Returning from an Xbox 360-enforced hiatus (having gotten one just after Christmas), it’s entirely appropriate I finally post the following story (and no, it’s not about alien religions in Mass Effect). Aaron Linne from Christian company LifeWay has developed a multimedia Bible app for the Xbox 360: Bible Navigator X.
The move from printed to digital text is hardly a revolutionary one (especially for this blog) but its location on the Xbox 360 is particularly interesting from a social point of view. Gamers are a strange bunch, and the multiplayer gamers who can find Bible Navigator X on Xbox Live are more known for their head-shots and trash-talking than their bible-thumping.
The video also features the initially-innocuous but rather stunning admission from Linne: “I’m more comfortable with a controller in my hand than I am with a book in my hand.” I hardly see this sort of thing as the next step in religious evolution, but the jump he’s made over the keyboard and mouse is conspicuous by its absence. I also wonder how many gamers have those gamepads with keyboards…
