My Xbox 360 RRoD'ed on me twice.

It also had its disc drive die THE DAY I got Skyrim on release after waiting in line for it.

I spent the next several hours learning how to flash the firmware of a broken RRoD'ed Xbox 360 so that I could replace my drive with its parts.

It was simultaneously the best and worst console I ever owned:

Best because I have a lot of fond memories playing Halo 3 multiplayer, Skyrim, etc. with my friends in my college apartment we all shared.

Worst because it was an unreliable piece of shit.

They offered the HDD as optional if you paid for the “pro” package. The HDMI was a bummer but being honest I needed to buy a special adapter to use on my TV because I didn’t even have component out ! So slightly understandable at the time.

It wasn’t a well built system none of that generation was. I went through three Xbox 360s. I bought my fourth 2 years ago !

Lot of fond memories though

Mine was also the 360, but simply because of when I got it. I was a young teen when it originally came out, and I begged my parents for one. They were concerned that my kid brother (several years younger than me) would inevitably end up playing the games I had for it. The 360 was marketed more as a mature console, compared to the family friendly Wii. So I had to wait until my brother was old enough to play games like COD and Halo.

This meant that by the time I finally got the 360, the XBO was nearing release. And the 360’s multiplayer heyday had largely passed by that point, as everyone had largely moved on from games like Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, etc… So matchmaking lobbies for all of the games I wanted to experience were basically only full of the diehard fans who had absolutely no sympathy for new/learning players. It meant I ended up using it primarily as a single player console. I enjoyed lots of single-player games like Final Fantasy 13/13-2, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect Trilogy, Dark Souls, etc… But that’s pretty much all I used it for. I’d chat with friends while I played if they were online, but it quickly became clear that my friends were moving on from the console.

All of the big multiplayer experiences for the 360 were largely lost on me, because none of my friends were interested in playing those old games by that point. And multiplayer is unfortunately a large part of what the console was designed for. I think the only multiplayer game that really held our attention was Destiny, and even that turned out to be a pretty big disappointment after a while. We only really kept playing it as an excuse to hang out in voice chat.

I was also largely moving towards PC gaming by that point. I had already experimented with installing games like Oblivion and Skyrim on my (really shitty) laptop, and got them running at potato quality. I saw the potential, and shifted towards PC gaming after getting the 360. I saved up my money from my first job, and built my first PC a year or two after getting the 360. So I only really kept the 360 around for the exclusives that weren’t on PC.

Nowadays, I just emulate the 360 exclusives for single player. Currently working my way through Lost Odyssey, because I never actually got around to finishing it on the 360. I think because I built my PC before I beat the game.