On August 12, 2020, the gaming industry lost one of its legends. Brett Schnepf was one of the earliest members working on Microsoft hardware and tech, perhaps most importantly helping to produce the very first Xbox console. The original Xbox is still beloved by many in the gaming community and it would not have been made possible without the work of Brett Schnepf and numerous others.
Schnepf enjoyed a lengthy career at Microsoft, spanning nearly two decades. Some of the earliest work he did for the company in terms of gaming was the development of the Sidewinder controllers, which were originally produced in 1995. The Sidewinder controllers were optimized for original PC games and were one of the earliest controllers to be used to play PC games, such as Quake 2 and the original Doom.
Schnepf’s claim to fame would not come along until Seamus Blackley, one of the founding creators of the original Xbox, approached Schnepf and his team about designing a game console for Microsoft. According to Blackley, Schnepf was terrified at the prospect and believed that such an undertaking would ruin his career. Little did Schnepf know that the Xbox would grow to become one of the most recognizable pieces of gaming hardware in history and ignite a console war with PlayStation that would last three generations of hardware.
Though, perhaps one of Schnepf’s most important and historic contributions to the development of the original Xbox was his involvement in creating the original Xbox controller. Schnepf was one of the lead developers during the creation of the controller and was the one who nicknamed it the “Duke” controller, the name Duke referring to his son, who was incredibly young during the controller’s production.
Seamus Blackley took to Twitter to remember and celebrate the life of Brett Schnepf. Blackley went on to describe Schnepf as instrumental to the production of the original Xbox. High praise, coming from the man directly responsible for the creation of the console. During Schnepf’s last few years working at Microsoft, he was directly involved with the production of Microsoft Train Simulator and Microsoft Flight Simulator, a series that is still being produced today.
Brett Schnepf is survived through his son Duke, the man the original Xbox controller was codenamed after. Duke has since created a GoFundMe page in order to cover the funeral costs. Brett Schnepf was and will forever remain one of the integral players in making Xbox hardware as big and as memorable as it is today.
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