What was the first Xbox called
At this time, active considerations are underway for the acquisition of Sega by the Mikes. After all, PeK’s sales were falling, including because of the PS2, which can not only play games, but also play DVDs and CDs, show videos, turn on music, and in general they say computers are not needed. Microsoft looked at the Dreamcast and said that Sega clearly could not be a worthy window for the Windowers in the video game business, much less become a serious rival for Sony.
It all started with the fact that four guys from the DirectX development team gathered in the Fantastic Four and began to hatch the idea of ​​​​creating their own game console.
Seamus Blackley
Kevin Bacchus
Otto Berkes
Ted Hayes
The plans of the four were: to make features like a PC, but with a simple UI and fast loading of games like a console, support for DirectX, and also get ahead of Sony in performance quite a lot.
In 1999, the Quartet project reached Gates, he said “well done,” approved an early technical plan, and set Bacchus and Rick Thompson to build the business model. The working title was DirectX Box (in honor of the main project), but was shortened to Xbox.
The team began to interview developers, finding out what they needed in the console so that they would not take a steam bath at all. Meanwhile, engineers were designing new versions of the console, and Gates sent them back, saying it wasn’t powerful enough for people to see the difference between the PS2 and their brainchild. The engineers decided to focus on the Intel Nvidia bundle, so the Xbox itself, built on the x86 architecture, looked like a computer in hardware than a console.
Take a look at the specs for yourself:
Custom 32-bit Intel Pentium III 733 MHz
Nvidia NV2x (GeForce 3/4) 233 MHz
64MB RAM
8GB Solid State Drive
This is what Dev Kits for developers looked like, it differs from a PC only in that a gamepad is connected to it, and not a keyboard, and the operating system is Xbox OS based on Windows 2000. (although they write differently everywhere – someone says that XOS is written from scratch)
Microsoft entered the finish line, according to preliminary calculations, they could suffer terrible losses, so they gathered as a whole team thinking about the correctness of all decisions.
They had to advertise Juan, but here the Mikes had freedom, because they have plenty of dough, because of the endless flow of money from Windows.
March 10, 2000 at the Game Developer Conference came the time for the first presentation. Xbox is represented by Bill Gates himself, then he showed only the logo and general information. People took the “Box” cool, it’s understandable, Microsoft is green (in every sense) in this industry and no one was going to trust them at their word.
Meanwhile, shops were flooded with advertisements, magazines were also filled with news about Juan. About $500 million was spent on this. (2/3 of the entire marketing budget for boxing)
The next presentation took place in January 2001 at CES. This time Xbox was represented not only by Gates, but also by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. They announced the date of the start of sales, showed the console itself and its “Duke” controller, which you involuntarily begin to compare with the Dreamcast gamepad.
By the way, the players didn’t really like Duke himself – he was huge, didn’t even fit in his hands, and it was trivially difficult for them to play. Microsoft even had to release an updated Xbox controller S.
At E3, people were allowed to try the console in games, but it turned out that in the wild, the console did not play games as well as in the videos from the presentation. People thought that they were bred, though not for money, but for graphics. Microsoft had to fix it, they sent Blackley in for an interview with IGN, gave him an early version of Wreckless, told him to fix it.
He said that the Mikes screwed up, delivered early prototypes and said here is the REAL gameplay in short. Everyone in the editorial office noted the unusual act of Seamus and the then unusual amount of detail in the game. (Yes, Wreckless came out on other consoles, but it was on Xbox that she was the most graphic)
November 15, 2001 Xbox appeared in stores and bought 1 million units in the first 3 weeks. This is a very good result for newcomers to the industry.
Xbox launch lineup in 2001
Halo: Combat Evolved
Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee
Dead or Alive 3
Project Gotham Racing
NFL February 2002
Air Force Delta Storm
Mad Dash Racing
Cel Damage
Arctic Thunder
Fusion Frenzy
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2X
TransWorld Surf
4×4 EVO 2
Shrek
The box could not surprise with exclusives and almost all games from Juan can be found on other platforms. The players were not particularly interested in the Xbox, but he definitely found his buyer.
Later, Xbox had its own online service – Xbox Live (it’s not just that the console has Internet access). It was distributed by subscription and there was access to a joint game and voice chat.
As a result, Microsoft managed to sell >24 million units, considering that the Xbox was struggling with the Nintendo GayClub (21.74 million) and the Sega Dreamcast (10.6 million).