# Xbox 360

41 Hacker News commenters recommended Xbox 360 and 19 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended for its strong game library, good controller and online play. Main caveat: frequent Red Ring of Death failures.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong game library (4 comments): "The xbox and 360 were solid consoles with lots of great internal and external games." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48810579)) "Best Xbox console. It had pretty good games." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47046290)) "the library actually is very impressive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50312692))
- Good controller and online play (3 comments): "It had a superior controller, awesome online play, and decent graphics." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408391)) "I still love its controller design." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47045469)) "Xbox 360 was pretty great. My favorite game to play online there was fight night round 3." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50312076))
- Plays digital games offline (3 comments): "Being able to play game dumps off storage also means a failing disc drive is a minor issue." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49142245)) "Minecraft is delightful on my disconnected Xbox-360" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48746735)) "disconnected 100% from internet. good times only" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49904164))
- Strong for its generation (4 comments): "Where the CPU and GPU could run together in one region of unified 512MB of memory with crazy fast rendering bandwidth." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46982628)) "xenos with its unified shaders was in some ways more advanced than its contemporary desktop gpus at launch" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50095422)) "The 360 was winning hard early in the 7th console generation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50211000))

## What people warn about

- Red Ring of Death failures (11 comments): "the RRoD means MS definitely didn't get it right" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50312266)) "when mistakes were made (e.g. the RROD Xbox 360 debacle), the broader organization seemed allergic to making thing right" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47997385)) "The Red Ring issue was caused by the cracking of solder joints inside the GPU flip chip package" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47413537))
- Lost to Sony and Nintendo (2 comments): "The 360 gave them a few good years but in the end the ended the cycle in second place yet again." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47097783)) "it couldn't make a dent in the dominance of of Sony and Nintendo in Japan" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48821907))
- Slow optical storage and flash (2 comments): "stationary gaming consoles have been held back by slow (optical) storage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46136534)) "I am also impressed they managed to use worse flash than the 15 year old $10 USB 2.0 drive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49726410))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Valve Steam Machine](https://hackerapproved.com/p/steam-machine.md): 326 recommend
- [PlayStation 5](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playstation-5.md): 121 recommend
- [Xbox console](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xbox.md): 62 recommend
- [PlayStation 2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playstation-2.md): 40 recommend
- [Nintendo Wii](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nintendo-wii.md): 40 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Microsoft+Xbox+360+console&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Xbox 360", https://hackerapproved.com/p/xbox-360/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).