Microsoft Xbox
Developer: Microsoft
Year Released: 2001
Generation: 6th
Originally titled the ‘DirectX Box’, it was the first American-made console since the Apple Bandai Pippin in the mid 90’s. The console came about after collaborating with the Sega in the Dreamcast.
Bill Gates took to the stage at the Game Developers Conference in 2000 to formally announce the Xbox. At the time of Gate’s announcement, Sega Dreamcast sales were diminishing and Sony’s PlayStation 2 was just going on sale in Japan. At the time, online gaming on consoles was both unsuccessful and relatively unknown. The Dreamcast experimented with a modem adapter, but broadband support out of the box, a priority for the Xbox from day one, was unheard of. Downloading additional game content and demos was another foreign concept for gamers. Storing this media, as well as music ripped from CDs, on an internal hard drive was also new. This was a console, but it also sounded like a personal computer in terms of what it was capable of.
Xbox Live went online in November 2002; it was different from the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 services in that it required a subscription fee and broadband connection (before broadband had fully taken off). The service ended up being quite successful because Microsoft had better servers, easy to work online menus, and great multiplayer games such as the Halo series.
In Japan, despite aggressive marketing, Xbox was struggling with sales of a few thousand units per month compared to GameCube sales that were four times larger, and PlayStation 2 that were tenfold. Despite lagging far behind the PlayStation 2 sales, the Xbox was overall a success, especially in North America, and kept a steady second place in generation sales.