Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@NEStalgia Okay, I'm back. Well, the plot definitely thickens: after that full shutdown, I booted up the Xbox One a couple hours later, and my settings were still as is (so, instant-on & switch off drives when console switches off). Before I switched it on, the light on the external drive was off.

Now, when shutting down again in a normal fashion, by pushing the big, glowing X button in the middle of the controller, the console powers down first, front logo blinking a couple of times before powering down completely, and then the external drive followed, albeit almost a minute later. Its light started blinking as well, when the console shut down, and finally, it completely died, so for whatever reason, it now works as it should.

The external drive is connected to the second USB port (which is also numbered as '2') on the back, and the settings are as previously mentioned. Console powers down normally, external drive light goes out as well.
And all is good in the world again...

I'm beginning to suspect that I actually WAS on to something concerning that frontal USB port being used for charge and play. And to think that the only reason that I connected the external hard drive to that port is because all the pictures I've seen from it, before I bought it, showed it being connected to the front port.

I honestly don't know if that is really it, but seeing as my problem is hereby solved, I'm not going to question it/my luck again, and I'm just going to leave things as they are, drive connected to port 2 at the back, and still using my favored instant-on console settings...

Same here. I have a Seagate 4TB for one year now connected to my X and never had any issues, no weird noises, failures or anything. Sometimes I use instant-on mode when the console is downloading anything and sometimes I fully shut the console down if it's not downloading anything and I want to refresh the system every now and then. My internet connection is slow so most of the time the X is in stand-by mode for downloads.

@ThanosReXXX It's statistically impossible that NEStalgia has so many issues with his Xbox consoles and the multiple HDDs that he attaches to them.

Back to backwards compatibility I just realised that Silent Hill Homecoming is no longer available as Downpour before it, but HD Collection is available since a few months ago, is it a bad remaster collection like people say?

Panzer Dragon Orta is another original Xbox game that nobody mentioned, have you guys played this one?

@BlueOcean Well, as you may have seen/read, I've also had some weird problems of myself, minor ones maybe, but to this point, still inexplicable to me, because switching USB ports, the "problem" of the drive light staying on, re-occurs. So, whether or not something is "statistically impossible", doesn't mean that something can't occur at all. A decent example is the Red Ring of Death issue in the Xbox 360: I've had it happen to me as well, but contrary to other people that I know of, I appeared to have been the only one, that has had it successfully repaired and has never had it happen again.

Most other people I know, or have met online with the same issue, reported having to basically replace their Xbox 360 and throw the old one away, like the useless brick that it became after having suffered that RRoD problem. So, in that scenario, it was actually ME, who was the statistic anomaly.

All I'm basically saying, is that you should never, and I do mean NEVER, make assumptions, especially not primarily based upon your own opinion, no matter how logical (or unlikely) something might seem to you.
In my line of work (sales & marketing), we learn that assumptions are deadly, as in being able to completely destroy any chance of making a successful deal and/or selling something. Assume nothing, double-check everything, and then make an informed decision, so you can take action, based upon what you actually KNOW or have learned to be (objectively) true...

Anyway, enough of that, moving on to Panzer Dragoon Orta: I actually had to scroll back a couple of pages, to see if I really didn't mention it, and I can tell you, that I was VERY surprised that I forgot to add that to the list, so that's definitely a serious omission on my part.

I say that, because I think that it's no exaggeration to state that Panzer Dragoon Orta is one of THE must-have games of the original Xbox. It really shows off what the system was capable of, even if it was "only" an on-rails shooter, within a fantasy/dragon world setting, so you should most definitely give it a try.

Still own the original disc myself, and I'm glad I do.

I still find it hard to believe that he has so many issues that nobody else has with Xbox One. The red ring of death was a well-known issue for 360 although I don't think than more than 50% of the consoles died so you still were not at odds with the statistics.

Anyway, I just checked and the HDD is connected to port 1 at the rear. The light is dark blue and it turns off when I completely turn off the console and stays on when it's in instant-on. Just so you have an idea what mine does.

I am playing Crash Bandicoot N.sane Trilogy (first game). It's absolutely gorgeous on X! I'm not going to lie, I would like a 60 fps mode for this high-precision platformer but the 30 fps is smooth nevertheless. Just a missed chance in my opinion.

The game borrows some ideas from Super Mario Bros. (kicking turtles to hit other enemies) and from Donkey Kong Country 2 (some enemies behaviour is exactly the same) but it's at the same time absolutely different to any other platformer that I have ever played, with another feel and flow. Levels are challenging but fortunately short. The music is better than I expected and bosses are hilarious. I'm liking this more than Naughty Dog's interactive films of recent years.

I had my doubts but now I would definitely recommend it. I'm intrigued by that rumoured Crash Team Racing remake...

I played this originally on the 360 and, while the first few levels were great...the backwards compatibility was broken, freezing the game about 3 levels in.

I trust that Microsoft have fixed this problem on the XBO. I would love to play it on full so might give it a go on my S sometime soon.

@Buizel Yes that was fixed on Xbox One. You'll get improved resolution and performance as well. It looks interesting, it's on my radar.

@DarthNocturnal I have never played Spyro but I think that that reignited trilogy is going to be amazing value and I'll get it. Banjo is crying out for a remake like this...

@BlueOcean You can personally find it hard to believe, and even for me, the amount of issues is a bit on the heavy side, but we simply cannot assume that they're not true. At the very least, it's his truth, but seeing as I haven't been able to catch him being a pathological liar, I choose to believe he actually does either have VERY bad luck, or some other strange thing is going on.

Dismissing it altogether because of personal sentiments, is making baseless assumptions, which I refuse to do, because I have no reason not to believe him, based upon everything I've discussed with him in the past and up to now.

Anyway, let's move on, because it isn't really an interesting topic anyways, especially if we're not getting anywhere, no offense.

So, a dark blue light, huh? Guess it's not an officially licensed drive then, I suppose?
Anyway, you can prevent the light from staying on by selecting "When Xbox is off, turn off storage" in the options menu, under startup settings.

In closing, I'll add the original Xbox review and some Xbox One X gameplay from Panzer Dragoon Orta, simply because it's a great game, and more people should know about it...

@DarthNocturnal Cool! I might give it one more try. I haven't tried it since before E3 and the bunch of updates released.

The big question is....is it just sort of a free for all PvP kind of environment, or is there sort of a way to do guided/questing story of some sort? I can't tell if it's an MMO, a big sandbox, or a battle arena at first glance

@NEStalgia Well, thanks for the update. And indeed, I've just stopped wondering why what happened and how, and I'll just leave things as they are now, on my Xbox One. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke...

And I think I can safely leave the rest of the rather extensive testing trials up to you. No one is ever going to catch me with my ear stuck to an external HDD casing...

And those port issues puzzled me, but not enough to do more research, so I'll just settle for the working solution that I appear to have stumbled upon now. I did find out why my external drive wasn't recognized by the ports in the back, though: I first connected it to the front, like in the pictures, and then booted up, downloaded and/or moved all the games I wanted, and after that, I decided that I wanted to connect it to the port in the back, simply because it was more aesthetically pleasing to lose the cable hanging on the front, and besides the look of it, it also hung in front of the disc drive, seeing as I have the Xbox One standing vertically on a stand. (no place under the TV to install it horizontally, so it's sat on the floor, next to my TV cabinet)

But I did the swap to the other port, while the console was still on, thinking I could "hot swap" it, which obviously wasn't the case. After a reboot with the drive connected to the right port before powering up the console, it did instantly recognize the drive. Funnily enough, it resulted in a pop-up of "new drive found and installed", even though it obviously wasn't a new drive, and all the games were already on there. Oh, well...

Like I said, it works as it is supposed to now, so I'm not going to mess with it any further.
As for the light dying more slowly on the external drive: could simply be a matter of the drive safely shutting down, instead of allowing the console to immediately cut the power to it, so far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing, and as long as the light goes out eventually, that's fine by me as well.

X018 is less than 3 weeks away.

@DarthNocturnal I want to find a way to like that game. The art and world is so inviting. So far I haven't been able to get in on a gameplay hook at all. You're on an island. There's stores. There's a boat to go...somewhere...to do.....something....I can't quite get into what to actually do. But I wish I could. It's a neat world.

@ThanosReXXX Haha, well I wouldn't be sticking my ears into HDDs but I'd like to know if it's burning up the motors within a few months or not If we weren't talking about being out hundreds of dollars in hardware and/or terabytes of downloads I surely wouldn't care

"But I did the swap to the other port, while the console was still on, thinking I could "hot swap" it, which obviously wasn't the case. "

Ooooohhhhhhhhh...yeah, yanking the HDD while it's running is the opposite of good. You're lucky it didn't corrupt!

I think the "new drive found" or at least "ready to use" popup always happens when it finds a drive connected that wasn't connected during boot up.

Yeah I wouldn't mess with it either. The shutdown delay, no, my drives (including the official) are the externally powered 3.5" desktop drives (they don't make 2.5" USB powered drives over 4TB.) So it's not cutting power, it's actually sending the shutdown command. Before it would shut down immediately with the box, but if there were queued files it would start them back up again in 5 or 10 seconds and continue. Now it doesn't shut them down for a little while regardless so I presume it's doing "housekeeping" of some sort that it didn't used to before telling the drives to halt.

@Grumblevolcano I don't really know what they actually cover at X018 but that tells me that sale time is coming again

@NEStalgia I think they'll give new details on announcements made at E3 (Halo Infinite, Gears 5, Battletoads, Crackdown 3, Ori 2), add in some DLC announcements like Forza Horizon 4 expansion 1, announce a bunch of PC games for XB1 (Civ VI, Age of Empires 1-4, etc.) and some new brand new content (maybe Scarlett, maybe unannounced games).

@Grumblevolcano AOE1 on console? Wow. I'd hook up a keyboard and mouse for pure nostalgia of my PC heyday for that I sank so many hours into that thing back in the day.... I probably wouldn't play much today though, ironically. Plus, it's a game even the worst of laptops could run today....

@NEStalgia I was thinking the definitive editions of 1-3, it's rather weird how we've heard nothing about AoE2 Definitive Edition, AoE3 Definitive Edition and AoE4 since the initial reveals at Gamescom 2017. AoE1 Definitive Edition is already on PC so they could do a reverse Play Anywhere situation.

@DarthNocturnal I'm not sure if that sounds like an MMO or like Minecraft with boats I've never been an MMO fan, though they have some concepts that are appealing. I still do not understand Minecraft at all or how anybody plays it. I need objectives. The sandbox "do stuff" thing confuses me. I suppose I lack creativity

@Grumblevolcano AoE3's "definitive edition" is whichever one sinks to the bottom of the ocean fastest. But I'll take 1&2!

@NEStalgia Not "sticking your ear into" HDD's, but holding your ear to the outer casing, smart@ss...

And I didn't really yank the drive out while it was running: the light was idle, so it wasn't doing anything.
I also specifically waited for it to get to that point before I gently disconnected it...

Anyway, I guess the only problem child left now, is you, so on with the Sherlock stuff...

Concerning the drives not shutting down immediately, or to be more exact: the officially licensed drives,
I still think that closing them down safely is a possibility. What you call housekeeping is what I call safely shutting them down, instead of abruptly ripping the power from them. The drive is apparently still busy doing something before it's able to shut down properly, so that's why I gave it the label that I did. Perhaps it's just spinning down, which would/could also explain the light burning steadily instead of flickering.

Either way, whatever it is or does, is probably for a good reason, and I would wager a bet that it's to the benefit of the drive, and ultimately, that's all that matters.

@NEStalgia @Grumblevolcano AoE? Is that a wild guess or is that what they actually mentioned?
Wouldn't mind a couple of those games appearing on the Xbox One. Still got most of them installed on my PC, because I sometimes feel like replaying them, or just doing a quick level.

Here's hoping that if they do come, it isn't those cheap looking smart device versions, though...

@ThanosReXXX Guess based on the mouse + keyboard announcement.