20 Facts You Never Knew About The First Xbox
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The original Xbox was a revolutionary system and offered much more than people give it credit for! Here are 20 incredible facts about the Xbox.
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Anytime that you have multiple companies vying for a space in a particular field it is a good thing for the consumer. Having new innovation not only pushes other established companies to innovate, but it also drives research and development into components in an effort to make them cheaper for the consumer. Without this constant completion you are left with high prices and a limited amount of options to choose from. While there were certainly options out there, it ultimately boiled down to Nintendo and Sony fighting it out for a position at the top with companies like Sega picking up what was left. Wanting to create something totally different a group of DirectX engineers got together and began brainstorming on the idea of bringing a PC-like console to the market for the first time. They weren’t sure how they were going to go about it at first or how Microsoft would receive it, but they were hopefully given Bill Gates comments on the gaming industry.
When they started on the prototype many inside the company felt that it would be nothing more than a pet project that would never truly get off the ground. Even so, it wasn’t that far-fetched of a plan given the fact that the company had worked closely on the Dreamcast in the past and had great working relationships with many video game companies. Through their years of hard work, they were able to create something truly groundbreaking and helped to pave the way for the kind of next-gen consoles that we know of today. They proved a concept and pushed other companies to do more in the field of console gaming.
20 Connecting Two Worlds
It’s interesting to look at Windows 10 now and see the kind of vision that Bill Gates had for the company all those years ago. For the first time, the company has a real chance at truly bridging the gap between PC and console gamers and we have the Xbox development team to thank for that. Without their deep desire for a computer console, we might not even be as far along as we are today.
Considering it’s been hinted at that the company borrowed ideas from Sega, it’s no surprise that they shared a vision for console gaming as well. Like Sega, the company set out to find new ways to connect PC games and console gamers together. They accomplished this by creating a custom Windows 2000 operating system for the console. This allowed for the easy porting of games created on the PC and also created the potential for cross-platform play.
19 Things Got Strange
There are a lot of things that you can find out from the early concepts of a design. As is the case with many things, the product that we were presented with during launch was far and away from what the original creators had in mind. For starters, Seamus Blackley’s concept art shows that they had the intention of creating a controller similar to that of the Dreamcast.
The original console was going to be a literal X with no box.
While this would certainly have made the console stand out, it’s rather hard to picture such a system being created. As you can probably imagine, they shelved the idea because the engineers felt that it wouldn’t be possible to put hardware into such a form factor. You could easily do so nowadays, but I think they made the right decision.
18 Bait And Switch
Can you imagine designing and developing for a company and putting your heart and soul into a project only to learn that you were no longer a part of it at the last moment? Well, that’s exactly what happened with AMD during the construction and development of the original Xbox. So, why did this happen exactly? Well, there are a few theories inside Microsoft, but the most prevalent appears to be cost related.
Initially, Bill Gates went with AMD because they had the slightly stronger processor, but two days before the unveiling of the Xbox as a console he decided to go with Intel. Apparently, in the midst of losing market share to AMD, Intel decided to present an offer to Microsoft that they couldn’t refuse. They looked at the offer that AMD was making and severely undercut them to secure the Xbox contract.
17 Dude, You’re Getting A Dell
While Bill Gates had been discussing the idea in meetings for some time, he was hesitant to go forward with a gaming console. Not because he didn’t think it could be done, but because he feared that a failure of such a console would hurt the company brand. It didn’t help matters that he didn’t even know where to begin given that the company had never developed something of the like before.
He floated the idea of developing a console that was like a portable computer.
Wanting to compete with the upcoming PlayStation 2, a group of four Microsoft engineers from the DirectX team got to work. Ted Hase and Otto Berkes began the process by disassembling Dell laptop computers and piecing them together to create a Windows based gaming console. Their hope was to lure developers back to the Microsoft platform.
16 What’s In A Name
Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley talked at length about the difficulty with getting the console off the ground. He stated that while Bill Gates was on board with the idea, many inside Microsoft saw it as more of a hobby than a real project. It wasn’t just because of the amount of funding being far less than any Microsoft project, but the fact that the company had never been a part of the market that made earning respect difficult.
Knowing that a console name had to speak about the product, Blackley and his fellow engineers came up with the name “DirectXbox” and presented it to marketing. They hated the idea and felt that consumers would be immediately turned off by it. Instead, they came up with over thirty-five different names and shorted the “DirectXbox” to Xbox. Seamus and his fellow engineers had the last laugh though as focus groups indicated that consumers loved the Xbox name.
15 Buying Their Way In
Before even approaching Sony, Bill Gates had attempted to buy out two giants in the video game industry. He had no doubt about the company’s ability on the software side of things, but he felt that having a company with experience in that form factor and hardware would be beneficial.
He set out to present a plan to both Nintendo and Sega about making the hardware.
Having either company make the hardware would have been a defining moment for Microsoft. They had already done the software side of things on the Dreamcast, so it made perfect sense that they would do it again with the Xbox. The Sega deal ended up falling through due to the want for SegaNet to be a part of the Xbox. As for Nintendo, it was a flat out no, but Bill Gates did toy with the idea of buying the company outright for twenty-five billion dollars.
14 A Merger Of Two Giants
There is no question that Bill Gates is a smart businessman. He has built an empire that continues to play a major part in computer hardware and software development and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. He’d always loved gaming and so when it came time to make his own console he went to a company with knowledge for help.
Bill Gates wanted to make a console that truly bridged the gap between PC and console gaming.
Though Microsoft had a ton of experience with computers, they didn’t know much about the game console market and so Bill Gates thought that partnering with a giant like Sony was the best option. Though he thought that he had a good business model to entice Sony with, the console giant turned down his proposal. From that point on he set out to crush the company, even nicknaming the console project Midway.
13 Music To Your Ears
It’s not easy being a pioneer in anything and often times what you have done in a particular field isn’t recognized until long after the products end. Such is the case with the Xbox and the implementation of live audio through Dolby Digital 5.1. It might sound like an afterthought now, but before the Xbox there was no console on the market that had this capability.
Without surround sound, the Halo game that we know of today wouldn’t have been possible.
It was defiantly taking a leap and it didn’t come without increased production cost, but its implementation made the experience within the first Halo possible. It gave gaming companies a new component to work with and it allowed them to enhance the end user experience even more. Though not every Xbox game used the feature, it set the stage for its inclusion in all gaming consoles since.
12 Strange Restrictions
From the time the Xbox was introduced Microsoft felt that its competitors were trying to undermine their success. This might seem like just paranoia with being uncertain about a business move, but it turns out that the design team behind the Xbox had good reason to feel the way they did. For starters, before they were even able to introduce the idea into the Japanese market they were told that they would have to change the color of the console.
The reason, according to the Japanese government, was that the color black was associated with death. That seems understandable until you consider that the PlayStation 2 was also a black console. They were even told that they would have to change their name due to a similar connotation. It gets worse though when you consider that they had to redesign the controller for the Japanese version before they could actually sell the console.
11 Missing The Mark
While Bill Gates might not have known how to go about creating a console he did know a thing or two about making it a hit. He understood that there was a deep need for having hit launch titles and franchises associated with a console and he saw the enormous amount of success that Sony had with the Final Fantasy franchise.
The company did all it could to secure big name franchises as console exclusives.
They got their first big break when Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami began expressing his displeasure with the PlayStation 2 platform. He was vocal about his dislike for the game engine and the difficulty that came along with designing games for it. Rather then send the design team to meet him, Microsoft Japan executives insisted they take over the meeting. Not being avid games like the original developers, they couldn’t connect with Mikami and he declined the offer.
10 It’s Not Easy Being Green
When it comes to a logo design a lot of thought goes into it. After all, it’s the symbol that speaks to your brand and it is what helps you stand out from the competition. In the world of gaming there have been many incredible logos created over the years, but when Microsoft unveiled theirs for the Xbox many were understandably confused by it.
Rumors began to swirl as to the true reason behind the color selection.
Out of all the colors that Microsoft could have selected, why did they choose that particular shade of green? At first, Xbox designer Horace Luke stated that it was to mimic electronic power, but a story began to circulate implying something different. As it turns out, according to many inside the Xbox team, the reason green was selected by Luke was because it was the only marker color left in his office. Apparently, all his other markers were stolen by co-workers.
9 All In The Numbers
Aside from the design and the presentation of a console there is a deep discussion about price. Developers are right to have these types of conversation at length because there have been many consoles, the 3DO as an example, who have failed not because they didn’t have the right hardware, but because their price tag was too high. It becomes a question of what they feel that the market can bare at that particular time.
Though the console was revolutionary for its time, many inside Microsoft felt that the $299.99 price tag was just too much for consumers to handle. They felt that if the console was released at this price point that it would fail immediately and they would be given a similar fate to the Dreamcast. Ultimately, they stuck with the launch price we know of today and didn’t do half bad, selling just over twenty-four million consoles.
8 Taking A Big Hit
As I’m sure you are probably well aware of by now, the original Xbox took a loss of four billion dollars over four years. You might be wondering how a company like Microsoft could allow such a thing to happen, but the answer to why is actually a bit complex. At the time Microsoft was new to the console market and as such consumers didn’t know if they could trust them to deliver.
This; coupled with the fact that the console actually cost the company a little over four hundred to make, complicated matters. So, how did it get so expensive? Well, for starters it had a hard drive embedded into it, something that no other console had at the time, along with an internal power supply. Blackley stated that they could have easily lowered the price if they had removed the hard drive, but he felt it was the way of the future. It turns out, we have him to thank for its implementation ever since.
7 Not Their Cup Of Tea
Design disagreements happen all the time and they are in no way a bad thing. Sometimes, they are what opens up the conversation again and gives rise to an even better idea and other times they prevent a company from making a colossal mistake that they can’t recover from. Sometimes, companies are limited though based on the particular hardware they are working with.
Seamus Blackley championed for a smaller Xbox controller for the system.
He felt that the large style controller was too different from what consumers had been used to and that it would turn a lot of them away from the system. He stated that he had to compromise because it was either a smaller controller or the hard drive. He felt no hard drive would doom the system and that eventually consumers would force the change themselves. This happened as predicted and the Xbox S controller was born.
6 An Iconic Title That Almost Wasn’t
I know that there’s one title that I will always remember from the original Xbox and that is Halo. I spent countless hours playing and replaying the campaign and battling it out with others in multiplayer matches. My love was so great for the original game in fact that I bought it again when it was released for the PC. Being the iconic title that helped to catapult Microsoft into the console war wasn’t always Bungie’s idea though.
As a matter of fact, they had originally made plans to simply release it on the Mac, but decided to offer the company up to Microsoft because they felt that it would take games more seriously. It worked and Bill Gates bought the company, ensuring that one of the greatest titles ever made would be an Xbox exclusive. Creative differences almost doomed the project though as Bungie had created something similar to Destiny before switching to an FPS at Microsoft’s request.
5 Some Weird Contingency Plans
When we watch something like E3 we often don’t think about all the things that could go wrong during a showcase. Most of the time, products are still in their developmental stages when they are presented. This means that companies are well aware that anything could go wrong with the system they are presenting at any moment.
At E3, Microsoft had a backup player underneath the stage during the presentation.
In those days and even now, it’s not uncommon to have a employee follow along with the gameplay in order to ensure a seamless switch if something go wrong. The particular position of the employee during the company’s Xbox launch was due to the fact that they didn’t have any place backstage where the employee could watch the gameplay. Even with this in place, the company also employed the use of pre-recorded demos as a second backup option.
4 Thoughts Of Sabotage
When you are as big a company as Microsoft you are bound to have more than your fair share of people who don’t particularly like you. They would love nothing more than for the company to meet disaster and many within the gaming industry saw the company’s incoming console as a threat. Many felt that the company had no business within the field of video game consoles and that it was simply another way to corner the market.
After the launch within the United States and around the world, reports started coming in that consumers discs were being scratched by the disc tray. Having painstakingly designed it themselves and being aware of its possible faults, many of the Xbox engineers suspected sabotage by manufactures overseas. Having run into problems before launch in areas like Japan and elsewhere, their fears were well-founded. Seamus Blackley stated that the likelihood of such occurrences was so small that he was sure manufactures were behind it.
3 A Great Leap
At the time of its creation, the original Xbox was a powerhouse of a machine. It had a processor that was much more powerful than anything that the competition had to offer and it had a hard drive that was absent from other consoles. Additionally, it had a built-in Ethernet port that ensured that it would be ready for the future of online gaming and for Xbox live.
It was a truly remarkable machine that, like the Dreamcast, doesn’t get enough credit for what it had to offer. Through it was a truly groundbreaking system for the time, it is interesting to see how it stacks up with the current gen console. As it stands, it would take one hundred and twenty-eight original Xbox consoles to equal the same ram capacity that is currently in the Xbox One. That’s pretty incredible when you think about it.
2 Not An Easy Choice
What’s in a name? Well, a lot actually, and when it comes to video game consoles it can be the difference between you selling millions of consoles and being a success or being a dud. Understandably, there was a lot of debate inside the company as far as what name to use for the system.
Many on the original design team felt that the proposed names didn’t share their vision.
That is to say that the names didn’t reflect what the console itself was about. They selected the DirectXbox as a name because it told the consumer what it was built on and signified the merging of a video game console with a PC. Executives hated it and had staff come up with alternatives. Some alternatives were AIO, MIND, LEX, RPM, and EHQ, to name a few. I can only imagine what history would have been like had these names be selected instead.
1 Dreaming Of The Dreamcast
While a lot of us might not have appreciated what the Dreamcast was as a system until much later, it was quite clear that Bill Gates had deep respect for Sega in that regard. He saw them as pioneers in the gaming industry and he felt that they were truly making headway for the future of console gaming as a whole.
This deep respect not only caused him to seek out a deeper partnership with them but also drove him to entertain the idea of having backward compatibility with the Xbox. Given that Xbox live was currently in development at the time it is easy to see why the deal fell through. Isao Okawa, chairmen of Sega, wasn’t able to get SegaNet to be a part of the console and so the deal fell through. Though the initial partnership failed, Gates wanted to continue the friendship and had Sega create eleven titles for the system.
Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/facts-you-never-knew-about-the-first-xbox/