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As we get closer to the official launch of the “New Xbox Experience”  most Xbox 360 gamers everywhere are eagerly awaiting their chance to get their hands on new features like Netflix viewing, copy to hard drive, and most importantly a much more efficient way to navigate content from the marketplace and/or from the local hard drive. Yet, those on the outside looking in are continually  undermining the worth and impact of which we refer as Xbox and more importantly the gaming community at large.

As an example, feast your eye’s/ear’s on this episode of Windows Weekly (jump to 44:30). Not to pick on Leo Laporte once again, but he and his cohort in this case Paul Thurrott  are prime targets for what I’m affectionately going to say is “old fogy syndrome”. So, what does that really mean? Well, it means that just as the masses look upon videogames as some sort of MacGuffin of little or no significance, those that you would think understand are in all actuality just as lost and elitist as the latter.

The Xbox gaming community in and of itself is very large to say the least. Unfortunately Leo and Paul have yet to release the brevity of the words that have spoken in referenced episode of Windows Weekly. Am I just giving this show more publicity? Yep, more than likely, but what starts at minute 44 and 30 seconds cannot go without some extreme pestilence from someone who doesn’t have their head stuck up there own ass to see what is really there.

The Xbox 360 has had it’s fair share of problems of course. It’s rather noisy (when the DVD is spinning), unreliable at times, and is a large R&D expense for Microsoft. Given that, those are problems Microsoft must endure and continue to remedy as they chase that monumental upside waiting for them if they stick with it. But of course, Paul Thurrott and to a lesser extent Leo Laporte continue to fail to see that a gigantic community has long since sprung up around this product. Not are we just consumers who would like to play a videogame here and there, we are people who have made gaming a way of life much the same as nearly everyone in western society can’t wake up any given morning without turning their TV on first thing.

Considering to kill the Xbox at this point would be a huge blunder of obscene proportions as its asked in this podcast. I need not be reminded of what I felt when Sega killed the Dreamcast. Microsoft knew full well it would have to sink large amounts of money into this from the get go and so did its shareholders. Yet, Leo insist he loves the Xbox 360 as a gaming platform? Calling the Xbox a laggard isn’t exactly showing your professed love for the platform, now is it.

Coming from a tech only centric point of view where community is also a strong thing that bounds all so-called “geeks” together”, it’s amazing to see these two tech luminaries be so out of touch. With so many communities that have sprung up around the Xbox platform much like this one and to have anyone who calls themselves in the know, how can you not know that the Xbox is not just another Microsoft product that you throw in for good measure when you feel you need to “cover” it just because.

Is it that those who are Tech journalist are largely from an older mindset in which at those times, you’d never openly admit you played videogames? And of course, we’ve long progressed passed the days of “videogames are toys”, so why is it so hard for those in question to get over themselves? The entirety of the internet is moving toward social networking and entertainment, of which Xbox Live equates in everyway without mentioning that it’s attached to your TV and not a computer monitor of which so many in the masses are often afraid of. Microsoft has invested smartly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t as noteworthy, because it’s attached to videogames.

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-William “thewilleffect” Bell-