Xbox game console development history (part 1)

Before the first Xbox was released in 2001, many doubted Microsoft’s ability to compete in the console business. Up to that point, the company was primarily a supplier of PC software, and there was no room for the big four. It also had to compete with PlayStation 2 and GameCube at the time. Despite the initial stiff competition and pitfalls along the way, the Xbox brand has made remarkable progress over the past 15 years to become an indispensable name in the hardware world and is a key pillar of Microsoft’s business. The company has since sold more than 100 million units.

Take a look back at the memorable moments of all the popular Xbox consoles, hardware redesigns, and major Microsoft peripherals.

Xbox

Microsoft released the first Xbox in blue and black in North America on November 15, 2001. The model sold for $300 and was released within six console generations, making it the first major game console. First created by an American company since the Atari Jaguar.

Prior to release, all of Microsoft’s major gaming efforts were focused on PCs, where the Windows operating system had a monopoly on the market. The last time Redmond, a Washington-based company, came close to releasing a console was when they developed a tweaked version of Windows CE for the Sega Dreamcast, supporting the DirectX API.

After seeing how Sony’s console business was hurting PC game sales and fearing that the rival company would dominate the living room with the PlayStation 2, Microsoft decided to release its own console to compete. An early prototype was built by Microsoft engineers as a side project using parts from Dell laptops. Microsoft decided to invest and rework this design, which eventually paved the way for Xbox to use the PC’s x86 architecture, which was rare for consoles at the time. The operating system is based on the Windows kernel architecture. The system was supposed to be called DirectX Box because it used the company’s DirectX API, but was ultimately shortened to Xbox because the survey teams thought it sounded better.

The machine is equipped with Intel Celeron/Pentium III 32-bit 733MHz CPU. It has 64MB of 200MHz DDR SDRAM set to a dual-channel configuration. In terms of GPU, the Xbox uses Nvidia’s proprietary chip based on the GeForce 3 graphics card, with a clock speed of 233MHz. This GPU supports Microsoft’s DirectX 8 API and has a performance of up to 7.3 gigaflops. Although it had support for 32MB memory cards, it also came with an 8GB hard drive, a costly investment for the company at the time, making it the first machine with a built-in HDD.

While the developers agree that the Xbox is much more powerful than the GameCube and PlayStation 2, several third parties have taken full advantage of its processing power. With 24 million copies sold, the Xbox has surpassed the Nintendo system. Despite being second by revenue in that generation and making a name for the company in the console space, the Xbox sold at a loss, and could not quite compete with the PS2’s sales of more than 155 million copies. consumed. Despite Microsoft’s efforts, the system struggled in the Japanese market, with only 500,000 copies sold. In this competition, Xbox has become the landing place for Western games and FPS games, a genre that is quite rare on consoles.

Halo was surprisingly a huge success for Microsoft and helped launch the system onto the main stage. The company won developer Bungie for the game, and the Xbox exclusive release took the console FPS series to the next level. It is also very popular with gaming groups in the region because the machine supports up to 16 players: 4 consoles plus 4 controllers can be synchronized via the Ethernet port. Xbox was the first console to support a high-speed Ethernet port, and it paved the way for Xbox Live, Microsoft’s online gaming service. Xbox Live continues to grow and succeed with the title Halo 2 with more than 8 million copies sold. This online service has reached the pinnacle of that generation with about 20 million users.

To be in competition with: Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube

Featured game: Burnout 3: Takedown, Conker Live and Reloaded, Dead or Alive 3, Fable, Forza Motorsport, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, MechAssault, Ninja Gaiden, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Project Gotham Racing, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic , The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell

Xbox “Duke” Controller

A console that was originally released with a system nicknamed Duke. It set a precedent for the Xbox controller to use 2 analog sticks, something quite unique at the time, combined with the D-pad key cluster. It also has 6 analog knobs along with 2 analog knobs. It has a memory card slot on top and a split cable as a safety measure in case the user gets tripped. But the most notable factor is probably its size. This remote has been criticized for being too big and heavy – from which the moniker derives – and will sooner or later be replaced by the thinner S model.

Xbox Controller WILL

Controller S was originally designed for the Japanese market, where it is optimized for smaller hands. The S model is thinner and therefore more comfortable. It later replaced the Duke model everywhere in 2002. It also set a precedent for the design of four buttons that were evenly spread in a diamond shape.

Xbox 360

Microsoft launched the second console in North America on November 22, 2005, about a year before the rival PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Xbox 360 had two SKUs at release. The higher-end Pro version has a 20GB hard drive and sells for $400, but Microsoft also wanted to offer a cheaper model at $300 and the Core model as a result. The machine lacked a hard drive, confusing game developers, who were initially unsure how to design games with this constraint. However, users can buy and add an Xbox hard drive and attach it to the machine.

The first batch of Xbox 360 consoles were white, but you can swap out the front panel to customize the aesthetic.

During its lifetime, Microsoft’s second console outperformed the initial effort and sold more than 84 million units worldwide. However, it continued to be less successful in Japan, with estimates showing that only around 1.5 million units were sold. Despite struggling in the land of the rising sun, it’s still Microsoft’s best-selling system today.

The Xbox 360 dropped the x86 architecture that the first console used. Instead Microsoft uses IBM PowerPC. The 3-core, 6-thread CPU is codenamed Xenon and clocked at 3.2GHz. After overcoming a legal payment dispute with Nvidia over the original Xbox GPU, Microsoft decided to use ATI’s graphics. The 360 ​​uses a proprietary graphics chip codenamed Xenos based on the manufacturer’s Radeon X1800 graphics card. In terms of memory, the system uses 512 MB GDDR3 RAM, clocked at 700MHz. While memory was a very expensive investment for Microsoft at the time, the company met with studios like Epic Games to see what games similar to Gears of War would need to run. This console model supports DirectX 9 and developers think Xbox 360 is easier to program than PS3 with complex Cell processor. Cross-platform games on this system tend to look better on the 360.

Through software emulation, the console’s interface provides backward compatibility with about half of the Xbox library, although many ports have had issues of varying severity.

The 360 ​​eventually became a popular living room entertainment hub. It supports growing streaming services like Netflix and also allows users to stream data from computers in the area on the network. It supports CD, DVD and standard HD DVD discs, now deprecated via an optional add-on.

Although the console originally sold with the Xbox 360 Dashboard UI included a tab-based “Blade” interface, the final system was modified several times. The first major revision occurred in 2008 and was called New Xbox Experience (NXE). It is inspired by Microsoft’s Windows Media Center and Zune design. This update also introduces the ability to install games to reduce loading times. The machine received its second major user interface update in 2011, modeled on Microsoft’s Windows 8 Metro design language. This update added game cloud storage, Bing voice search, and more.

Although the Xbox 360 was a huge success for Microsoft, early models were criticized for what gamers called the Red Ring of Death, a state of red LED lights appearing on the console to signal a problem. heat. The problem was so widespread that it eventually destroyed the platforms. Users come up with ridiculous repairs that include baking the machine’s motherboard in an oven. This cost Microsoft more than a billion dollars to extend the warranty for this console to three years.

To be in competition with: Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii

Featured games: BioShock, Blue Dragon, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Crackdown, Dead or Alive 4, Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V, Halo 3, Halo: Reach, Halo 4, Kameo, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Lost Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Viva Piñata

Xbox 360 Controller

The Xbox 360 Controller represents a marked improvement from the original Duke. Slightly smaller than Xbox’s Controller S, it continues to use 2 analog sticks in combination with the D-pad key cluster, but removes 2 buttons (from 6 to 4 buttons) and replaces 2 blinkers in place. The guide key in the middle allows you to toggle the handle on and off, which is a much appreciated point. The controller has both wired and wireless versions, the wired version is more widely used because it has a USB connection.

Xbox 360 Elite

On April 29, 2007, Microsoft released the premium Xbox 360 Lite model for $479. It comes in black and is equipped with 120GB of memory, built-in Wi-Fi and an HDMI port

Xbox 360 Arcade

Microsoft released the Xbox 360 Arcade on October 23, 2007 for $280 to replace the Core model. Like previous Core machines, the Arcade SKU doesn’t have a hard drive, although it does include a 256MB memory card. The biggest difference is that it has an extra HDMI port. It also changed color from chrome yellow to white.

Source: GameSpot

Part 2>>