Over the last three months I’ve been doing something completely foreign to me: gaming on an Xbox 360. Before this recent period, it’s likely I could count each and every time I’d touched an Xbox – original or 360 - on both hands. Outside of a brief affair with an old roommate’s original and a few misguided offerings of Sega’s (Gun Valkyrie, Panzer Dragoon Orta), Microsoft’s pair of gaming platforms have remained completely alien to me.

Upon its release in 2001 I found myself loathing the Xbox on principal for a number of reasons, the first of which relates to the timing of the Xbox’s release. ‘01 was a major year in gaming as it saw the debut of two brand new consoles, the Xbox of course and Nintendo’s GameCube, but it also marked Sega’s exit from the console business. Having grown up with three consecutive Sega systems in front of my television at home I was devastated, and I wasn’t in a particularly welcoming mood for yet another non-gaming company entering the fray.

Objectively I knew my animosity towards Microsoft and their Xbox was misguided. The demise of the Dreamcast, as well as the Sega I had known, was directly attributable to the poor domestic performance of the Sega Saturn and the rise of the PlayStation 2. Despite these significant factors working against Sega, I still felt a sense of betrayal on the part of Microsoft; sitting on the front of each and every Dreamcast were the words ‘Powered by Windows CE.’ Now I understood Microsoft’s role was solely that of providing the Dreamcast with an OS, but as a shaken, defeated Sega fanboy I was ready to blame anyone for their downfall.

I probably should have blamed Sony in hindsight; the PlayStation killed the Saturn in North America by doing a lot of the same things Sega did to Nintendo to carve out its share of the 16-bit market. Sony was the hip alternative to the Nintendo 64; they had their own edgy mascot alternatives to Mario, as well as a high quality line up of first party sports games (NFL Gameday!). Maybe I hadn’t held a grudge because there had been several PlayStations within my neighborhood that I had gotten a chance to become cozy with. Like my initial reluctance to accept Microsoft as a legitimate gaming company, I was skeptical of Sony’s place in the market initially, but that gradually changed as I played as much on friends’ PlayStations as I did my own Saturn. For all the time I spent at home with Shining Force III, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter II, I remember an equal amount of time spent at my friends’ with Twisted Metal 2, Crash Bandicoot, Jet Moto and Metal Gear Solid.

Over the course of the 32-bit era I had grudgingly come to accept Sony’s place in the gaming landscape. The thing is, my acceptance was a direct result of my friends’ ownership of a PlayStation and the games we enjoyed on it together. Beyond the realm of gaming, 2001 was a big year for me personally as I moved away from my home in New York and began the transition from high school senior to college freshman. Thankfully my roommate freshman year was a great guy, and perhaps more importantly, an avid gamer also. He provided the PlayStation 2 – as well as the TV – while I donated my Dreamcast to our modest gaming setup. Over that year I had plenty of time to warm to the PlayStation 2 as there wasn’t a day that went by without a little Capcom vs. SNK 2, Virtua Fighter 4 or a few rounds of the PSX version of Street Fighter Alpha 3. Like the original PlayStation before it, the PlayStation 2 had become a normal, almost natural destination for my gaming habits. Eventually I would buy one of my own.

Throughout college I gamed almost exclusively on the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast. My friends and I were all fighting game nuts and outside of Guilty Gear XX#R and Dead or Alive Ultimate, there was almost no reason for any of us to play Xbox – Spawn in Soul Calibur II doesn’t count. Beyond fighters I was still primarily interested in Japanese games at the time and all I saw when I looked at the Xbox was Halo, Knights of the Old Republic and Morrowind. I didn’t see the point and it seemed any Xbox game worth owning was also on PC.

Several years later I bought myself a PlayStation 3, as it seemed like the next logical step in my gaming career. I’ve never owned more than a single console per generation – Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 withstanding – and over the preceding years I had become comfortable with, perhaps even loyal to the PlayStation brand. Over these last couple of years I found myself increasingly negative towards the 360 without any good reason. While I loathed the original Xbox unjustly at launch my continued lack of interest in the platform was always backed up by a library that was devoid of titles that were of any interest to me. But now I found myself scoffing at Halo 3 and Gears of War, while I played hours upon hours of Resistance 2 and fell for the hype of Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2. Somehow, someway, I’d inexplicably become a Sony fanboy without knowing it.

Fortunately for me something else was beginning to slowly manifest itself inside me: I was becoming increasingly fond of Western game design. Having poured well over one-hundred hours into Fallout 3 and its DLC, it would be safe to say I was sold on the whole Western RPG concept, which left me pining for Mass Effect. Sadly my PC would never run it, and I would never buy a 360, so my potential date with Commander Shepard seemed likely to remain in stasis forever. Despite my reluctance to consider getting a 360, my interest had been piqued and I had unknowingly taken my first steps towards fanboy recovery.

The next and final steps to the process were welcoming the 360 and the crew of the Normandy into my home, giving them a seat next to my television and PlayStation 3. After close to eighty hours divided between the exploits of both Mass Effect 1 and 2, I can finally say that I’ve played and enjoyed something on Xbox. That doesn’t mean I’m going to run out and buy a 360 – I was able to borrow a friend’s console for two months – but I’m now open to it as a format. I’m curious about games I’ve previously dismissed like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts n’ Bolts just because they were 360 exclusives, and I’m terribly hyped for this week’s release of Alan Wake. I may not be a 360 owner, and at this point in its life cycle it seems unlikely, but I’m comfortable knowing that I could be a 360 owner and there wouldn’t be anything wrong about that.

I stand here today a cured man; sure, I’m still a fanboy at heart, but I’m a bigger fan of gaming at large. There are too many great games for us to let our platform allegiances and predisposed biases get in the way of enjoying them. Always remember that gaming can be fun no matter which platform it happens on.