During the height of the lockdown, like many I fancied trying something a little different. To some this meant taking up painting, or finally getting round to sorting out the shed, for me it was playing more games. When was walking around a socially distanced car boot sale, I spotted a cheap Xbox and a bunch of games, all for twenty English pounds. After getting too excited about owning a console I’ve not played before, and not even asking if it worked, I bought it can took it home to get absorbed into Halo Combat Evolved. As things got back to normal, my time with Microsoft’s box of goodness gradually fell away, but I did come away with fond memories of Team Green’s first console.
Then 2021 came around and with the hype around Halo Infinite gaining momentum, I wanted to dive back into Master Chief’s world. I proudly pulled the black box from its space on the gaming shelf, and in what I still maintain as my work out for the day, moved it to the living room and went to hook it up where I found one crucial problem – I had a new TV. Consoles didn’t always have the HDMI slot to hook up to. In the late 1990s-early 2000s SCART (a blocky connection mainly found in Europe), Component, RGB and Composite connections, were the norm. With the standardisation of HDMI, these have become obsolete and are gradually being excluded from new TV sets, which I recently discovered to my utter dismay.
Scratching my head, I took to the internet to see what I could do. I came across several options, firstly modding the console, which involved a whole lot of stuff and expense I wasn’t prepared for. RetroTink adapters seemed like an all-in-one solution that can even be used for other consoles. The trouble is that they are usually out of stock and the postage from the States was incredibly expensive.
Cheaper alternatives simply don’t work either, primarily because these units are aimed at the NTSC market, which is a big problem if you live in PAL regions. Up until very recently European TV pictures ran at a slower refresh rate, typically around the 50hz mark. If you compare the Mega Drive version of Sonic the Hedgehog against the Genesis version you’ll see it runs an awful lot slower and the sound is out of whack. This is because NTSC regions ran at 60hz so while they ran as God intended, the Europeans were left in the lurch.
As the cheap and nasty adapters didn’t work, I was at a loss. That was until I found the HDMI adapter for the Xbox from the people at Kaico. This piece of kit plugs straight into the console and, much like the boxes I’ve tried before, you just attach it to a HDMI cable and switch the console on. I was hugely sceptical of a brand I’d never heard of, along with the hefty £35 price tag since I’d been burnt on similar, albeit cheaper boxes. But since Amazon offers buyer protection, I could always return the item if it didn’t work, so much like buying the Xbox, I dove in head first and asked questions later.
When the box arrived, my fears weren’t exactly settled. The unit weighs absolutely nothing and once I extracted it from the packaging the unit felt like it could fall apart at any moment. The experience didn’t get any more assuring as it was a mission to fit the thing into Bill Gates’ pride and joy, but once it eventually clunked into the AV Out port, that bright green logo flashed up on the screen and everything came to life.
I set about playing Halo again and like a nerdy kid at Christmas, who was more excited to play with the box, the results were impressive. Everything worked as it should, the picture was full of bright colours, and deep blacks. The lasers shot from enemies seemed a lot clearer to what I had previously played and the world felt even more alive, full of crisp lines and colours that popped out of the screen.
To set expectations, this isn’t some miracle device that will upscale your image into a masterpiece in 4K, rather Kaico takes the image from the Xbox and translates it into a digital picture, and while the image does appear to show improved colours, this is just a by-product of digitising the video signal.
I’ve had the Kaico Xbox HDMI Adapter for a little while and I’m amazed every time I play a game. I haven’t noticed any lag from controller to screen and during my first test I was happily moving Master Chief from enemy to enemy and shooting them with gleeful abandon. When I loaded up the sublime Amped, I was able to pull off tricks and navigate tight courses as easily as I could when playing on an older television. I will stress that I am unable to compare the Kaico to the usual analogue input, so I’m not able to compare the set up against the original configuration but I didn’t notice any input lags from controller to screen.
The price of the adapter is going to be a problem for some. At £35 there are a few options to consider. I could find a compatible second hand TV for less than that price on Facebook Marketplace, but since I only have room for one TV, this is also impractical for my situation. By all accounts, RetroTink is supposed to be able to offer this all-in-one situation for multiple consoles, so while it is more expensive than Kaico’s product the availability and shipping costs also have to be considered. Again, for me this was the best way to go.
If I was to nit-pick, the unit could do with being a bit heavier so it’s not easily lost, and while the price was steep, I certainly got what I paid for. It is a joy to visit those old Xbox games on original hardware without extensive modding. That’s the thing about retro gaming as a whole – you have to work to your individual constraints. If you’re able to invest, or have the room for an old CRT screen, then go wild. If you have the skill to solder an HDMI port to a console, then take that option, but if a one off box is all your budget will stretch too, then the Kaico converter is an ideal compromise.
The adapter was purchased from Amazon UK and I am not affiliated with Kaico, nor was I paid to write this product review. Links in the article may be affiliated.