When the PlayStation 2 was announced in 1999, Sony claimed the console would “redefine the computer world.” This didn’t sit well with Microsoft executives, and the race to create a competitive console and win the war for the world’s living rooms began. Microsoft was an expert in software development and knew it could create a console with more power than the PS2, but when it came to hardware, the company had to start from square one by dismantling a PS2.
The original Xbox celebrates its 20th year anniversary in 2021, and the story of how it came to be is filled with just as much failure as success. From the console’s inception onward, higher-ups at Microsoft such as Bill Gates, Robbie Bach, and Steve Ballmer knew they needed to make a machine that would not only run games well but would be viable and attractive in a household setting. But hardware was never Microsoft’s specialty. The caveman ancestor of the fast-selling Xbox Series X of today was actually a massive silver X that never saw its first test run. The heads of hardware, Robbie Bach and Todd Holmdahl, would have to redesign the concept to make something more aesthetically pleasing, and they started by taking an in-depth look at the inside of a PS2.
Bach and Holmdahl discussed their plans with the head of business planning at the time, Aaron Greenberg, and the decision was made to do a tear-down of a PS2 themselves. As Greenberg puts it, “we actually had to take a PS2, we took the entire thing apart, put it on a giant wood board… [we] went through every component, every piece and priced it out and tried to figure out how many screws and how much did it cost.” Their first attempt resulted in an Xbox that crashed one out of every four times it was booted up and consistently scratched discs inserted in the disk drive. But just as Microsoft and Sony use each other for innovation now, Microsoft knew it could master hardware with guidance from the PS2, and even create some new features.
One of those new features was a built-in high-speed internet connection, the first of its kind on consoles, that would eventually become one of Microsoft’s most successful ventures, Xbox Live. Though Xbox Live was not available until the year after the release of the Xbox, the service became immensely popular and has developed into today’s Xbox Game Pass, which provides more free games than ever before.
The days of the original Xbox are far behind the gaming industry but there are still some things that haven’t changed. The 9th generation of consoles has produced some incredible tech, and Microsoft and Sony are still fighting for dominance to have a console in the living rooms of gamers everywhere. The new consoles have been so influential that furniture store giants like IKEA have placed cardboard replicas of the Xbox Series X and PS5 in their stores for size comparison. Console gamers should always be excited about company competition, as competition breeds innovation and makes consoles of the future that much better.
Source: Bloomberg.com
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