Tuesday, November 15, 2011

10 Years of Xbox - Part I: The Past

On Xbox's 10 Year Anniversary we take a look back into the past, the present and a glimpse into the future for Microsoft's little black and white boxes that could.


I wish I could say that I have fond memories of the launch of the original Xbox. Fact is I largely dismissed it and joined in the countless others that made fun of the system's size and the controller meant only for those among us with giant hands. In the beginning the software seemed sparse and uninteresting and I heartily laughed at those lowly day one adopters on top of my mountain of PS2 games. Yes in those days I was the most foul of gaming kind, a close minded and utterly arrogant fanboy. Pleased in the knowledge that my system reined supreme I ignored anything that said Xbox, Halo or any DVD style case that was wearing a coat of green.

One day I remember my best friend calling me saying he had bought an Xbox. As a enormous fanboy at the time, and him my fellow Xbox decrier, I was disappointed, shocked and utterly ashamed of him. Getting in the car I drove as fast as I could to his house to admonish him for his terrible purchase. Shortly after arriving he began to show off  his console's new bells and whistles as I largely ignored him, instead flicking through a Game Informer magazine. As he droned on I had a look on my face that my friend says can only be described as distaste until suddenly I stumbled upon a large spread about a game called Project Ego. Just looking at the different art that adorned the pages raptly captured my attention and I poured over every detail. By the time I reached the end of the article and flipped back to the start of it I was ready to again declare the PS2's superiority. In shock I read on the cover page of the article, the one that always detailed the platform, it was an Xbox exclusive.
My Fall to the Dark Side (or in this case the light side?) was complete with Project Ego
That game, now known as Fable, suddenly crumbled my from-on-high Playstation fanboy tower. Before the end of the night I agreed to try a game I'd hardly even read about called Halo, made by some unknown to me studio named Bungie. Before this I had never really played FPS games, at least not seriously, and the opening cinematic and story hooked me. The first time I blew a banshee out of the sky or loaded up on a warthog I was smiling from ear to ear. Four hours later I went home absolutely hooked. Two weeks later I had my very own giant black box, which was incidentally, the first video game console I had ever purchased for myself. I'd been playing games since I was five but this was the first console that was truly all mine.

I remember distinctly as I blabbed about Halo, Project Gotham Racing, Dead or Alive 3 and even Cel Damage to all my friends; my very PlayStation minded friends. As I once had been, they were true fanboys. They would hear nothing of the first true console made by a US company. They didn't want to hear me talk about all the features I wish I had paid attention to before launch; things like a hard-drive, the ability to burn music and an awesome cord that disconnected if tripped over keeping Xbox's everywhere from crashing to the floor and causing numerous quakes due to their size. The greatest feature of all was yet to come though in a broadband only gaming service.
The death of so many gamers chance of getting laid.
On November 15th, 2002, I would be among the first to go online with Xbox

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