Me playing Baldur's Gate
Ever since I was a kid there was a console that was always on my mind, one that was as achievable as Unobtainium.
Here in Brazil, after the 90's and the Nintendo-SEGA console war (Which SEGA won here), the Playstation 2 took off as the most popular console. I guess it was that popularity and huge install base which lead to Microsoft never officially releasing its first console here.
But now all these years later, I finally have it:
The OG Xbox
I was browsing through Facebook marketplace as one does, and I found someone selling one of these for R$1000 ($183), I managed to haggle the price down to R$700 ($128) due to bad DVD drive (it only opens when it wants to, likely needs lubrication) and so I went to his home to pick up my new baby. I had a nice chat with the seller, turns out he moved all the way from Manaus to the town next to mine due to a transfer at his work.
Crazy to think this console traveled 3000kms before getting on my hands
Said he planned to only keep his Series X and sell all other consoles he owned.
Cool guy, cool story and cool collection.
The thing is, these things often go for R$1500 ($275) here, so I got really lucky even if the DVD drive is kinda borked;
But that's not a huge issue, this console has been hard modded with an Aladdin chip and a CERBIOS firmware which allows for hard drives of up to 16TB (holy moly). It came with a 1TB hard drive on a IDE to SATA adapter filled with games. Most of the games it came with didn't interest me much, lots of shovelware for some reason, but connecting it to my router and using FTP to move new games over after repacking them to CCI is easy enough.
After updating XBMC4GAMERS, which is the recommended dashboard for playing games, I downloaded all the DLCs and updates for the games I installed and now I have a collection of around 100 games and a ton of emulators (I might make another post just for the emulation and homebrew capabilities of this thing).
And yes, that update screen looks a lot like a modern Xbox update screen, I thought that was kind of funny hahaha.
XBMC4GAMERS works surprisingly well, it even downloads cover art for you, has a bunch of neat scripts and lets you download the DLC, updates, homebrew, and more straight from your console.
Of course I must talk about the controllers. It came with 3, all of them Powerpads from... generic ass manufacturer.
They're not actually that terrible, unfortunately one of them has slight stick drift on the left analog stick.
But the one I'm using is nigh on perfect, with the only issue being the buttons that are a bit hard to register. I've tried cleaning the contacts but that didn't do much, still hard to press.
My little brother's hand in comparison, it's a huge controller
So, what have I been playing?
I've been playing lots of games, but the highlights are:
Burnout 3, Phantasy Star Online I and II, Forza Motorsport, Sega GT 2002, Castlevania, DoA 2 and 3, Soul Calibur II, Star Wars K.O.T.O.R (Thanks Andrew for the recommendation) and one interesting title: Halo 2.
Why's Halo 2 interesting?
Because I've been playing it online!
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of me doing so right now, but I'll explain how that's done.
Me registering my "Xbox Live" account
There is a service for the OG Xbox called Insignia, which essentially brings back the OG Xbox Live which was officially shut down by Microsoft in 2008, but with Insignia, a great number of titles are still playable to this day.
Here you can check the games people are playing, the list of available games and even register your Xbox.
If you're gonna go through with this, I highly recommend going ahead and softmodding your Xbox already, it's totally worth it, gives the thing a new lease on life.
What about capacitors?
As some of you may know, the OG Xbox has a serious issue with capacitors leaking and wrecking the console. From what I've been told, this console had a partial recap done in Manaus. The clock battery was changed (not removed, as this is a 1.6 console) and some other capacitors that were bulging were also swapped for new ones.
But the fact that there are still some original capacitors in there makes me a little worried.
I might recap it eventually, I work with IT, I know some basic soldering, it should be enough. But for now? Everything's working fine and nothing in there is bulging, so I think I'm fine for a while longer.
Overall,
I'm in love with this console. Sure, lots of its games are on PC or PS2 (which is real easy to emulate), but having the original experience has no equals. I'm surprised by everything: How modding makes it an incredible deal, how many good games it has, the visual quality compared to PS2 (most games run at 480p and some even at 720p or 1080i), and the incredibly ergonomic controller (I'm serious).
Unfortunately I know many of the readers here are from LATAM and it's really hard to find these boyos around here (with some exceptions like Mexico).
But if you live somewhere where they're common or you find one for cheap, definitely give it a shot. It's such a cool console.
Thanks for reading!