Evolution of Xbox

In 2001, a new games console hit shelves That competed with the established industry leaders PlayStation and Nintendo It was of course, the Xbox Which has been staking its claim as one of the best gaming platforms ever since In anticipation of its fourth generation console, the Xbox Series X It’s only right that we cover the origins And progression of this much-loved entertainment brand This is the evolution of Xbox Before the Xbox, Microsoft had, besides making computer software Already been successful with publishing games for PC Such as Age of Empires and Microsoft Flight Simulator Meanwhile, Sony was growing in popularity with the PlayStation 1 And was already working on the PlayStation 2 Because Sony became a threat for Microsoft And video games were rapidly growing into a massive industry Microsoft decided to venture into the console gaming market As far back as 1998 The original development team for the Xbox pitched an idea to Bill Gates For a console that could harness the power of a PC The initial concept was dubbed the DirectX Box And would operate using Windows 2000 Which made it easy for developers Since they were already familiar with the software The Xbox could have had a very different name Such as MITH, Microsoft Interactive Theatre FACE, Full Action Centre VIP, Virtual Interactive Player And probably Elon Musk’s favorite name MARZ or Microsoft Active Reality Zone Eventually, the name was shortened from DirectX Box to just Xbox.

Three years later the machine was showcased by Bill Gates and the Rock Wait… What?? The Xbox is everything the Rock is Cutting-edge, powerful, exhilarating And like the Rock It will be the most electrifying coming out this year While the features of the Xbox like Potential for online play and HD resolution were no doubt impressive Skeptics viewed the concept as no more than a PC in game console clothing Regardless, the release date was soon set for the following year And both gamers and critics alike Waited with excitement for the launch of this groundbreaking new system Fun fact; According to, Xbox Co-creator, Seamus Bleckley There was a guy at Microsoft who had fancy markers Which were immediately stolen by everyone The only color he had left was the green one So, he made the designs with that color Microsoft actually used that green as the iconic Xbox color Bleckley refers to it as, “the green nobody wanted”.

In 2001, the Xbox was officially released Microsoft managed to sell 1 million units in its first 3 weeks When it was introduced, Microsoft’s machine was competing against Sony’s PlayStation 2, Nintendo’s GameCube and Sega’s Dreamcast While the PS2 would ultimately prevail in terms of sales by a huge margin The Xbox did end up outselling the GameCube With estimated sales of 24 million compared to 21.7 million units respectively The Dreamcast however only managed to sell 9.1 million units Prior to its launch Microsoft had acquired a games development company called Bungee adapted their Halo franchise into a First Person Shooter That could take full advantage of Xbox’s impressive specifications And the rest, as they say, is history Halo 2 sold millions of copies Shattering records and became a classic Xbox exclusive series As well as a flagship game for the system Other notable games were Forza Motorsport Fable Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic And Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Xbox became known as a platform for Western games and first-person-shooters Which were quite rare back then The controller that came with the first console was bulky, to say the least. Given the nickname of “The Duke”, because of its hefty size and weight A slimmer ‘S’ version had to be made for the Japanese market The S model controller eventually replaced the Duke entirely To the relief of gamers everywhere.

In 2002 Xbox Live was made available Xbox Live is a subscription-based service Which made it possible to play online multiplayer games Microsoft lost money on every Xbox they sold Due to the high manufacturing costs of $425 While the retail price was only $300 In total Microsoft lost a whopping 4 billion on the original Xbox However, they succeeded in making a name for their console In 2005 Microsoft doubled-down on their efforts And released the Xbox 360 Almost a full year before its competitors came out with the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii Changing to an all-white appearance The 360 released at price points of $400 for the Pro version Which came with a 20 gigabyte hard drive  And $300 for the Core version Which only had 4 gigabytes of internal flash memory More models off the 360 were released later In 2007 came the Elite with a 120 Gigabyte hard drive and a black finish The Core version was replaced by the Arcade Both are almost identical.

In 2010 came the Xbox 360 S Which was a slimmer model that also has a Wi-Fi adapter And lastly, in 2013 Came the E model that was restyled with design traits of the Xbox One Getting the jump on its rivals certainly paid off for Microsoft As the 360 sold more than 86 million units And remains the company’s highest selling games console to date Updated hardware resulted in better graphics And a system that was thought to be much easier and more attractive for game developers Xbox staff worked closely with game development studios And secured more exclusive titles like the Gears of War franchise Gamers had access to a wide variety of online and offline hits such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Fable II Forza Motorsport 4 Grand Theft Auto V And, of course, many Halo games Such as Halo 3 Halo Reach And Halo 4 The 360 was a great home entertainment system too Playing CDs and DVDs while supporting services like Netflix The user interface, or dashboard Has undergone many changes throughout the Xbox’s history With the aim of making the user experience smoother and easier for all.

However, it was not always received that way One aspect of the 360 that Microsoft would rather forget about is The dreaded ‘red ring of death’ A console-killing issue that plagued Xbox owners And was signified by a ring of LEDs on the front of the console turning red And the system doing not much else It was often caused by overheating At least Microsoft’s CEO at the time, Steve Ballmer Had no problem spending over 1 billion dollars to recall the 360 In order to legitimately solve the red ring of death problem In 2010, the Kinect add-on was launched Which consisted of a motion-controlled device and microphone This allowed players to use their bodies and voice to control the action Instead of using a traditional controller Games such as Kinect Adventures Dance Central And Kinect Sports helped to sell the gadget In total 24 million units were sold For those paying attention You’ll recall that’s as many sales as the original Xbox console The next Xbox console was released in 2013.

It was marketed as an “all-in-one entertainment system” hence the name ‘Xbox One’ Every Xbox One initially would be sold with the new Kinect sensor It made use of a full HD camera with a wider angle coverage Improved tracking accuracy, and heart-rate monitoring The Xbox One with the Kinect sensor came at a high price of $500 Especially next to Sony’s $400 PlayStation 4 The high price plus other drawbacks such as an inability to share or resell games Privacy issues with the Kinect sensor And having to always be connected to the internet Resulted in a terrible launch of the Xbox One Microsoft did retract and change many of their initial requirements But for a lot of gamers the damage had already been done It’s fair to say the Xbox One a shaky start Though it did recover somewhat And to date has sold over 47 million units Ultimately though, it lost ground to Sony, who sold 109 million PS4s And Nintendo who sold 52 million of their Switches.

Microsoft marketed the Xbox One as more of a multimedia device With owners able to play media from USB devices, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs As well as being able to capture and stream gameplay footage The console’s original operating system was based on Windows 8 But the user interface was not well received It has been updated over the years though The focus on home entertainment as opposed to just gaming Has led some to believe that Xbox has fallen behind in terms of the game titles it now offers Still, it has a number of exciting exclusives  Such as Forza Horizon 4 Gears 5 Sea of Thieves And Halo 5 More iconic games available to play on the Xbox One include Red Dead Redemption 2 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Mine craft Battlefield 1 And Cup head Oh man… This game can be frustrating The Xbox One controller is refined from the Xbox 360 The D-Pad is improved The analog sticks are easier to move and have more grip The X, Y, A and B buttons were moved closer together And the trigger and bumper buttons were made much wider It is now also possible to design your own controller with Xbox Design Lab Multiple models of the Xbox One were released.

In 2016 came the smaller Xbox One S This Xbox can upscale games to 4K resolution and supports High Dynamic Range Which broadens colors and contrast The Xbox One X is a high-end model which was released in 2017 It features upgraded hardware which is a lot more powerful And can play games in 4K resolution And in 2019 came the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition It doesn’t have a disk drive and stores everything in the cloud And finally, scheduled for release at the end of 2020 is the Xbox Series X At the time of writing, no price has yet been announced But Xbox appears to be focusing on a high-end product The new system is claimed to be twice as powerful as the Xbox One X And will be able to play games in 4K resolution Has a 1 terabyte SSD And can render 120 frames per second It is also backwards compatible allowing to play games from all Xbox consoles New games coming for the Xbox Series X are Forza Motorsport Hell blade 2 Dirt 5 Fable Cyberpunk 2077.

And, of course, Halo Infinite Unfortunately though Microsoft Flight Simulator has not yet been announced for the Xbox Series X Xbox certainly intends to stay competitive But surprisingly Microsoft’s head of Xbox, Phil Spencer Revealed that it isn’t PlayStation and Nintendo whom they see as their main competition for the future It actually is Google and Amazon Since the future console wars could be with cloud gaming services Cloud gaming still seems like it’s in the distant future So for now let’s just wait in excitement for the next generations of Xbox consoles!