Microsoft Unveils New 'Heritage Collection' Of Xbox 360 Merch

I’d purchase a hoodie a year just to keep the storefront open and some servers up. Not all, like a rotating server every few weeks swap out an online goodie to play.

Maybe they should focus on Velocity Architecture features they promised for the Xbox Series X. Shiny controllers and nostalgic gear isn't cutting it.

Everything but the games

@iplaygamesnstuff yea let’s get those t-shirt designers to write some low level memory streaming assembly code!!!

If they did a scale model with a lamp in the light that switches between green and red I'm there.

Love the 350 Hoodie!

A trip back to when Xbox the 360 era, simply put, was the best. Just look at them now.
And to me after many years are no better off or thought of or gained anything at all to this day
Since the glory 360 days ended.

But I’m so glad and lucky to have been there back in the day of the xbox360.
The youngsters think what do us older ones moan about Xbox today, but they weren’t there to see and feel what the 360 era, like were at that time, truly amazing.

@Tharsman Lets cut them, so we can pay the developers more perhaps. Instead of giving us what they promised, they gave us t-shirts for decades old console.

Very overpriced for a t-shirt

A lot of happy Nostalgia with these designs. The 360 era was certainly MS's high point, but so many 'exclusives' were not made by or 'owned' by MS which I think was part of the reason the XB1 struggled.

Epic made Gears for example and when they decided they didn't want to make more, MS bought the IP and created a Studio to make it, Bungie too left MS during this era and MS formed 343 to take over that - having acquired 'Halo' as 'Bungie' bought their independance with that (and ODST/Reach games too). Mass Effect, ES: Oblivion, BioShock etc were all 'Xbox' Exclusives when they launched too and MS also had Call of Duty Marketing when that grew into the behemoth it bacame.

As the generation progressed, those '3rd Party' Games ended up releasing on PS3 and the sequels had no exclusivity so Xbox exclusives dried up - with 'few' Studios (Turn 10, 343, Rare and the Coalition) basically all they had to make games for their 'new' XB1. Their screw-up with the XB1 also seemed to push 3rd Party devs away from wanting to release 'exclusives' that 'few' would play compared to PS4 or multi-platform.

So as good as the 360 was, looking back now, I can see why it succeeded and why long term, MS would struggle more if they made a 'mistake'. You can argue that Sony made a 'mistake' with the Launch PS3, but they had the Studios to make great 'exclusives' that helped them through that difficult time. MS were busy paying third party publishers for exclusivity but never owned the IP's or creative talent...

Not sure how old you are, @OldGamer999, but I'll be 60 in December, so I wholeheartedly agree with you. Youngsters today don't know they're born! 😂

I was there at the start of gaming when as 9 year old in 1973 I was sent 200 miles away to my Aunt's house for the Summer holiday's. My Dad had died when I was 6 weeks old, and so my Mum was unable to work and look after me during that period, and so each and every Summer holiday was spent with my Cousins. However, in 1973, upon my annual visit, I instantly fell in love with gaming when I experienced it for the very first time in the form of Pong. Of course, my Cousins absolutely thrashed me at it because they'd been playing it for months, and I'd never even heard of gaming. They also introduced me to stereo and Pink Floyd's The Wall, but that is a whole other story. However, to just imagine that when I was growing up, we had mono sound, none of this highfaluting surround sound stuff we have these days. 🤣

Anyway, so, anyone who looks at the most basic of games now, should look at what I played as a child. Everything these days is a massive evolution on games from the early era, but certain times were fun to live through, the 360 era being one of them. Fun times indeed...

@iplaygamesnstuff they do focus on Velocity architecture. It’s the 3rd parties that don’t use it well. Xbox in house games appear to be tapping into the power of the X, while it’s easier to just put together the best PS5 efforts of the game and make sure the Xbox one works. Thats the advantage of being the market leader. But i see no reason MS in house won’t and isn’t using the full box’s specs.

Xbox 360!!!! My favorite console of all time and i could make the case is one of the most important consoles of all time. It changed the game in many many ways. Had it not had the RROD, we are looking at one of the best consoles ever. I am not fanboying or none of that, i am talking from an industry perspective. Long live the 360! I miss those days.

@HonestHick Show me one game that uses Direct Input and other Velocity Architecture features.

@iplaygamesnstuff Direct input has yet to be used i agree and i want that to become more industry standard for PC and Xbox. But technically Velocity A, is quick resume and the SSD. So every game takes advantage of it. Flight simulator also really takes advantage of Xbox’s full box. Other than that we are waiting to see what Fable and others do. We are just now at a point where Xbox is done with cross gen, that should open the door for their first party in house titles to maximize the box, cause the 3rd parties likely won’t sadly.

@HonestHick Direct Input is the pivotal point for real Next Gen gaming. It's what offloads the processing of the GPU and CPU to do more because the SSD is handling the physical assets. This console is 3 years old now and as you have confirmed there are zero titles utilizing it.

Quick resume is broken in most games, mostly first party games. Starfield's load times are horrible.

@iplaygamesnstuff i use quick resume on Diablo 4 and it works great but i have had some games not use the feature well. Sounds like you aren’t happy with Xbox, you should jump to PC, you can control the usage of your machine a little more there. We are 3 years in which is really 2 years since Covid wrecked a year of proper development across the industry. As the leak showed some games were suppose to already be here that are coming later now. Plus i agree about Direct storage, it’s a big deal if used correctly and we will have to see if upcoming games will use it or not. However back to the question, you said nothing is using Velocity and i said the SSD, cause it’s a good example of how a SSD in the Xbox which is 50% slower than the one in the PS5 has near equal load times and in some games even better. That is done from velocity. There’s no other way to look at it, given it is again half the speed of the SSD found in the PS5. I find that really amazing, but again i agree we need to see the box more completely used. I believe these next set of in-house games launching will start to do that from leaving the last gen behind.

I do game on PC as well. We're still in last gen in my opinion. Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be the pinnacle of the last generation. I'm excited to see some games run in Unreal Engine 5 though.

@iplaygamesnstuff

Lets cut them, so we can pay the developers more perhaps. Instead of giving us what they promised, they gave us t-shirts for decades old console.

good idea! They can hire a programer to work 5 hours a week for the cost of a T-shirt designer salary.

Would be good to make sure such part-timer does not attempt to use DirectInput to access the data in the hard drive instead of controller input data, though. If he is going to work just 5 hours a week will take them forever to figure out they were supposed to learn DirectStorage APIs instead.

@Tharsman because the T-shirts are the only thing they are wasting our time with...

@iplaygamesnstuff i want to build a PC some day actually and game there. Just seems like I would enjoy it. Yes i agree we are still largely in the last gen at least for 2023. 2024 for Xbox should start to see everything on Series Consoles. We got Forza and SF on Series only, so thats a start. But i do agree we need to see more titles pushing not only the series consoles but the PS5 as well.

@OldGamer999
One of the best time periods for gaming, no doubt. The 360 is one of my top 5 favorite consoles all-time.

@Gamer83
Definitely my best Xbox experience for sure and the best for that generation of consoles overall
Until towards the end of its life.
And fortunately it will never return to that again for Xbox, they just not got that nowadays.
The Xbox360 era of Redfall, Starfield and Forza was up there with the best and what the others had to offer at the time and in that generation. Not just bad to pretty good but some mistakes.

the white Hoodie is ok, but these just seem to be "logo on a plain shirt" that is the kind of thing you see on Red Bubble or something. I prefer it when there's original designs and prints.

@Stnkygrngo Not like Microsoft is hurting for money to keep it up. Lol

@HonestHick I'm not being sarcastic, but how how did it change the industry? To be honest, I feel like this was the generation where Xbox and PlayStation started to become samey. Aside from first party games, exclusives started to become more rare. Games, previously locked to one platform, were showing up on multiple. Graphics were comparable for both systems too. The differences could only be seen in the controllers and UI.

@Lanmanna I’m really glad you asked to be honest. So thank you for giving me the time to say what many industry insiders have shared before. The Xbox 360 brought in many new idea’s that not only did the PS3 come around to using but for SURE the PS4 did. The PS4 took the 360 game plan and ran without better than even MS did. This might be a long read so stick with me friend. Here is a list of things 360 did.

1. Achievements
2. Paid secure server on Xbox Live
3. Free monthly games
4 Xbox Arcade for indies
5. A non proprietary chip
6. Cross game chat
7. Brought games from PC to console
8. Name changes

Now i will go over some of these but before hand it is important to know Sony PS1-PS3 was using proprietary in house chips that in the PS3 gen really hurt them compared to the PC build of the 360. This lead to the PS4 being more like the 360 than the PS3. I can’t count how many times Sony fan’s were asking and thinking they were getting cross game chat for PS3 only to get it on the PS4. 360 gave a place for indies to really be seen and heard. No one did that first nor better than 360. Achievements as we know was hugely popular so much so Sony knew it had to counter or lose more 3rd party game sales. PSN was free but lacking, sure people complain to pay to play online, but it was again the Xbox and 360 that lead the way for Sony to see the benefits to themselves and the players. Last but not least the 360 made Sony compete and redo a lot of what they were and wasn’t doing. The Xbox one and OG Xbox didn’t change Sony’s plans at all. It changed the industry cause it changed the way PS and Xbox players were playing and asking for features and competition. If you feel like the only differences were controller and Ui i hope some of this helped you remember it was the PS on it’s heels following what Xbox was doing in that time span. Also you can make the case the PS5 is following GP a little. This is why competition is good, both brands make each other better. But the Xbox 360 made not only the PS3 better but made the PS4 what it became.

They’d look better and be worth the price more if there was some actual design rather than only logos. Xbox Live shirt looks classic but costs too much.