Xbox offline - this was great!
In 2025, you can’t really get too far without having internet. Fair. I get that. And as most platforms and games are more like live services now these days, it makes it even more difficult to actually enjoy any of these things - if you’re not hooked up to the web. I am, however, amazed with what Microsoft has done here.
So, I recently bought a house. The most annoying thing, by far, has been to deal with the Internet. Or rather; lack there of. I ordered the service, got the subscription… but the entire setup at the house wasn’t working. I had to wait for a week for them to come and fix it! Mind you, I live in a city. Sure thing, it’s not the capital, but still: a city. Not some remote village, or a single lone house at the top of a mountain. A city, fairly populated too - as far as cities in Norway goes.
Anyhow. Since I didn’t have any Internet, I figured: «Huh, might revisit the Xbox. Fill these hours with something». I am so glad I did. I used my cellular data, and activated my xbox as a home machine, or home console (what ever they call it), for it to be able to access my games that had been installed on the machine, without the need to login to any Microsoft services. So all the games I had, could now be played. No problem what so ever.
I must say, I have actually had a blast! I have spent hours playing Halo (finally finished Halo 4!), enjoyed more of Kingdom Hearts (1), some Spyro, and at last… a game I thought I would never touch again: South Park - The Stick of Truth. I played it for like 1 hour a few years back, and never touched it again. It felt «off» to me, at that point. Let’s just say, it does NOT feel «off» to me now! The combat, the systems, the lovely humor that I have missed having in my life, all of it. I sat and played 3 hours straight one night - and the hours just flew by!
My week without internet in the house was a bit sad. Not gonna lie, it got me stressed out. Sure, I had cellular, internet through my carrier: But it does not give the same level of «safety» when it comes to data usage. Whereas a line into the house comes without any limit; that is not the case for carriers. Sure, they can give u unlimited data plans. Sure thing! However, most of them (at least here in Norway) limit the speeds after you’ve reached a certain amount of data spent. So I just connected my devices when I really had to, to get some stuff done - then back to nothing.
This week, I have rediscovered the joys of console gaming. And that makes me happy. Hopefully, I will still put in a few hours here and there, once I have unlimited Internet. I hope so.
Abbi