LogFAQs > #976982175

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'd argue that this should say "worst controller", but honestly, even in its generation the Dreamcast existed, and it was coming on the heels of the N64, so even I can't say that.

It was still a terrible controller though.

No way the Gamecube's controller falls behind the original Xbox controller, pre-revamp. That thing was big enough to beat bears to death with.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Never underestimate the power of Halo.

Not only was it one of the best-selling games of that generation period, it had a huge percentage of the overall install base of the console. The sales numbers alone are something like 1 out of every 3 people who owned an Xbox were going to own Halo (though that might be deceptive - throw in people buying replacement consoles and the correlation probably goes up). Halo 2 comes even closer to being like 1 copy for every 2 Xbox owners.

Your numbers are off - Halo 1 sold about one copy for every five Xboxes and Halo 2 sold 1 copy for every three Xboxes (and for the latter figure, I wasn't able to determine if that was including sales of the PC version).

That's not really a mark in the console's favour, though. Like... Halo *made* the Xbox, to the point where if Halo hadn't existed, I think it's unlikely the Xbox would have made half of its eventual sales (yes, Halo's sales numbers were below that mark, but Halo was the reason why people gave the Xbox a shake and that built interest via market penetration). I'm not sure I've ever seen a console that was so reliant on a single franchise to move units. The next best-selling game on the Xbox after the Halo games was Sneak King, a joke game given away by Burger King with their value meals, and the dropoff from Halo to the next games on the list is steep; no game on the Xbox sold even half of what Halo 2 did, and, disregarding Sneak King, only one managed to meet that mark for Halo 1 (Fable). Contrast that with the PS2 and Gamecube - take away their top two best sellers (GTA:SA and Gran Turismo 3 for PS2, SSBM and Mario Kart: Double Dash for GC) and you still have really solid libraries without any big sales dropoffs.

If Halo didn't interest you, there was almost no reason to buy an Xbox - even back then people noticed that all its best games were either multiplatform or wound up on PC six months to a year later. If you had a PS2 (and, given its status as the best-selling console of all time, something only the DS challenged it for, you probably did) and a PC capable of running modern games, you already had access to 90% of what the Xbox was offering and a lot more besides.