The eject button held all the power on the original Xbox

The most important button on the original Xbox wasn’t the power button: it was the button to eject the disc tray.

[TheEnigma313]

The OG xbox had a strong disc eject

[Knightofelemia]

Not really they have drive belt issues people resorted to giving a love tap on the top of the Xbox where the disc drive is located to get the disc drive to pop open.

[TheEnigma313]

isolated problem. for me, that disc drive had some force and i had 2 different consoles.

[marioJP87]

You could hear that baby from the next room. I miss this Xbox crazily.

[darthv72]

I only ever used the power button to turn the system off. I always used eject to power it up as usually I was wanting to pop in a game disc and play. Why wait for the system to turn on before putting a disc in... just do it at the same time. I'd do the same with with the 360, press the eject button to open the tray and as it was power up, put the disc in and away we go.

[Orchard]

I used to do the exact same, plus the old trays weren't the fastest to open and close - much prefer the slot loaders we have today (plus we use disks less).

When I was working on 360 devkits, we would use the eject button all the time to exit the app and get back to the dev dashboard quickly since it was the fastest way if you didn't have a debugger attached (e.g. when running many kits for multiplayer) - it even worked without a disk in the drive. The drives would die pretty darn quick when they were being opened and closed 50-100 times a day.

Fortunately, the drives were kinda useless anyway, since you'd normally use a test kit if you had burnt a disk, but it was a funny 'hack' none the less.

[RedDevils]

I do that with my old PS2, just press the eject button to power it on while changing the disc at the same time.

[Gamer79]

I still remember the controller wire having the breaker to stop the console getting broken if you tripped on the wire.

[brewin]

Absolutely, The breakaway cord was a revelation! I had my first child the same year Xbox came out. Once she started running around, this literally became a life saver. The only thing that sucked was if you lost the end piece.

[AuraAbjure]

My disc eject finally stopped working after like 9 years. Good times.

[Popsicle]

I had the opposite. On one of my two OG Xbox’s, the power button quit working but the eject button works just fine. I am happy it was the power button instead of the eject given it still powers on.

[Knightofelemia]

I never went OG Xbox I just stuck with PS2 and DC but after buying a $10 OG Xbox the look grows on you.

[Kurt Russell]

The duke controller as well. That was a really comfortable controller for bigger hands... looked ugly, but great to use.

[Knightofelemia]

I bought lot of untested OG Xbox controllers which came with the Duke and the S I have used both I prefer the S more.

[Kurt Russell]

I think a lot of people preferred the S, I am in the minority for sure, but there are a few of us out there :P

[rippermcrip]

Did we really just have an article about the size of the eject button on a console? What the hell.

[WheatBread]

One of the best consoles I've ever had.

[Good-Smurf]

Too bad that those two buttons were the first thing to break.
I have two Xbox and one of them I can't even turn off so every time I plug it in it the console starts right away and Eject was very specific of where you press it anything other than a hard high center press the button won't work right.
The second one I got late last year from Japan was the same broken power button and barely functioning eject button.
None of my PS2s ever have power/eject button issues.

[Magog]

I owned one and I forgot it wasn't a slot loader. I actually like the tray better. The PS2 had one and it was a thing of beauty. Even better was the pop top of the original Playstation. PS3 had a slot loader and on PS4 I bought most of my games digitally. Yes it's all easier over time but you're more removed from the experience of choosing and starting a game. It's not a physical process anymore. Everything is remote and digital.

[ARESWARLORD]

OG xbox was a king

[BoneMagnus]

Ah memories…I remember firing it up for the first time with the huge Duke controller and Halo - and immediately being blown away (literally - I really sucked at FPS at first!).