[relaxed jazz music] - Greetings and welcome
to an LGR unboxing thing, something I've been wanting
to get to for years now. This lovely-looking unit,
this is the original Xbox. First released on November 15th, 2001. And yeah, with its 20th anniversary
coming up here pretty soon, which I cannot believe. I figured it'd be kind
of fun to do an unboxing of one that's never been
used, to my knowledge. Yeah. I picked this up while
thrifting some time ago, like years back and, you know, I actually never had one
of these back in the day. I didn't even know like
many friends that had one, pretty much everybody I knew back then had a PlayStation 2. And I
myself was just a PC gamer through and through, didn't
even have any consoles when they were new until years later. And yeah, the Xbox has
always intrigued me. I mean, ever since it came out, like I remember when it came out, it was really exciting to
have this new player, Microsoft, in the console gaming market.
You know, just on the surface, it kind
of looked like a Dreamcast, but upgraded and it had a DVD-ROM. It just looked really cool. And the whole DirectXbox thing
was really appealing to me coming from the PC. And that's where the
name comes from: DirectX. The Xbox API is a variant of it. And the whole PC architecture underneath. I mean, this is effectively
just a computer, crammed into a console case. You know, you've got a Coppermine-based 733 megahertz Pentium III processor and Nvidia GeForce 3-based GPU, 64 megs of RAM, some standard
desktop components in there, like the DVD-ROM and the three
and a half inch spinning hard disk and the DirectX API. Yeah, dude.
It was just like, computer-y. And that appealed to me, even though I never got one back then because I was 15 years
old when this came out and I didn't have a job or money or, you know, whatever I had
a computer, it was fine. But I've always been
drawn to it as a result. And well, now I've got one here, that I've been meaning to
open up for a long time. Kinda see what I was
missing out on 20 years ago. And I mean you know, 20th anniversary, it seems as good a time
as any to unbox it. Plus I was also just going
through storage recently, ran across this and this
posted a couple of photos on Twitter and being like, oh,
Hey, should I unbox this? And the official Xbox account was like, "oh yeah, you should do that." So hey, who am I to say no
to some giant corporation's social media intern or whoever said that. So yeah. Let's go ahead
and unbox this sucker. [jazzy unboxing tunes] Oh yeah. [assorted cardboard noise] This is nuts. Yeah. While the box has obviously been unsealed at some point in its past, all of this stuff inside
looks to be still sealed and the way it left the
factory, which by the way, it was 2004. This is a slightly later one. So I think March 2004 is
what the manufacturing date back there says, more on that in a bit. But yeah. Look at all
this, got the AV cable, all sealed up there,
composite RCA connections. And when is this power? Maybe? Yeah, just standard power cable.
Also yeah, that I mean, that's -- that looks like original tape to me. Wonderful. But yeah, not being terribly familiar with the different versions
and releases of the Xbox, I wasn't sure if this would
have like, the "Duke" controller. Obviously not, this is
like the "S" controller here. Which makes sense
being built in 2004. So. Oooh. The main event right here, look at this. Oh man, like a Christmas I never had. And last things in the box are
paperwork and documentation. So important. You got a warranty, registration card, "congratulations on owning the most exciting product on the planet." "act now to--" Okay, it's a warranty
extension or something. Ooh. I could have used that
extended warranty kind of thing on my Xbox 360, my first one
of those went "red ring." What is this? "Stop read things." Instructions. Cool. Well, let me just take a
second to admire all of this. These things are only
sealed once after all, look at all that, man. Just imagine getting something
like this in the early 2000s. Just, it always seemed
like such a cool console. I remember playing the demo units and just thinking that the
graphics looked amazing, the frame rates, and
like there were sequels to some of my PC gaming classics on here, like Midtown Madness 3, for instance. I was always envious that
consoles got that as an exclusive. Alright, let's see what we got in this documentation real quick. I've genuinely never seen any of this. I did have a friend's Xbox a few years ago that they had had, but you
know. It was just all, well, it was just a console. It was loose secondhand. It didn't come with any
of the original stuff. So I've never seen all the
stuff that this comes with. Like a hookup thing here. Yeah. Ooh, quick start guide,
plug in the things. Make sure it's powered
on controllers connected and that you're not buying PlayStation. And optional "go live."
Optional. Oh, how cute. Whoa. Free issue of Official Xbox
Magazine and a free game disc. Wow. I never read that magazine, honestly. Maybe a time or two in
a Barnes & Noble when when I was bored or something, but. Here we go. "Connect to Xbox Live." That's pretty rad. That was such a foreign concept. Like an unthinkable
thing to me back then is having consoles on the internet. You kidding? I barely had reliable internet
on my PC! [chuckles in dial-up] Plus like yeah, just playing multiplayer
games when it wasn't couch co-op local
multiplayer was weird. And the instruction manual. How large, like dimension
wise anyway. It doesn't look-- Yeah. It's not too thick. 10 pages in English. Everything else is in Spanish
and French, makes sense. I'm just curious if there's anything interesting in here whatsoever. Like the in-release of the cords, I always found that to be a cool idea. So you don't yank on the console, if you accidentally
pull out the controller or whatever in a weird way. I do have component
cables for this somewhere but I'll have to see if I can find them. I don't know. I'm probably
not gonna do that today. I don't know what we're going to do today. I just want to turn it on
and like, play it real quick. Oh man. More things to open. So the composite video cable. Oh look at that, that big old
chonky controller end piece. Yeah dude, I always admired
how thick this cable was. It just feels like
quality, these connections, nice and grippy and everything,
and the golden tips. Smells like the mid 2000s,
genuinely smells good. I miss those years. Got some power right here. I mean, it's just a
regular old power cable, but it's so official. Look
at how official that is. And the controller I look forward to this. The only ones I've ever used
were really gross, well-used. So ah, whether it was at
friend's houses later on or the demo units in stores, just terrible. I just, I don't know. I've never played too many
Xboxes, the originals anyway. Wow, yeah. That is wonderful. Always enjoyed this controller. I mean, I liked the Duke as well. That feels nice. So fresh, so clean. You get the two memory cards
and going in there and yeah, here's that part comes apart there. So many of these I've found in
thrift stores over the years, they're just missing this aspect of it. And then yeah, it sucks. Back when everybody had their
own proprietary connection, instead of just "USB all the things." Totally playin' the dick outta
some Midtown Madness 3 on this. And finally, oh my goodness. Excitement. [jazz intensifies] Got some more plastic on top of there. Dang. How special, like seriously. Look at that. So many of these I've seen while
thrifting over the years and just never pick them up because they're always beat to hell and gross and scratched and
all kinds of problems, man. Some of these things really went through the ringer in terms of being well-used. Well-loved I suppose. Yeah. Isn't that nice? "Don't open it." Well, we might have to because here's another
reason I was wanting to, I was going to unbox this
no matter what, whether or not it was
the 20th anniversary, because see that manufacturer date? March 21st, 2004 and the serial number. Well that unfortunately puts
it in a kind of an odd spot, for a well-known Xbox,
original Xbox problem. And that is the clock capacitor dying, not only just dying but catastrophically. So to the point where it can leak and wreak havoc on the
motherboard, ruining it, destroying traces and all
kinds of problems like that that you don't want. And I really wanted to just make sure that this doesn't have that issue. However, yeah. I was looking that up online to see which units were affected, and because of the specific
combination of those numbers there and the revisions, it might or might not be
affected by the clock capacitor problem because apparently
version or revision 1.6, they fixed that or used a better solution for the real time clock and such. But 1.5 and before
definitely had that issue and the clock capacitor inside
will need to be addressed. Thing is though, from what I can tell, the cutoff date is literally within like 30 days of when this
was supposedly manufactured. So there's just this
tiny little window that it may or may not be the
revision that's affected or not. So whatever, I'm just
gonna have to, y'know look at it, I'm going to
turn it on and see if it's this kernel version 5838. If it is, that means we have revision 1.6, if not know, whatever, I don't know. It might be a good idea to
just take it apart anyway, but I do have some replacement
capacitors or just, I just need one of them,
but I got a couple. These are readily available because it's such a well-known issue. Oh man. So who knows what we'll
find when we get this thing turned on? Hopefully it'll turn on. We'll see. But yeah, let's go ahead and get this other plastic taken off. Actually, you know what? I just noticed as well
that even the styrofoam is X-shaped. Oh, Microsoft. All right. Lets see here. [smooth jazz tunes]
[plastic crinkling] Ooh. That is fresh. Look, look at that. Like the fact that that's not
all scuffed to nonsense. Ah, it's fantastic. This is, this is special. So... The honor of being the first person to lay a fingerprint on
black glossy plastic. Actually, it's not getting any
fingerprints on there at all. Oh there we go, a little bit. [laughing] Wow. Well that is a new experience for me and hopefully a throwback, maybe some happy memories
coming back for some of you. Just traveling back to the
early 2000s here. I am super psyched to
get this thing going. So let us get a CRT and plug it all in and enjoy us some Xbox! [jazz music fades] Okay. Got my 2000s
Sony Trinitron going here. Ready to go with some inputs around back. So let's get it all plugged in. Anyhow we're just going to
be using composite for now. I don't actually know where
my component cable is. This TV does have component,
but I gotta find my cable. Moment of truth. [CRT bonks]
Bonk! Good ol' degaussing. Yeah. I guess I'll need the controller. All right here goes nothing. [Xbox startup sound plays] Fantastic! I haven't seen that in years. Alright, so language selection. We'll go with English. "If you connect the Xbox
to the internet." Ooh. "It could communicate and
download updates from Xbox Live." What a crazy idea. Sure. Ooh. Yeah. So I guess we will see if
indeed we have a clock going on. Okay. Such a cool interface.
[contented chuckling] Okay. Now what I'm really
curious about, system info. Let's see which version
of this cuz yeah, I'm looking for version 5838. Oh, it is not that. So we have 5713. That is... revision 1.5 which means this could very
well have a clock capacitor with the capacity for going bad, corroding and doing nasty things. So I will definitely be opening this up, probably not in this video, but yeah, I'm going to be opening it up, replacing that clock
capacitor with one of these and just making sure that it's all good. Cuz yeah, if that right there said 5838, we would probably be just
fine, but it doesn't. So, all right. Man. This is so neat. Oh dude. I seriously have used one
of these systems so very, very little that I honestly
don't even know what like... what all it can do, or what
it's like to even set up and use. I pretty much just
played a couple of games at friend's houses over the years, and a couple myself when I
took in my friend's old Xbox. And I don't have any actual
memory cards for this, but it does have the internal hard disk, which again, I always thought
was so cool at the time. Just having a hard drive built in, you don't have to get it as an add-on, like you did with the PlayStation 2. Really cool. 50,000+ blocks. I don't know how much that
equates to in terms of megabytes per block. Audio CDs and of course you
could play DVDs, DVD movies. This is a such a cool system. All right. Well, I'm going
to play some games with it. See if the optical drive is working fine, which hopefully it is. Cuz yeah, actually the one that I had
that was my friend's old Xbox, the drive stopped working. So I haven't even used that one in years I need to repair it, but
yeah, let's try some games. [jazzy downtempo beats] All right. Well yeah, just dug out most of my collection of Xbox games, I've never intentionally
collected for this system. It's just one of those
where I picked up cheap, appealing games at thrift
stores over the years. And it's what I've accumulated. Honestly, most of the games that I'm quote unquote "missing" from this, I have for like the PlayStation 2, the GameCube, PC, whatever. So yeah, never dove too
deeply into this library, but. Yeah. Midtown Madness 3. Here we go. This is the one that most
appealed to me back in the day. Cuz it was one of my
favorite series on PC and this one never came
to the PC, which sucked. It looked so cool. And I
have played it a little bit. Not very much at all. I would like to do a review
on this at some point, but. Anyway yeah, we're
definitely gonna play Midtown Madness 3
and four or five others, that stand out to me from, I guess, early on in the system's life. Y'know, stuff that I
really remember standing out for the system back then impressing the crap
out of me and stuff. Oh. And I also dug out
one of my Duke pads that I picked up
thrifting some years ago. It looks like for $3 at a Goodwill. Oh yeah. Still need to really clean this one up. But I really enjoy this pad.
Like it's so beefy and Duke-y. It's a very Duke-y pad.
But it -- Yeah it's just huge and it
fits my hands quite nicely. It's such a cool pad. I was really intrigued that
they re-released it as well. Like a couple of years ago for more modern Xboxes and stuff. Anyway, I'm not gonna use it right now, but I just wanted to show
like the size comparison because it's just, legendarily huge. Okay. Midtown Madness 3. Fresh disc drive. Please work. Oh-ho! Haven't even got done
setting up the camera and it's already starting up. Nice. "DICE." Yeah. No longer Angel Studios here.
They moved on to making the, what was it? Midnight Club games. Yeah. Which I always found
those to be more of the spiritual successor to Midtown Madness, felt almost more like
a Midtown Madness game than Midtown 3 does. Okay. Got myself a profile made. Let's do a single race, good ol' cruise mode, got your
two cities, lets go Paris. Yeah. Quite a different car
selection in this one, compared to the first two, but a good number of returning
classics and way, way more to unlock. Let's
just go with the Beetle. Yeah. That fan noise. - [French narrator] What a perfect
day for a cruise through Paris! - [Clint] All right. Yeah. Midtown Madness 3. [chuckling] Did I just go straight
through those trees? Yep. Wow. Okay. You could break smaller
trees in Midtown 2. Yeah. This is a weird, a weird game to me, being so
familiar with the first two. Fun still, got a lot of
its own merits, of course. It looks pretty great
for the time, but yeah. It felt like a sidegrade in some ways. [chuckles]
It's great. Only running it like 30 FPS, but hey, it's not Burnout.
Burnout, man. That had the crazy frame rate going on. That was always impressive. How do I get that? Yeah. I remember this at a, it was a demo console set
up at a Walmart I believe. And yeah thinkin' like, "oh man, what a weird game."
Familiar but... but strange. It's still fun to just like run over the entire world though. The physics weren't like
as completely bonkers as-- whoops, I thought those were stairs. Yeah. Not as completely bonkers
as like Midtown 1 and 2, but still, good times. And it really,
really made me think, "man, I got to get me an Xbox." Even
though I never did until now, 20 years later. Hey,
better late than never. All right. Next up, Dead or Alive 3. The disc sounds a little
strange on that one, I don't know if it's
because of that label. Oh yeah. I don't think I've played this in...
I guess since it came out? I only ever played the
demo, it was uh, yeah. Another one of those demo
units at some game store. I think it was the Software
Etc store in Hanes Mall. In fact, I know it was that store, I don't know if it was still
a Software Etc at that time, or if it had become a
GameStop by then, but. Wow. A little slow to
load those portraits. I guess they are 3D
character models though, so. Sure, I am not really familiar
with these players at all. "Want a drink?" I mean sure. Oh, he's a drunken dude. Man, I remember this
looking so incredibly good. I mean it still looks pretty
cool for 2001 man, seriously. But... Not quite the same effect. I seriously though, remember just being absolutely
wowed at the character details and like the realtime shadows, all the cool background
effects and I mean literally everything about it, the
physics, the fluidity. Yeah this one in particular, I remember the snow on the
ground being so impressive. Yeah. Like it moves around
when you're going inside of it. Deforms and stuff. I mean, I, yeah. I dunno. It still looks pretty good to me. That snow, it's crazy, you
move through it and it deforms. I just, yeah, that right
there was so impressive. It had to been like
Christmas 2001 or something. Oh, come on. What the heck was that? Well, that is my cue to
move on to the next game. And that disc is really
loud and grindy sounding. Alright enough screwing
around, it's Halo time. ♪ I have an Xbox. ♫ - We made a blind jump, how did they? - [Cortana] Get here first? The Covenant ships have
always been faster. As for tracking us all the way from Reach, at light speed my maneuvering
options were limited. [soldiers shouting, guns firing] - [Clint] I could use a gun, bro. Oh yeah. Sorry. Those are my guys, didn't mean to, guys. I know you're back there, ya little turd. It's still very intuitive in
terms of the controls scheme. Like it still feels rather standard. Yeah. Full disclosure. I have
not played Halo before. At least not to any real
degree, or with a controller. I have never ever played the original. I've messed around with a PC version, like whenever it finally came to Windows, but by that point I wasn't
terribly interested in it. So it was like, I just, I
never continued and yeah. Just kind of never played
any of the later ones too. I think a little bit
of Halo 3 multiplayer. That was about it. Yeah. I should probably play
it through this sometime. It seems like an important
game, to say the least. This looks so cool for
the time. Holy crap. Anyway, Halo. It's still good. Like really good. No surprises there. But -- Oops, that's my guy. Let's move on. Die! All right. Next up, The Sims Bustin' Out. Oh, Maxis, I miss OG Maxis. Wow, it has been a long time
since I have booted this up. Yeah. It was just so cool to have a 3D Sims game back then at all. And I always wanted to play it so badly. Even just The Sims on the
Xbox and PS2, it was 3D. Yeah. Okay. The three body types. Wonderful. These clothes are fantastic. [chuckles] Oh man. What is that? [laughs in bad fashion sense] There we go. Duke Nukem, barely. Dork Norkem more like it. Yeah. It's the early 2000s.
[random club music plays] "Hey, Duke. I never
dreamed I'd meet you here." "Come here and give me a little kiss." Okay. So this camera just kind
of follows around your reticle. Oh my goodness. What happened? Stop daydreaming. Malcolm is taking your scooter. -Mom. Oh, so this is just a dream
situation I guess, huh? Yeah. Like I said, I haven't
played this in so long. In fact, I remember playing The Urbz a little more than this one. So I barely remember any of this at all. "Wake up, Duke." So Duke lives at home with his
mom. That sounds about right. [Duke voice] I gotta get out of here! This is embarrassing! Ah okay. Here we go, you know, all sorts of thingies going on. Lets go into build mode. Ah, yes. We got some chairs. Not as much locked as I thought. Just a few things here and there. Yeah. A bunch of classic items from the original Sims updated in 3D. It's pretty neat to see, honestly. All right. I'm going to
take a sit over here. I just wanna watch TV here. How do I cancel his actions, man? He's just like doing all
sorts of crap on his own. Yeah. I'll need to learn how to play this before I ever ended up covering it, but I really do want to cover
these Sims console games, at some point, I just am
barely familiar with them. Hmm. How about no? Let's not dance. [Duke voice] I'll answer that phone as
soon as I'm done eating and watching all my favorite shows. What a goofy game. "What did I do to deserve this?" [Duke voice] You're telling me! All right, moving on. Alrighty. Time for some Crimson
Skies: High Road to Revenge. [barely audible game narration] I didn't quite catch what
he said there, that's okay. All right! [plane engines blaring] [pilot chattering] "Hey! What are you shooting at me for?" I don't like you! "Hey! What are you shooting at me for?"
[plane explodes] I win!
Oh. Well. Yeah. I always liked this weird alternate history of the design of the planes, and the lore of the
world itself in Crimson Skies. It's just neat. I have never played this one though. I've only played the
original, so you know. Okay.
[guns firing] Oh the humanity!
[zeppelin explodes] Nice. Gimme your crap! [chuckling]
Oops. Oops, oops. That has cool water effects though. You see that? And then like,
slapping up on the screen there. Oh man. That's a cool game. Still plays well too. It looks awesome. Next game, last game I guess. Now I was going to go with
Project Gotham Racing or Burnout or something, but I gotta
go with Forza Motorsport. Been a big fan of the Forza
games for a long time. I mean, I really started with Forza 2, but oh man. Good ol' Maple Valley. Let's see what we got here. Mazda RX-8, Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS, S2000, Audi S4, Lexus SC430, Dodge SRT4, Nissan Altima 2004. And it just cracks me up
because it's just like such, I mean, some of them are
pretty awesome cars, you know. But like yeah, you just
see so many of them and they've been around for
so long at this point now, they just blend into
the background. They're so average, everyday kind of cheaper cars. It's great. I gotta go with that Nissan Altima. It's just like, such a basic car. Okay. Yeah their assists, suggested line. I guess we'll just leave
it on for now because, sure. Oh, look at that. That still looks excellent. [engines revving, music rockin' out] Oh yeah dude. Oh, so this is *this* layout for Autumn Valley. Okay. Sorry about that, Neon. All right, well the soundtrack
is perhaps a bit dated, but man, game still feels great. See if I can smack that guy off the road. Yeah. The suggested
racing line right there? Y'know it tells you when
to brake and, yeah. All that good stuff, like that
was such a fresh idea to me. I don't remember seeing
it in games before this. I just remember being like,
"what is that?" When I saw this at a
friend's house, like in 2005, maybe something like that. He was a big racing game fan
had an Xbox and I was just like kind of blown away, I'm like,
"that's such a cool idea." It seems like so obvious. I don't know, it was just
a neat assist and yeah, this is the game that
introduced me to that. The racing line. I knew the concept, but I'd never seen it
visualized like this before. Yeah, dude. Oh man. That's still holds up very well. Like physics feel good, racing
feels good, looks great. Anyway. Yeah. Forza Motorsport, that still
that's a lot of fun, man. I wanna keep playing that. Yeah man. I guess I'll just say that's
about it for this video. Even though I really
could just keep on going, playing all kinds of games here. There are dozens of exclusives
and top notch titles for the platform and things
that were better on this or had different content on
this than other platforms. And I can still hardly believe
that it's been two decades since the Xbox platform became a thing. Like I was really skeptical, I remember, if Microsoft would
be successful with this. You know, a newcomer
to the console market, like what's that about?
I had my doubts they'd last up against competition from
Sony and Nintendo and whatnot. But yeah, obviously they
did and I'm glad for it. You know, it's always great
to have more competition. Even if very few people I
knew ever had one back then, you know, it wasn't the most successful platform at the time. But I just thought it was neat regardless. Yeah. I'm gonna continue
having fun with this. I've got to find my
component cable and get the RetroTINK-5x going maybe and you know, maybe mess around with
soft modding. I don't know. I've never done homebrew on an Xbox. And of course there's things
like The Insignia Project. I don't know if that's still going, but that's like an Xbox
Live service revival for the original Xbox, it'd be kind
of cool to try sometime. I really gotta get that
clock capacitor replaced sooner rather than later. I don't wanna push my luck. Kind of ran out of time
to put it in this video, but maybe I'll do it in a Blerb
or something in the future. And yeah, like I said, that's about it. So slap some of your own
memories in the comments, let me know what you thought
about the Xbox back in the day, y'know, good or bad.
If you had one, if you didn't, if you wanted one like me or if you thought it was just
redundant and unnecessary, compared to the other
platforms, you know, whatever. Thoughts. They are welcome. And if you liked this kind of thing, check out my other videos. I make them and post as often
as I can here on LGR. And as always, thank you
very much for watching!
I miss the Duke controller. I loved it. I need to buy one of the new ones. Thanks for this video, only console I love more than this one is the Dreamcast, ran on Windows CE if I remember correctly.
I was wondering when LGR would get around to the original Xbox.
The Xbox was the first and only console I bought on launch day in the UK.
I switched to it from a PS2 because being able to use the hard drive for custom soundtracks in games intrigued me - remember that? I also really enjoyed using the Duke controller.
I remember that if you used a CD-RW burned at 1x full of MP3s you could rip them to the hard drive for use in supported games (e.g. Project Gotham Racing).
It was also fun being a beta tester for Xbox Live. In the video, Clint mentions that the idea of consoles being online was mind-blowing, and it was, but it was the Dreamcast that did that first, not the Xbox.
Another fantastic LGR video!
Not quite the original experience without the Duke controller. I still remember unboxing mine. I had it on pre-order for months ahead of time, as I was hyped for Halo. To this day, it's still the only console I've ever pre-ordered and bought at launch.
Do I even wanna know what that cost him.
Kinda sad he didn't play Jet Set Radio Future, that game alone is worth the price of an Xbox. I guess it's just not his thing?