We love a biome in video games. Even the word is one I inherently associate with video games, in spite of its origins as a piece of proper grown-up geographical terminology. Within that gloriously over-the-top thematic pantheon… is there anything better than a good old fashioned Christmas level?
Time can be cruel. I'm not talking about the ravages of age when I say that - although, christ, the closer I creep to forty the creakier I become - but I'm thinking, I suppose, about legacy. The very nature of history, especially when it's oral in its delivery, is that it becomes truncated. Short-form takes over. For instance - think of a Prime Minister or President (back when we had normal ones of those, anyway), or the manager of a sports team, their tenure often ends up defined very broadly, no matter how much nuance there was at the time. Oftentimes, it's good or bad, with little in between. Which is a shame - because sometimes the nuance is where the most interesting thinking resides.
At the tail end of 2024 the original PlayStation turned 30 years old. While the Xbox 360 is only hitting 20 and it's not an industry shaker to the degree the PS1 was, there's no doubt it earned its place as one of the most important consoles of all time. Xbox managed to challenge Sony in the traditional home console space the PlayStation had dominated with PS1 and PS2, and the console's brilliant line-up of games played a major role in that.
Yesterday, we published part one of our interview with former Xbox 360 boss Peter Moore, where he talked about the creation of Microsoft's beloved machine, the grand idea encompassing it, and how his team had to break from the stuffy office-worker image Microsoft had. "Guys with pocket protectors and thick glasses", as he described it. He also talked about "throwing punches" to provoke the Xbox vs. PlayStation console war.
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