This week in CS History – 15/11/2001 Microsoft releases its first console Xbox
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Microsoft’s first foray into the console market sparked confusion upon it’s initial release. Microsoft were well known for their operating systems and a few peripherals such as mice and keyboards, but here they were releasing a full hardware gaming console and pitting it against well established brands such as Nintendo, Sega and Sony. The odds were certainly stacked against it.
Fortunately for Microsoft, they had a line of exclusive games to launch on the Xbox including Halo:Combat Evolved, Project Gotham Racing and Dead or Alive 3 which would go on to be a massive success. If you wanted to play these titles, you had to have an Xbox and this worked massively in Microsoft’s favour.
Unlike other consoles, the Xbox closely resembled the hardware found on a PC. It featured a custom Intel Pentium 3, a DVD drive (which you could play DVD movies on) and was the first console to feature an internal hard drive.
The hard drive allowed you to rip songs from a music CD onto the Xbox’s hard drive and play them in games like Grand Theft Auto. In fact, by modding the Xbox, users found that they could install an operating system onto it and have a reasonably fast PC at a fraction of the price of what the hardware would have cost them.
Microsoft of course, used a modified version of Windows 2000 as the operating system but it launched into a very futuristic green and black looking menu system that allowed access to the hard drive and settings.
The Xbox did surprisingly well, helped by some great and exclusive games and has managed to carve it’s own niche through the ‘console wars’ that have followed.
Here’s to another 20 years of Xbox!