Why Does The Eon Gaming XBHD Original Xbox HD LAN Adapter Exist?

What do you do if you want to connect your original Xbox to your TV via HDMI? And what if you wanted to have a LAN party with original Xbox hardware? Well, towards the end of May 2023, the team over at Eon Gaming announced a new addition to their product lineup. They are calling it the XBHD, and it has a number of interesting features, but it raises a lot of questions too. Let's take a closer look.

Preorder the Eon Gaming XBHD at https://castlemaniagames.com/products/eon-xbhd?ref=RoXolid

One of the challenges with the original Xbox is the fact that you can't tap right into it and get an HDMI output. You have your multi connector which can output composite, component, and S video. Well, it appears that Eon Gaming is tapping into this port and providing you with an HDMI output. According to their own specs, it will output anywhere from 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i resolutions. This tells me that there is no line multiplication going on here. Unlike something like a RetroTink 2x or RetroTink5x, what you see is kind of what you get.

It seems like, connecting to your television, The XBHD is more an adapter of convenience than any actual video improvement. Now, this does feature twin HDMI outputs, so you can connect one Xbox to two different TVs to be able to have multiplayer fighting games for example, and each player gets their own television. I don't see the appeal to that, but at the same time, I'm not the biggest Xbox fan either.

Another interesting feature of the XBHD is the integrated LAN adapter and ethernet ports. It appears to feature three different LAN connection ports so you can go ahead and get your LAN party started. Interesting in theory, but in 2023 are LAN parties with original Xbox hardware that common? I don't know the answer to that question. I would think that if you would want to have the equivalent of an Xbox LAN party you would use either an Xbox 360, Xbox One or Xbox Series S or X and connect over the internet. A LAN party requires you to be in the same room, and is anyone really lugging around an original Xbox anymore? I don't know.

One interesting addition is an integrated 3.5mm MiniTOSLINK connector for audio. This is a very generational appropriate connector, but audio and video are both handled by HDMI so I don't know that there's a specific need for this.

In the end, for $190 I am not sure what market needs this is serving. I applaud Eon Gaming for doing something different, and I'm glad to see more love going to more retro hardware. I just don't know where this fits into the landscape of things. When you have the Xbox2HDMI adapter from Shepherd Electronics and things like these Xedusa from the Behar Bros that will get you to an HDMI connector for a fraction of the cost, it prices itself out of the market. I don't think going to HDMI is going to be the big winning feature here, I honestly think this is something that people who are going to set up and host land parties will get the most benefit from.

Let me know what you think of this in the comments, we are working on acquiring a sample for review. They are open for pre-order right now through the Castlemania Games website.

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