn place. Getting destroyed in a game of Halo? Blow it all up. It's not like Microsoft was entirely unaware of how cumbersome their original console controller was, as they released the 'S' controller (similar to the X360 controller) in Japan upon release. Did they carry out some kind of anthropometric study to find that Japanese people had particularly small hands? Not that it mattered anyway, because no one in Japan bought an Xbox, while western gamers had to do rigorous hand Yoga each time they played Halo.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
