Review: EON Gaming’s XBHD works well but is very niche

EON Gaming has officially launched XBHD. It is a plug-and-play solution that helps gamers play original Xbox games on their HDTV systems. EON was kind enough to provide me with a review unit alongside an original Xbox system, but all thoughts below are my own. If you like what you read, you can purchase your own XBHD from Amazon, Castlemania Games, GamesConnection, and StoneAgeGamer for $189.99.

Let’s talk about the physical product before diving much deeper. This is honestly the strongest area of ​​the XBHD. The packaging it comes in is a lot of fun as it’s designed to echo the design of the original Xbox, which is a really fun touch. Furthermore, the physical structure of the XBHD is solid and well thought out. The plastic shell has a similar design aesthetic to the Xbox, fits snugly into the cavity, and has two feet on the bottom to ensure the Xbox’s ports aren’t subjected to excessive strain that could cause damage. So far, so good. The HDMI ports on the back are a little narrow, but not too narrow in my opinion. It’s also very nice that the XBHD doesn’t require any kind of external power.

Now the big question: does XBHD work? YES! I was able to play some classic titles like Halo 2, NFL Blitz 2003AND Fable on my monitor and televisions via HDMI no problem. I was also able to connect my monitor and TV at the same time thanks to the dual HDMI output. I want to point out that I don’t have any other Xbox consoles, so I haven’t been able to test whether the Ethernet ports work, but I’m willing to take EON’s word on this one. However, I tested the Mini TOSLINK with my soundbar and it worked, although if you use it with headphones or something, make sure you can adjust the volume on your listening device as the XBHD has no volume control. Interestingly, EON states in the instructions to enable 1080i in the Xbox settings, but I have no 1080i games (there were very few) to test and try to figure out why. Also, I don’t have 720p titles, but 480p worked perfectly.

I want to take a quick moment and talk about image quality. I noticed that games looked a little dark, but I shrugged it off as just a setting I needed to change on my display. However, after reading some other reviews, it became apparent that this is normal for the XBHD, which is a shame. It is important to remember that XBHD does not perform any upscaling, filtering, smoothing, etc. It essentially serves as an analog-to-digital converter that can connect to two displays and three other LAN party consoles. So, depending on your TV, you may find that the picture isn’t the best. That’s when I found the Marseille mClassic very useful. My TV is very cheap and doesn’t always have the best features. For example, all games were scaled to 16:9 regardless of whether the game supported it or not, which is a shame. Thankfully, the mClassic can be set to Retro mode which solves this problem. Also, in my opinion, mClassic worked great to smooth out the image and make the games look better.

This brings me to my final verdict. The XBHD works and accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is great. However, I can’t help but wonder who all this is really aimed at and I’ve found two answers. The first answer is streamers. Dual HDMI output lets you connect to a TV/monitor and capture card so you don’t have to worry about delays or latency while gaming. The only other audiences I can think of besides random outliers are places like gaming bars or gaming events/conventions. As I see it, these places are the only ones that could actually host something like a LAN party and have the necessary equipment. The two releases can help make multiplayer a little more comfortable, particularly on smaller screens. In the meantime, I challenge you to find me enough groups of at least three friends who each have an Xbox console and a TV to go with it (instead of just doing split screen) that could actually use the LAN party feature to make this product useful.

If you fall into one of the two categories mentioned in the last paragraph, the XBHD might be worth it, although I think it’s still a little pricey. I would probably rate it around a 6 or 7 out of 10 for these groups as it is more convenient than getting each of those parts separately. If you’re just looking for a way to connect your original Xbox console to an HDMI display, I have a hard time recommending the XBHD due to the price combined with features you probably wouldn’t take advantage of and which is the basis of my score below. It’s a physically solid product and works well, but it’s definitely overkill for most people I can think of.