Current Events > The origin of Xbox is pretty fascinating

(+) Yeah! (+)

There were a lot of different teams in the background all competing with each other. And one team was slowly but surely nudging Bill Gates into approving a video game console. Some interesting factoids so far;
- The original gaming direction was to license out gaming PC's to companies and slap a logo on them. This was eventually abandoned when PC manufacturers just kept outsourcing their shit to China. It would also cost too much to handle several hardware configurations

- They talked about simply developing hardware for Sega. They already were working with them for Windows CE on the Dreamcast

- Bill Gates knew PlayStation was a threat to their business. They wanted to crack the living room. Their worst case scenario was Sony teaming up with AT&T and selling consoles ona contract. They kept a very close eye on both the PS1 and PS2 including their financials. The thing that ultimately kicked them into gear was the PS2 pitch that it would render gaming PC's obsolete thanks to its graphical power at a low price

- Microsoft offered to buy Bleem! for $10 million. Bleem was a PlayStation emulator developed for Windows and Dreamcast. Microsoft thought that could be good for Windows. They got rejected. Bleem ended up being sued by Sony and closed down

I'll post more interesting factoids as I read them!
---

blows my mind that bleem was a thing out in the wild for as long as it was

Or we can just watch the G4 documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtejBKHVppU
---

*begins deeding* fascinating indeed
---

Epic didn't like the Xbox at first. They wanted it to have a mouse and keyboard. They couldn't imagine playing an FPS on a controller.

The Sega CEO also told them it was a bad idea lol. But Bill Gates liked that the Xbox could boot up so quickly compared to PC's. So worst case scenario would still likely benefit windows so he was okay with it.
---

Darmik posted...

Microsoft offered to buy Bleem! for $10 million. Bleem was a PlayStation emulator developed for Windows and Dreamcast. Microsoft thought that could be good for Windows. They got rejected. Bleem ended up being sued by Sony and closed down

An interesting sidenote is that Sony sued another Playstation emulator before Bleem, the Virtual Game Station, or VGS for short.
Sony lost the case and decided to buy them emulator for an unknown sum.
Then they decided to sue Bleem, and lost again.
The reason Bleem had to close was because the lawyer costs were too high, they couldnt afford to keep the emulator alive.

They released three commercial Bleemcast discs for the Dreamcast, each playing a single Playstation game at a higher resolution, added AA and bilinear filtering. These three discs were the last ones to be cracked by pirates, because they had a much heavier copy protection than normal Dreamcast games.

...but since this is about the Xbox...
The first shown Xbox prototype was in the shape of a standing X and looked sexy as hell.
---

It's crazy to think show different the emulator scene could potentially be if Microsoft did buy them out.

The late 90s were a pretty crazy time for the industry. It was a critical few years and a lot of it happened behind the scenes.
---

One of the worst things to happen to gaming.
---

Think of it...
Microsoft releasing an Xbox that was much more powerful than the PS2, had its own console exclusives and it could play PS1 titles better than the PS2.
Sony had made bc a big deal back then, so I wonder how they would react.
Upgraded PS2 with better bc?
Would the PS3 be built around being able to play OG Xbox games as revenge?
---

- They considered buying Sega. Sega even pitched partnering with them to do their new console. When the Xbox was a thing that was happening it was a total punch to the gut for Sega. They were already paying for Windows CE on the Dreamcast. They were funding their eventual competition. Ultimately Sega were desperate and looking for someone to save them from drowning

- Microsoft met with Sony too. They pitched putting Windows on the PS2. They were rejected. It didn't make sense for Sony to share profits with Microsoft.

- Microsoft were extremely close to buying Square. They had the contracts signed up and Ballmer was involved. Suddenly Square doubled the price and wanted 1.5 billion. It was rejected

- Microsoft met with Nintendo a lot. They did intend to buy them. Microsoft pitched to Nintendo that they were a strong character company but a bad hardware company and they both benefited from a buyout. But they were also heavily considering a partnership. Nintendo actually suggested that Microsoft make the OS and Nintendo develop the hardware. Microsoft offered them to go third party and they'll be able to make a few games each year on Xbox with no royalty fees. Nintendo ultimately said no since it was considered to be a defeat.

Lonestar2000 posted...

One of the worst things to happen to gaming.

Not at all. They pushed forward online gaming and digital distribution for smaller scale games. That's a huge benefit.

Foppe posted...

Think of it...
Microsoft releasing an Xbox that was much more powerful than the PS2, had its own console exclusives and it could play PS1 titles better than the PS2.
Sony had made bc a big deal back then, so I wonder how they would react.
Upgraded PS2 with better bc?
Would the PS3 be built around being able to play OG Xbox games as revenge?

Yeah that's crazy to think about. It would have been great for us consumers really. Also good for keeping older games playable.
---

cool topic, where are you reading this all from?
---

Romulox28 posted...

cool topic, where are you reading this all from?

https://www.amazon.com/Game-X-v-1-Rusel-DeMaria-ebook/dp/B076KLVKC8/

It's pretty good. It really goes into how complicated and long the process of making a console actually is.
---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUjgqQJrpqw
---

- There was a big debate if they should include a hard drive with the original Xbox. Hard drives were expensive and prices don't go down (instead larger capacity drives would be the same cost the following year). They even had to choose between a hard drive or more RAM. Bungie likely would have asked for more RAM if they were included in the discussion (it's why a lot of Halo CE is recycled). Eventually the potential of patches made them lean towards a hard drive.

- They debated if Xbox Live should include a modem or just ethernet. They took a risk and gambled on ethernet. Broadband adoption was low at this point so it was a big risk. But it paid off

- Bill Gates was initially furious that Xbox didn't have windows. He called it an insult and screamed at executives in anger. This day is called the Valentine's Day Massacre. This meeting was long and heated. They all called their loved ones to say they won't be there for Valentine's. Ultimately it was Sony who convinced them that the Xbox was worth it. They were too big to ignore

- The day before the big reveal (with the silver X console mentioned earlier) they fried the power supply on their demo unit. They had to scramble and find a new one and luckily a PC shop had the part they needed. That would have been really stressful
---

- Oddworld Munch's Odyssey was originally being developed for PS2. But they had a lot of trouble. Their publisher was cutting all high budget games. On top of this the PS2 wasn't really working out well at handling their game. Microsoft were available to save the day. But they didn't know the Xbox was going to be a thing until Bill announced it on stage. They decided to go Xbox exclusive because the PS2 couldn't handle their game. Microsoft helped get the framerate under control too. This is probably the first betrayalton Sony fans felt from Microsoft.

- They partnered with Speilberg to get an A.I. tie-in game for launch. This was supposed to be a huge system seller. But the movie flopped and the game was cancelled

- Microsoft also tried to develop a Bruce Lee game with some ILM start ups. The game got cancelled due to development issues

- J Allard is the only guy in Microsoft who liked Azurik

- The people behind Halo and GTA3 were in the one meeting room with Microsoft at one point. Bungie was partly owned by Take Two at this point. Crazy to think that they would end up having the biggest impact that generation.

- Steve Jobs was excited about Halo for Mac. He even presented the game in Macworld (it looked very different then). When Microsoft bought them out he was absolutely furious and called Ballmer. Ballmer was worried it impacted their relationship with Apple. Microsoft agreed to let Apple make a Halo port for Mac to make up for it.

- Halo was a bit of a dud for its E3 debut and got a mediocre reception. It was an early multiplayer demo. It was a bit of a mess. They scrambled and fixed up the game for launch. They weren't sure if system link was going to be a success
---

Darmik posted...

- Microsoft offered to buy Bleem! for $10 million. Bleem was a PlayStation emulator developed for Windows and Dreamcast. Microsoft thought that could be good for Windows. They got rejected. Bleem ended up being sued by Sony and closed down

Worth noting Bleem! won the suit. They closed down because of legal fees fighting it. It's because of this suit that Emulators are considered legal (so long as they don't make use of any stolen code such as a BIOS rip).
---

neat
---

Anything about Rare in that book?
---

Not enough ram guys and it should have a VGA out for LAN parties.
---

masticatingman posted...

Anything about Rare in that book?

Not yet! Maybe later since that happened after the Xbox launch.

I know a Microsoft executive assumed they owned Donkey Kong lol
---

ehhwhatever posted...

Not enough ram guys and it should have a VGA out for LAN parties.

Heh, reminded me that the PS3 prototype had 2 HDMI and 3 Ethernet ports.
---

- Leading up to the Xbox launch third parties weren't overly happy with Sony or Nintendo. Sony gave preferential treatment to specific big name publishers and their tech support was pretty slow. Nintendo treated third party development on their consoles a privilege and almost treated them with contempt. Microsoft offered equal deals for everyone which displeased a few of the big Japanese publishers. One exception however was EA who were tough to negotiate with and were sceptical. They got a special deal unique to them. Microsoft negotiators called EA Snow White and the rest of the publishers the 7 dwarves. Microsoft also gave a lot of developer support compared to Sony and Nintendo

- Microsoft spoke to Shinji Mikami who was developing Resident Evil 4. He hated the PS2.
He was going to pick between GameCube or Xbox. Unfortunatly the meeting didn't go well due to awkward translations. Mikami wanted to know how Microsoft wanted viewed the game industry. Mikami says games are entertainment. Nintendo says games are toys. The answer from the representative would have been 'games are art' but it was too late. Mikami had left when the translator explained what he was asking. He went with Nintendo
---

Darmik posted...

. Mikami wanted to know how Microsoft wanted viewed the game industry. Mikami says games are entertainment. Nintendo says games are toys. The answer from the representative would have been 'games are art' but it was too late. Mikami had left when the translator explained what he was asking. He went with Nintendo

I love reading about how language barriers have changed significant things in history
---

Darmik posted...

- Microsoft spoke to Shinji Mikami who was developing Resident Evil 4. He hated the PS2.
He was going to pick between GameCube or Xbox. Unfortunatly the meeting didn't go well due to awkward translations. Mikami wanted to know how Microsoft wanted viewed the game industry. Mikami says games are entertainment. Nintendo says games are toys. The answer from the representative would have been 'games are art' but it was too late. Mikami had left when the translator explained what he was asking. He went with Nintendo

lol this is so bizarre. crazy to see the barriers in culture and language when doing business. would have been pretty crazy if RE4 was an Xbox exclusive

this whole topic is making me appreciate my xboxes more. seems like MS really was trying to do this right and create a great platform rather than just cash in
---

Romulox28 posted...

this whole topic is making me appreciate my xboxes more. seems like MS really was trying to do this right and create a great platform rather than just cash in

Honestly yeah they did. They had a lot to prove. They all knew it was a long term investment that could cost billions if it went wrong.

Resident Evil 4 as an Xbox exclusive would have been pretty crazy. It would have fit the Xbox audience well I think. Mikami would have done some neat stuff with the extra power. Instead they got... Dino Crisis 3. I feel sorry for anyone who bought an Xbox for that.
---

Darmik posted...

Romulox28 posted...

this whole topic is making me appreciate my xboxes more. seems like MS really was trying to do this right and create a great platform rather than just cash in

Honestly yeah they did. They had a lot to prove. They all knew it was a long term investment that could cost billions if it went wrong.

Resident Evil 4 as an Xbox exclusive would have been pretty crazy. It would have fit the Xbox audience well I think. Mikami would have done some neat stuff with the extra power. Instead they got... Dino Crisis 3. I feel sorry for anyone who bought an Xbox for that.

well later on they got Dead Rising as an exclusive which seems to be a bit more popular than Resident Evil these days anyway.
---

Really enjoying this topic
---

Resident Evil is much bigger than Dead Rising now. But that was a great get for Microsoft. That franchise declining is more due to Capcom than Microsoft anyway. They also got Lost Planet from Capcom IIRC?

You can really see how the Original Xbox was such a learning curve for them. Pretty much every miss that console had (delayed GTA, no Final Fantasy, no Resident Evil) all got fixed with the 360.

Reading this book I also can see why third parties have such loyalty to Xbox. They really give third parties a lot of support when it comes to development and they established that relationship straight away. Even J Allard put up a list of their priorities and developers were number one. Gamers were behind at number two. I know Sony has closed the gap a lot since the PS4 but I wonder if some of that older stuff lingers. It doesn't seem like Nintendo will ever truly mend that burnt bridge they created in the N64/Gamecube era but things are a lot better these days.
---

Darmik posted...

Even J Allard put up a list of their priorities and developers were number one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs
---

The book hasn't covered the Duke controller but I stumbled on this on ResetEra and it's relevant. Seamus is in this book a lot.




I never knew there was an explanation for the big controller lol. I thought it was just a design choice.

I'm tempted to get that new Duke controller for nostalgia tbh
---

- Marketing the Xbox was tough. Microsoft never had to market something like Xbox before. Their first guy pissed off a lot of the press by being arrogant and they had to basically grovel to make up for it. They brought in a dude from Nintendo. He told Bill Gates that it was essentially the kids who decide on a console. The parents pick the one that won't disappoint the kid got Christmas. Bill Gates thought this was stupid and that he was the dumbest man he ever let into his office.

- In marketing research an unknown, fake console named Apollo (which was basically just the Xbox with Microsoft branding gone) polled better than Xbox. People were critical that Microsoft could do it. People expected long boot times, blue screen of death and flight sims. They decided to keep Microsoft branding to a minimum

- The target audience according to the head marketer was "angry young men"

- Xbox was a codename. So they did look into what they could actually call it. Some names pitched were Allterra, Lanca and Microsoft 11X. They decided to stick with Xbox. They had to buy the trademark from Xbox technologies who were going out of business and took the payment. They were worried that people would think the name ripped off the X-Files

- They chose the green colour scheme simply because Nintendo were red and Sony were blue. There are people who claim that it was because the guy who drew the logo only had a green pen in his pocket however

- Apparently there was a guy at Sony who would simply kill any third party game he didn't like. They took advantage of stuff like this when pitching to developers
---

The only problem I got with the Duke was the placement of the white and black buttons.
---

who cares about the history

playstation > xbox

always.
---

Scotty_Rogers posted...

who cares about the history

playstation > xbox

always.

How can you say always when the PS2 had a worse online service than Xbox?
---

DirectX Box > Xbox smh
---

Foppe posted...

Scotty_Rogers posted...

who cares about the history

playstation > xbox

always.

How can you say always when the PS2 had a worse online service than Xbox?

lmao you had to pay for online with xbox

fuck that
---

- There were a lot of concerns that Halo was meant to be a PC game. When pointed out that Goldeneye was a successful FPS game on console it was pointed out "Yeah but they're Rare. You're not"

- The flagship Toys 'r' Us store in Times Square hadn't opened yet. Microsoft convinced them to open early for the midnight launch. Across the street was the WWE bar where wrestlers like the rock were playing. Bill Gates was playing his favourite game Fusion Frenzy

- The Xbox launched successfully in the US but struggled in Europe and Japan. They completely botched the launch price in Europe. They had a price drop there within 5 weeks. Japan also never really recovered from their initial impression of Xbox and Microsoft. Decisions like manufacturing in Korea instead of Japan was seen as insulting
---

Scotty_Rogers posted...

who cares about the history

playstation > xbox

always.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/MedicalGrandioseGrackle-max-1mb.gif

Loved my original xbox. The mandatory ethernet connections only thing for online play compared to the dreamcast's built-in 56k modem really made online console gaming not....well....lag all over the place. Spent so much hours on capcom vs snk 2 eo, return to castle wolfenstein, the xbox version of phantasy star online ep 1 and 2 and unreal tournament 2.

To be perfectly honest, I got more use out of the original xbox because of it's superior online play and third party games (there was some seriously gimped 3rd party games during this era on the ps2. The playstation 2 version of return to castle wolfenstein for example didn't have online play in it. Hell I don't even think it had two player co-op campaign like the xbox version did, I have to read up on it again) compared to my gamecube, which collected dust and was sold after I played double dash for a month.
---

Yeah I just read a quote from J Allard that said "online gaming on a 56k modem is like drinking pizza through a straw" so I'm glad they stuck with broadband

- Charging for Xbox Live was controversial within the company because it was free for PC. But it was ultimately decided to go for it since they were building a new service from the ground up and the stuff they were doing back then didn't have a precedent

- Publishers hated the concept of Gamertags. The thought was "they're playing our game on out service. They're our customers". They liked communities being splintered but that wasn't what Xbox Live was destined to be and Microsoft wanted reputation to carry across all games. Publishers saw this concept as essentially advertising for the competition

- This book actually has a bad story about Don Mattrick! He worked for EA at the time and Microsoft was pitching Xbox Live to him. The Microsoft rep said "we look forward to seeing EA games on Xbox Live" and he replied "ptahuogh' and walked away. The first thing this Microsoft rep told Don Mattrick when he joined Microsoft was this story
---

Darmik posted...

- This book actually has a bad story about Don Mattrick! He worked for EA at the time and Microsoft was pitching Xbox Live to him. The Microsoft rep said "we look forward to seeing EA games on Xbox Live" and he replied "ptahuogh' and walked away. The first thing this Microsoft rep told Don Mattrick when he joined Microsoft was this story

glad to see that Don Mattrick was always a turd, dude almost killed the brand
---

Darmik posted...

- Publishers hated the concept of Gamertags. The thought was "they're playing our game on out service. They're our customers".

that's so funny to think
like their logic does make sense, but it's crazy to think about today
---

I suppose when you plant your brain back in 99-01 it was a very different time. Ecosystems containing several games weren't really a thing and of course if something is new people automatically assume the worst.

You could see the ultra protective publisher guy like "I don't want players to follow Gamertags to a new game!" and not really getting it.

Interestingly it was typical EA that was one of the major companies against it. Ubisoft was one of the first ones to really jump in with Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow.

You can still see that sorta mentality continue today. EA is the one who stubbornly sticks to the status quo. Ubisoft is the one who jumps at the chance to try out a new platform or business model.
---

Darmik posted...

Not at all. They pushed forward online gaming and digital distribution for smaller scale games. That's a huge benefit.

They are responsible for for DLC, one of the worst things to happen to gaming.
---

Xbox actually does have a Bruce Lee game. I played it before. Sadly, it wasn't really good.
---

Lonestar2000 posted...

Darmik posted...

Not at all. They pushed forward online gaming and digital distribution for smaller scale games. That's a huge benefit.

They are responsible for for DLC, one of the worst things to happen to gaming.

It seemed like a cool idea at the time. When I got my 360 I was super excited that my Xbox would now get expansion packs for games like the PC did, so my favorite Game X would be getting new content for years. Didnt turn out that way unfortunately
---

Darmik posted...

"ptahuogh'

I know exactly what sound this is talking about but had no idea it could be spelled.
---

I wonder what would've happened if the Dreamcast and Playstation were merged into one console.
---

The XBOX was the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWGiHgTdLBc

Darmik posted...

- They brought in a dude from Nintendo. He told Bill Gates that it was essentially the kids who decide on a console. The parents pick the one that won't disappoint the kid got Christmas. Bill Gates thought this was stupid and that he was the dumbest man he ever let into his office.

Bill Gates was a stupid fucking dude sometimes, that's how kids toys have worked since forever.

Extra ironic that Xbox has become almost exclusively a console for middle school kids.
---