Game Room - Xbox's Forgotten Retro Gaming Failure | Past Mortem | SSFF
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- Click here ritual.com/SSFF20 to get 20% off your first month with Ritual. Thanks Ritual for partnering on this video* | Game Room, aka that time Microsoft tried to sell us $620 worth of Atari, Intellivision, and Konami Arcade games on the Xbox 360.
Huge thanks to @JamesNintendoNerd!! Nicest angry nerd in the biz!
The 5 Stages of Game Room Grief ► • The 5 Stages of Game R...
Every Single Giant Bomb Game Room Quick Look ► • Giant Bomb Game Room Q...
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☠Credits ☠
Written by Derek Alexander & Grace Kramer
Shot by Grace Kramer
Edited by Adam McVay @ADAMNATOR ► / adamnatorstudio
Thumbnail by Daniel Alba ► / evernightstudio
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Artwork and Bumper by Studio Goblin ☠ ► www.studiogoblin.co.uk
Derek takes a look at the forgotten retro failure that is the Xbox 360 Game Room. We discuss game mechanics, design, and the impact it had on the industry. If you're a gamer of any kind, then you need to check out this video! We discuss the history, design, and impact of the Xbox 360 Game Room. If you're a fan of console emulators, then you'll love how badly Microsoft botched this piece of video game history. Nothing stops the game room quick look! In this video, we look at the game's development history and talk about why it failed.
In this video, I take a look at Microsoft's failed attempt to enter the retro console market with Game Room on the Xbox 360. No, their console app didn't beat the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console or even Playstation 3's Play Station Home, but it did have some cool features. I examine their Krome Studios developed virtual arcade service, which offered Atari games, Intellevision games, Konami arcade games and other classics on the Xbox 360. Overall, it's an interesting video that covers a little-known part of Microsoft's history.
0:00 - Hey I'm Derek, It's Me Derek!
2:10 - Ritual Vitamins
3:51 - "An Everything Emulator"
6:19 - Krome Studios
8:37 - the POWER of Xbox Live
10:49 - Xbox 360 Launch!
12:27 - The end of nice things to say about Game Room
14:15 - Atari, Intellivision, and Konami
17:04 - Microsoft's Biggest Mistake
18:43 - Freemium Mobile and Retro Games
20:08 - Gamepass Predecessor?
22:30 - ...and that was Microsoft Game Room
24:21 - Patreon, Shelf Talk, + Stay Powerful!
#stopskeletons #xbox360 #gameroom #ritualpartner
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. - Hry
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Click here ritual.com/SSFF20 to get 20% off your first month with Ritual. Thanks Ritual for partnering on this video! | Game Room, aka that time Microsoft tried to sell us $620 worth of Atari, Intellivision, and Konami Arcade games on the Xbox 360.
Oh no..... Derek don't support Vitamin companies. The vitamin and mineral business is the highest grossing pharmaceutical industry. They are all scams.
Xbox also had the “watch party” feature when watching Netflix where your avatars hung out in a movie theater MST3K style. You could even pull up a reaction wheel where you could choose little emotes that your avatar would do (cheer, cry, act scared, throw popcorn, etc)
Netflix watch party is what the metaverse *should* be
Where was that during the pandemic?
@@freddogrosso9835 Prime Video has a feature like that, but without virtual avatars.
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting it exists in VR. It's called Bigscreen
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting This is literally the best thing about VR. Several applications like this since they won’t do it again on Xbox.
Grace telling Derek "NO!" to obscure 360 controllers is true couples goals.
But doom!
I have those Scene It controllers somewhere. If I can find them, Uncle Derek may just get his wish lol
@@refan4321 omg yes! Doom Scene It
Produce Grace is the sister. We don't not encourage incest in this country...
@@reilorenzo you sure? In one of the videos Derek says he bought Grace a Hello Kitty GBA and said it was like the “best BF gift”. I don’t remember the exact vid.
Jeff tricking Ryan into checking out the latest Game Room releases during their Quick Looks was always hilarious.
That's my fondest memory of Game Room. Listening to Ryan suffer while Jeff played awful games like Intellivision Checkers.
J: "This week we're gonna be checking out Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den..."
R: "Really? Oh cool."
J: "Nah, I totally tricked you." *moves cursor to Game Room*
R: "Oh, god DAMMIT!"
Honestly after thinking about it far too much; I am kind of glad game-room was a total failure that landed ass backwards. The Giantbomb content this produced was priceless.
NOTHING STOPS THE GAME ROOM QUICK LOOK
Unfortunately life does, Ryan is T-posing in the giant GameRoom in the Sky now. Our heaven, maybe his hell. RIP RTD.
Hi. My name is Pete, and I’m a Game Room fan. (Hi, Pete!)
I bought every game pack. I played almost daily. I tried and tried to hit top spots on leaderboards. I loved revisiting Super Basketball, The Main Event, and Blades of Steel. I… chose to ignore the alarm bells as news of trouble with Krome was getting louder. And then… the plug was pulled.
I still have access to Game Room (but my X360 recently died a Red Ring Death). I redownloaded it earlier this year, and while the servers were dead… the games still played and were fine.
Do I regret spending all that money? No… yes… maybe. But I truthfully enjoyed it while it lasted.
Thanks for the memories. :)
A friend of mine gave me a general concept of how much of a waste buying a game is:
Per dollar, I expect one hour of enjoyment.
Add up all you spent on Game Room. Did you get your full hour of enjoyment pet dollar spent? Did you get more enjoyment?
It's not a waste then.
Being happy should never be considered a waste.
Thnks fr th mmrs
Hey quick question I use to have a 360 a long time ago and I also loved game room and bought everything they released. I haven't had an Xbox since 2013. I was wondering if the game room and the games are still available on the new Xbox. You said your 360 died and you got a new one. What model Xbox did you get and we're you able to redownload everything fine?
@@GoldMineArcadeit was a 360 probably the S or E
I remember Game Room randomly from time to time, always felt like it would've been a better thing if it was just an interactive library for your XBLA titles.
I was thinking the same thing!
Glad I'm not the only person getting nostalgic flashbacks to the quick looks of the Game Room. Lots of good memories there, it's definitely some of Jeff and Ryan's best stuff from that era in particular. Good times!
Nothing. I repeat, nothing stops the Game Room quick look
I immediately thought of the video where Ryan thinks they’re going to cover some new DLC for a game and then Jeff just opens Game Room instead and Ryan calls him an asshole 😂
Nothing stops the game room quick look…….
czcams.com/video/HSZNELa52iU/video.html - The 5 stages of Giant Bomb Game Room Grief. God Ryan *hated* Game Room by the end of it. Some amazing fodder for Jeff & Ryan. 👏🏻
@@Pendarr when I’m feeling like a pick-me-up the CZcams clip of this never fails. Perfect 5 minute skit-like length.
Always tuned in to the Gameroom quick looks by Giant bomb, just to see their descent into madness.
It was Giant Bomb at its apex. Amazing how cool that site was, and sad how it fell.
NOTHING STOPS THE GAME ROOM QUICK LOOK
@@LucaHibbardCurto I miss it...
Oh man I spent ACTUAL time in this thing, it was like an arcade meta verse! Thanks Uncle Derrick
wanted to see if anyone mentioned metaverse stuff yet and yeah this is what the "metaverse" feels like to me, and i don't mean that in a good way.
The RRoD 360 in the background is a great touch.
Also gotta love the Stadia there too
I just noticed in the middle of the video that he has a red-ringed 360 just chilling on his shelf as a decoration. Derek, you crazy! The good kind!
And then he shows it off at the end of the video!
I was looking for this comment. I noticed the red rings of doom right before the ad break. Am I the only one who got some serious second hand sweaty palms when I noticed it?
Holy shit, this was SO under the radar that it wasn't until a few minutes into the video that I remembered that I was working at Krome while this was being made! My only memory of it was walking past a single other programmer that was doing some work on the input manager, and that's it.
I also had a couple of sets of those Scene It! controllers, but I forgot they were a work thing and threw them out years ago, sorry Derek!
Wow, that's amazing to hear but not surprising! Any idea when that might've been? Maybe that was later when Game Room was slowly being snuffed out?
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting Nah, was definitely earlier! Krome was going through 3 rounds of layoffs at the time, and I got let go on the second round, and that must've been... late 2008 early 2009? So it must've still been reasonably early in development.
I'm still impressed how Krome managed to keep from actually folding all the way, they're still alive and (sorta) kickin today.
I knew a guy who, no joke, bought EVERY SINGLE GAME on this thing. I never understood it. Thanks for the awesome video!
I remember downloading the free app, booting it up, and going "oh, everything is going to cost money". And then never booted it up again.
I think you got three basic games as an example at launch or maybe it was just the demo thing you mentioned.
This felt like a great idea that was horribly executed. It would be amazing if someone did something like this this in VR.
New Retro Arcade Neon is pretty close, but it's pretty buggy.
This reminds me of the idea of using VR for virtual theaters. You could basically completely replace the theater experience through VR, though obviously the greedy companies wouldn't let that happen...
@@Freak80MC >thousands of physical theatres get shutdown
>Bunch of empty large ass buildings everywhere
>Bunch of people without jobs
Hm
@@IONLYKNOWMOVESTHATKILLPEOPLE I know, right?
EmuVr is close.
Seems like yet another fascinating Xbox experiment that didn’t go so well .
Wish their digital only consoles fared the same way.
@@DP12321 especially the Xbox one S All Digital 😏🎯
The difficulty of retrofitting online is the game expects the input to be right there physically connected with wires, every 16ms, so you either have to lag or rewrite the entire game.
Which is normally handled by the game being emulated on all connected machines with data synced.
@@davidmcgill1000 Which is how XBand did it, at a cost of 3-4 frames of lag. Of course you were directly dialled into the other player's console.
Striking a t-pose all the way to my heart Game Room ❤️. Also this created some of the best Giant Bomb Ryan & Jeff quick looks. God, Ryan got so genuinely angry at GR. 😂
czcams.com/video/HSZNELa52iU/video.html - The 5 stages of Giant Bomb Game Room Grief.
Derek, have you covered the Silent Scope light gun for the original Xbox yet? Might be worth a future episode if not.
I loved Game Room. The mascots were awesome. The little flower pot that would fall, shatter, and repair itself was so cool. The challenges (now unfortunately disabled with the server shutdown) added replay value to games I would normally play for a couple minutes at a time.
Man, I remember this and 1 vs. 100 and the Netflix watch parties with your avatars. The 360 was a wild time.
Game Room gave us some of the BEST Giant Bomb Quick Look content.
I still vividly remember Jeff tricking Ryan into doing another Game Room Quick Look
@@craigjanssen371 Oh that was hilarious, mostly because of Ryan. GB may have been Jeff's idea, Ryan was the soul of the place.
You can really hear Jeff and the gang go from such optimism and excitement to total disgust in just the matter of a few weeks. Its a treasure.
@@MtrCtyKid Yeah. It's amazing how fast the wheels fell off, and seeing it happen in real time was a treasure.
R:”Oh, [pregnant pause]Jeff we can’t play this anymore.”
[silence]
J:”[in a slightly bemused curious tone] Why?”
R:”Cause this is terrible”.
I've been a huge fan of Uncle Derek for quite some time now. He feels like someone that I would love to chat with about life over a beer lol
The XB360 quietly red-ringing in the background is *chef's kiss.* Nice touch!
That Scene-It game and it's sequels(2 or 3 of them IIRC) were the life blood of my early marriage. My (now ex) wife and I used to play them so much that we had all the questions memorized. After we got bored of these we started picking up the DVD versions of the games(and subsequently memorizing those). We also tried the "Buzz" series on Playstation, but it was never as fun.
There is something fun about actually getting better at these games, similar to how playing normal games gets you better at them. We would always share a moment of recognition as a family playing the old quiz games like Trivial Pursuit when everyone knew the answer from so many plays. An endless trivia game that just pushes unlimited knowledge from the internet just seems kind of bland.
I remember Game Room! My experience of it was booting it up, realizing "oh, I actually have to pay for these games?" and then deleting it off my system.
We were absolutely snubbed from getting a Dreamcast emulator.
That we did...
I just got the 10 free achievements and deleted it off my console.
I remember this. Even though I was not in the target demographic (I was 18), I still thought this was a cool idea. Didn't know we missed out on a Dreamcast emulator though. Would've loved that so much more.
Yo I work in a retro game store in AZ and see those Kinect adapters all the time, I'll check to see if we have any tomorrow. Would be happy to send you one free of charge so you don't have to spend "way too much money" on one ^^
Venetian blinds, GOTY.
Man, I remember when Game Room came out I genuinely got excited as heck!
Teen me was just getting into my retro game obsession and I thought Game Room was going to be the SICKEST way to connect that interest with my modern 360 gaming rig and then it just... never released anything I was willing to pay for.
5:55 Hey, it’s Lophatjello
I know these comments are fairly generic, but whenever life is feeling a bit much and I need to feel better I always binge SSFF. Thank you Team for being a truly informative, inspiring, and positive channel.
The episode where Jeff has told Ryan they're doing a Quick Look of Arkham Asylum or something, and then just scrolls over and opens Game Room. Chef kiss.
Thanks for making this video and proving all those hours of them playing Jackal were worthy historical preservation.
Now that's something I didn't know in the span of using my Xbox 360!
Also liked the Red Ring Xbox 360 in the background, nice touch. Can't believe it happened to fix itself too!
Well now I'm going to go watch a bunch of old Giant Bomb videos. Thanks Uncle Derek!
I just randomly remembered about those CZcams videos that GameStop would play on their TV's all the time.
"But Doom!"
Those priorities are completely understandable.
Thanks for giving us so much info on the obscure side of gaming. Thank you happy video game nerd 💙
he can call himself Uncle Derick all he wants (I think thats a creepy name to use) but to me he will always be the HVGN :D the man who brought obscure good games to the forefront. That said im glad he's found more big time success with SSFF
Chef's kiss to the three red light 360 in the background for this, haha
Not me typing I don’t even remember this as Derek says “nobody even remembers this”. 😅 Seems like an idea with a lot of potential, but just didn’t go far enough with it. I think having a virtual arcade where I can meet up with my online buddies and play games together would be a blast. Also, I like the shelf talk ending, cool segment!
Another awesome video on a failed venture. This is literally one of my top favorite CZcams shows. Post Mortem!
The RROD 360 in the background was a nice touch.
6:37 We're definitely getting a video about those controllers in the next six months, aren't we?
The red ring on the Xbox blinking in the background, just took this video to the moon. Well done haha
Yeah I watch the Game Room Quick Look series every year as well! Love Jeff's insight on gaming during that time and his personal anecdotes.
This was kind of surreal; as someone who was very much in tune with the retro restoration efforts of the era, a big fan of virtual console and at least aware of Sony efforts to make a virtual arcade in PlayStation Home, I'd genuinely never heard of Game Room prior to this video. I could tell you all about Smash TV and Gunstar Heroes being on XBox Live but I can't say I recall ever hearing someone mention this but, hey, with a name as generic as "Game Room" this was just begging to be forgotten.
Nothing better than when you’re sick 😷 and Uncle Derek drops a new video to help distract for a little bit. Now to enjoy the video and my meal 🥘.
EDIT ✍️ : 😂 That controller bit with Producer Grace 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Classic games on XBLA were VERY inconsistent in quality and price. Having a nice front end for low price arcade games that you knew worked right was a godsend. I kept playing Game Room until it finally wouldn’t load anymore.
At first I thought you're doing a video about Classic Game Room HD. Oh my, what an important channel it was back in 2006-10...
man, i loved Game room as kid and the custom rooms.
The XBox with the legendary red ring of DEATH in the background made laugh. Excellent attention to detail!
"Derek makes a fart noise" haha I love when he does a literal script reading and just roll with it
You should do a video about Giant Bomb, Chronicling the history of what it was to what it has become.
That video would get the channel demonitised for human rights abuse
I will watch all the Game Room quick looks again. I just love rewatching old quick looks. They are so comfy!
Man I was watching Gerstmann's coverage of Gameroom, it was super entertaining ^-^ and makes me glad they kept all of it on their youtube (now watching it again)
more than halfway though the video and I've only now noticed the 360 you have on the shelf with the red ring of death, nice touch
6:40 that made me laugh really hard.
5:48 Love the big poop reference. Great work as always!
Arcade games were 20 cents here at most places as you could get 5 tokens for a dollar during the bar's happy hours.
I absolutely love the XBOX 360 in the background blinking the ominous red ring of death! LOL
Aw man, you're hitting me in the feels with that Custom Robo soundtrack playing in the background Uncle Derek. Lol
Oh man, I remember this. I also remember grabbing every Konami game I could whenever I got MSP, since those were really fun to play, especially Road Fighter and TwinBee.
I've had a theory for a while that game publishers felt burned by the Wii Virtual Console: it sounded like a good deal until they realized how heavily it ate into the market for full-retail-price anthology collections of those old games. And when the Wii U added backwards compatibility for the Virtual Console, that was threatening to be two generations Capcom couldn't release a Mega Man Classic Collection (like the ones they made for the GameCube and Switch).
"But Doom!", the phrase spoken before putting doom on something stupid and glorious, like your toaster oven.
I don’t remember this at all! I do remember Home though, what a rip!
I loved Game Room. I mostly played a lot of Crystal Castles and Red Baron, and I played them a LOT.
Awesome video as always! Also the Custom Robo background music was a great choice.
One thing I genuinely enjoyed about Game Room was the challenge mode where you would see your leaderboard ranking update in real time. Sadly, that mode went away when the servers went down.
Uncle Derek, please don't ever go out for cigs for that long again! :) So happy to hear the intro again!
10:49 Niiiice choice to use the Custom Robo music. Hehe. What a GEM that game is.
Ngl, it makes me smile whenever Derek references the HVGN years.
The game room tour was awesome! Keep it up you two! ♥️
1:01 LOL at the red ring system in the background.
thank GOD someone covered this. I had this downloaded on my xbox when I was little and didn't understand any of the atari games LMAO
I owned the #1 score on the leaderboards for a few games in The Game Room. This era of gaming was the beginning of the end. These days they charge you for weapon and outfit skins, online services on top of online services you already own, charge real money for digital currencies in game. And it's only gotten worse, and that trend will sadly continue. $3 dollars for Atari games? Yeah it was a cash grab, but I miss the Game Room. I doubt in time I will have the same sentiment over the present day exploitation taking place daily across all platforms. The Game Room is now just a memory, but I remember it fondly. Nice video man, thanks for making this, I enjoyed it.
This idea sounds really cool as a free app to put games you already own into, and when you said "this should have been a subscription service" I immediately saw this concept working with GamePass.
Rather than it being a seperate app that you buy games for, it could be an extension of GamePass or the Xbox that Microsoft can monetise by charging for room decorations or even integrating achievements, rewarding the player with room decorations for achieving certain things.
Adding a photo mode to take pictures of your Game Room or even have a button in Game Room that automatically makes a video of your Game Room that you can easily share to social media so other people can see what you've made and even take inspiration. I think that'd be a cool touch that'd help the word of mouth aspect.
Xbox 360 red ring of death in the background, nice touch :D
SSFF always has the fascinating tidbits you won't find anywhere else. Excellent work, guys.
The red ring of death in the background foreshadowing the future of the game room
Surprised you didn't mention the SF6 Beta where they appear to be letting people demo arcade games.
I’m shocked I’ve never heard of Game Room. Like, not even once, not even tangentially. That Dreamcast emulator bit made me shed a tear, though. Thanks for the video!
maaaaaan I remember this! My family and I really got into it but we never bought a lot of them unfortunately, the curse of being kids without a constant income.Thanks for talking about it and bring back some memories.
Jesus, I've been listening to the Custom Robo soundtrack at work all week and then Derek goes and plays in throughout his video, too.
5:47 AVGN cameo. LOVE IT.
oh god, game room. this was literally my exposure to the atari 2600, back then I thought this was the coolest thing ever.
they honestly should have stuck to the dreamcast emulator idea.
concepts that don’t see the success they deserve pull at my heartstrings, and your deep dives do those stories justice
RoosterTeeth does have the time Geoff and Burnie played Utopia on Game Room. But it doesn’t use *any* Game Room footage lol
Loved the video. Loved the giant bomb stuff. I’ve been on a throwback GB kick recently too. Surreal to hear Ryan’s voice again.
6:38 ah that is a whole couple's mood right there I love it.
The RRoD in the background was the icing on the cake! Lol
blinking red light 360 in the back was v nice touch
It feels like it should have just been an mmo hub world - basically a simulated giant arcade populated with exclusive mini games and whatever top tier arcade licenses they could get. It should have been a little arcade universe with voice chat, leader boards, ability to watch others play, maybe even hub world mini games as well, and be surrounded by actual online people, etc for one monthly fee of a few bucks.
I had forgotten about this until this video. And boy did it come flooding back, especially once you started talking about the pricing model used. I tried the Game Room out and stuck around for maybe 10 minutes and then left and never returned. Why buy games individually and way more that expected prices when I could get a compilation for cheap.
It was orange shag carpet at our house, but yeah, that's an essential if we're recreating old living rooms.
that brief clip of the infamous HHgregg's commercial at 0:10 is some CHOICE editing
I never knew this existed and I spent my teens entirely on the 360. Maybe that's for the best lol
“Taz” the Tasmanian tiger is a crossover I didn’t know I needed. A nonsensical Ty talking gibberish and throwing boomerangs.
Love Ryan Davis. Will never stop missing him.
Also, Gerstmann is still a threat.
I love the red ring a-flashin behind you
I love the red ring of death in the background.