Xbox's 25th anniversary is here, and it's been a wild ride with plenty of ups and downs, to say the least.
To celebrate such a momentous occasion, I'm looking back on how I was introduced to the Xbox ecosystem, what convinced me to stick with it above all the other consoles, and how it shaped my most fond gaming memories.
My first meeting with Xbox
My first memories of the Xbox ecosystem were during the early 2000s, when my brother came home with his friends to play some strange new sci-fi shooter called Halo on the original Xbox.
We all had a blast playing through the single campaign in co-op (despite my brother constantly getting us killed with his grenade obsession and bad Warthog driving skills) and even spent some time in the PvP modes fighting in the iconic 'Blood Gulch' map.
Admittedly, as a kid, I didn't play much of the OG Xbox's catalog, like Halo 1 and 2, as I was more obsessed with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube at the time.
Sadly, that meant I missed out on classics like Psychonauts, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire when they were brand new, and I wouldn't get to play them until decades later.
I certainly can't say the same for the Xbox 360 when it came out in the mid-2000s, as I was obsessed with it as a teen.
Hooked by the Xbox 360
While I was still enjoying the amazing games on the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, I found myself spending more time with the Xbox 360 and its library of iconic games like Gears of War, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and BioShock, and underrated gems like Kameo: Elements of Power and Lost Odyssey, just to name a few.
I got to the point where I played multi-platform games like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Saints Row series, and Devil May Cry 4 only on Xbox 360, as I enjoyed its controls more for 3D games than any other home console.
And, in case anyone's wondering, my Xbox 360 managed to escape the infamous "Red Ring of Death", but I remember having technical issues of my own to deal with, mostly of my own making.
I somehow jumbled several Microsoft accounts together due to my inexperience with email addresses as a teen, and it took my brother several months to fix. I owed him big time for that and repaid his service by doing the "Scan the Keeper" quest in Mass Effect for him whenever he played (which has sadly become a family tradition I'll never escape from).
Thriving on the Xbox One
When the 2010s rolled around, there came a huge turning point in my gaming career. I was starting to become bored of how stale Nintendo games had become and was tired of dealing with motion-control gimmicks.
Plus, I was sick of having to deal with Sony's poor cybersecurity, as it was getting hacked every few months, forcing me to constantly change my account details on my PlayStation consoles.
As a result, I found myself playing console games exclusively on the Xbox One despite its disastrous launch, which mandated always-online requirements while being forced to be bundled with the Kinect, which Microsoft quickly backpedaled on.
While I didn't play the Xbox One as much as I did the Xbox 360 due to me getting into PC gaming during the mid-2010s, the Xbox One era held some of my fondest gaming memories and triumphs.
The Xbox One era held some of my fondest gaming memories and triumphs.
The Xbox One brought back one of the few fighting games I ever liked, Killer Instinct, with an amazing reboot that lasted for several years. It had amazing AAA titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Devil May Cry V, and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and cool indie retro throwbacks like Cuphead.
However, all of those memories paled in comparison to when I was introduced to one of my favorite games of all time on the Xbox One (even though it's not an Xbox exclusive), Monster Hunter: World.
With over 2,000 hours on my Xbox save file, I have never before (or since) been so maddeningly obsessed with a single game as I was with Monster Hunter World on the Xbox One. The in-depth combat system, the vibrant, interactable world laden with secrets, the cool and challenging monsters, the endless amount of gear to grind for — it was amazing.
Even dealing with Monster Hunter World's cumbersome multiplayer matchmaking system and story-locking was worth suffering through, as hunting giant monsters the size of buildings with my friends was some of the most fun I ever had, and no other multiplayer game has topped it since for me.
A shaky modern era and the unknown future
And that brings us to the current Xbox Series X|S era, and it's been a mixed bag, to say the least. While it's brought us some amazing games like Elden Ring, Lies of P, Psychonauts 2, and Baldur's Gate 3, this era has brought about some depressing situations that made me almost consider quitting Xbox altogether.
The controversial Xbox 'reset' that has laid off hundreds of people, Microsoft banning people's hacked accounts instead of trying to recover them, the rising cost of everything due to the RAM crisis, and the horrifying realization that if something were to go wrong with Xbox Live, both digital and physical discs wouldn't work.
Yet despite this bleak era we're currently in, I'm not giving up. If Xbox was able to survive the global credit crisis of 2007 and the COVID-19 pandemic that lasted for several years, then I believe it will weather this cyber apocalypse as well.
So long as my friends keep playing Xbox games, I will stay the course so we can make more precious memories together as we ponder what the Xbox Series X|S's successor, Project Helix, will be like.
Happy anniversary, Xbox, and here's to another 25 years of gaming!
Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.