OG Xbox, one of the most innovative consoles created so what happened?

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Kimawolf

Member
Oh the last 10 consoles released an argument can be made that the original Xbox was the most important and most innovative.

During that era Microsoft was firing on all cylinders with games like Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, Shemue 2, gunvalkyrie, Panzer Dragoon, Mech Assualt, Crimson Skies just to name a few. But also brought us Live which changed console gaming forever. No longer was online gaming the home of pc players or Limited Dreamcast owners, now Everyone could connect and game against each other.

I still remember late night sessions against folks in Moto GP. Oroject Gotham Racing, and Mech Assualt as beung some of the most fun I had in gaming.

So, what happened to them? What changed in Ms so much that they seem nothing like THAT MS that built and managed the original Xbox?

Thoughts, opinions, memories of playing some of those games for the first time?

Edited for cellphone fingers..
 
Kimawolf said:
Oh the last 10 consoles released an argument can be made that the original Xbox was the most important and most innovative.

During that era Microsoft was firing on all cylinders with ganes like Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, Shenmue 2, gunvalkyrie, Panzer Dragoon, Mech Assualt, Crimson Skies just to name a few. But also brought us Live which changed console gaming forever. No longer was online gaming the home of pc players or Limited Dreamcast owners, now Everyone could connect and game against each other.

I still remember late night sessions against folks in Moti GpP. Oroject Gothan Racing, and Mech Assualt as beung some of the most fun I had in gaming.

So, what happened to them? What changed in Ms so much that they seem nothing like THAT MS that built and managed the original Xbox?

Thoughts, opinions, memories of playing some of those games for the first time?
Click to expand...

I thought you were speaking about hardware....

Also the bolded are sequels from Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games....
 
They are called Sega, in their prime they used to have some of the best game developers in the world.

OG Xbox benefited from Dreamcast crashing and burning to PS2
 
It proved to be the Trojan Horse that we all feared it would be.

I have an Xbox One, but let's be honest, gaming is its secondary feature.
 
It's clear that Live was the gamechanger that MS hoped it would be. I also want to say the hard drive but then they inexplicably made it optional on the 360.
 
MS did a shitty deal with nvidia that prevented them from profiting from the hardware. That in turn affected the amount of money that was invested back into games. With the 360, MS learned that lesson very well - too bad they had the 3 RROD problem.
 
Captain Tuttle said:
It's clear that Live was the gamechanger that MS hoped it would be. I also want to say the hard drive but then they inexplicably made it optional on the 360.
Click to expand...
Yep. Should have at least kept a tiny OG 10GB HDD in the original 360 SKUs. Set the generation back a few years.
 
Kimawolf said:
Oh the last 10 consoles released an argument can be made that the original Xbox was the most important and most innovative.

During that era Microsoft was firing on all cylinders with games like Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, Shemue 2, gunvalkyrie, Panzer Dragoon, Mech Assualt, Crimson Skies just to name a few. But also brought us Live which changed console gaming forever. No longer was online gaming the home of pc players or Limited Dreamcast owners, now Everyone could connect and game against each other.

I still remember late night sessions against folks in Moto GP. Oroject Gotham Racing, and Mech Assualt as beung some of the most fun I had in gaming.

So, what happened to them? What changed in Ms so much that they seem nothing like THAT MS that built and managed the original Xbox?

Thoughts, opinions, memories of playing some of those games for the first time?

Edited for cellphone fingers..
Click to expand...

I read your post twice just to make sure I didn't miss it. What exactly are you saying happened to them?
 
Kimawolf said:
During that era Microsoft was firing on all cylinders with games like Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, Shemue 2, gunvalkyrie, Panzer Dragoon, Mech Assualt, Crimson Skies just to name a few. .
Click to expand...

The vast majority of those games did not sell well. They didn't sell well on the Dreamcast and they didn't sell well on the xbox. Over time, MS realized that there is no money to be made in creating large number of titles that have limited sales potential and moved away from making games for hardcore gamers.

They wanted to move towards a more casual/profitable audience, and needed a new machine to do that. So they killed the OG xbox, and rushed the 360 to market hoping to be the next big thing.

The irony is that so far each generation they have found themselves competing for last, rather than first place as they seem to consistently misread what the public wants.
 
The suits take over at Microsoft Game Studios, that's what changed.

They're not content with making "just" a games console, they want to appeal to a broader demographic. That's why the 360 didn't get that many core games since 2009/10, that's why Kinect happened, that's why the focus of the Xbone was apps instead of games (which ultimately led to a console with an underpowered GPU and an 32MB ESRAM crutch). The suits' visions of a wonderful games console is where families can watch a Halo TV series while chatting in Skype or playing with a SmartGlass tablet app.

The whole division is probably run by completely different people than the guys who started it. It's telling that MS threw away the complete Xbox 360 OS and its libraries and created something worse based on Windows RT. And now they're sorry they did, because they have to rewrite the whole party system because it's complex and buggy.
 
they transitioned to prioritizing third party relationships, even so much as to shut down their promising sports line to kiss EA's ass. The people that had passion to convince MS to build the xbox in the first place are gone and business people took over.
 
The hardware is what made the OG Xbox so worthwhile to me. The games were mostly the usual 3rd party suspects (though of course the !st party and Sega stuff was awesome, and anything that played online did it best on XBL back then)...but the console itself was tremendously powerful for 2001 - 2005, and the underground community made so much great stuff for it that to this day a modded Xbox is hooked up to my TV (XBMC was S-rank until Rokus/Chromecasts/HD media streaming came around).

Not a bad machine at all. THAT MS wanted to build the ultimate box for gamers at any cost, and frankly I miss that MS.
 
It was Microsoft trying to push Direct X and nothing more. Microsoft thought Direct X was going to be THE way to program video games and they needed proof of concept.

It was definitely powerful I don't see what was so innovative about it. It was a PC in console form.
 
When you're new, you put out your best foot in order to build up a userbase.

When you're established, you screw your userbase over as hard as you can until they smarten up and drop you.

Repeat.
 
The original Xbox was built on the remnants of Sega as a hardware manufacturer. Once all the games that were initially in production for the Dreamcast were released, Xbox went back to something more in line with a Microsoft product.
 
timlot said:
I read your post twice just to make sure I didn't miss it. What exactly are you saying happened to them?
Click to expand...
Well thats just it i dont know what changef between Xbox and Xbox 360. But something did, hence me asking opinions.

And yes a lot of that Dreamcast did, but MS did it on a higher level and basically made online gaming mandatory for all games in sone respect.
 
dcx4610 said:
It was Microsoft trying to push Direct X and nothing more. Microsoft thought Direct X was going to be THE way to program video games and they needed proof of concept.

It was definitely powerful I don't see what was so innovative about it. It was a PC in console form.
Click to expand...

Seems like you answered your own question.
 
zainetor said:
Og xbox was dreamcast 2.
Only game it lacked was a vf4 conversion.
Click to expand...

This is exactly how I feel about the Xbox brand till this day. Xbox was the successor to the Dreamcast. Peter Moore, lots of DC game sequels. The only place where you could play Shenmue II in America. Even the controller in the Xbox One still has the DC DNA. Every Xbox One has been a leader in online functionality - at least until PSN+ came out.
 
ghost recon island thunder and chaos theory were, well, jusg fucking amazing.

halo ce mp.
halo 2 mp.
that hdd.
that ltd but awesome online.
that fucking awesome pad (not the s)
voodoo vince.

i love my xbox it is the fucking daddy.

360 started SOOOOOO well, oh so well. then bungie left then rare became what it is and well, then came kinect.

viva la playstation.
 
Jeff-DSA said:
It proved to be the Trojan Horse that we all feared it would be.
Click to expand...

This.

Original Xbox was amazing. Pure passion for gaming. Game selection was superb and Xbox Live was a breath of fresh air even with the fee, it was worth it back then. I think it is probably one of the most underrated consoles ever. I was never disappointed throughout owning one.
 
Elixist said:
man i love that og xbox, you could kill a guy with that beast. Ah those early broadband Halo memories.
Click to expand...

The original Xbox was a good system. Games looked *great* on the Xbox compared to the PS2 I owned. And then XBMC happened. Great times. The Xbox made me pick up the 360 at launch. Kinect made me pick up a PS4 at launch.
 
The Xbox felt a lot like a brand new Sega console in many ways, especially in terms of the content offering and target demographic. It had a more narrow focus than Sony and Nintendo, but there were a lot of creative juices flowing in many of the exclusive titles especially to the young adult male demographic who wanted "cool" stuff.

So why did this focus change? Probably because Microsoft didn't want to be the next Sega! Sad but true. :P
 
Microsoft would have been great back then if they actually did make all those Sega games.

Unfortunately, they didn't.
 
Microsoft took a huge hit on the hardware in order to gain marketshare.

The hardware it had for the price was absolutely amazing.
 
I think mattrick was the largest problem. They were putting resources in trying to catch that Nintendo Wii crowd towards the end of the 360 years and gamers felt like they were being thrown under the bus. It didn't help that Sony finally started to get its first party pushing out quality titles around the time that ms changed its focus. I think the Xbox one looks very promising on the games front. You might not know it on GAF but the Xbox one has quality releases promised all through 2014. The ps4 has loads of games I'm gonna get as well. My wallet is gonna hate 2014.
 
More like Microsoft was throwing money at the SEGA's franchises to make a name for them self off dead Dreamcast thanks to Peter Moore.

Sounds like, now we have a better more power ful hardware than SONY and can play DVDs please come to us. We have SEGA's franchises.

The great thing about Xbox was the homebrew scene. It was easy to just send data via FTP.

The only game that I remember from Xbox was Ninja Gaiden Black. Very rarely you get a game where you want to replay it again and again to get better.
 
dcx4610 said:
It was Microsoft trying to push Direct X and nothing more. Microsoft thought Direct X was going to be THE way to program video games and they needed proof of concept.

It was definitely powerful I don't see what was so innovative about it. It was a PC in console form.
Click to expand...

So just like today, but it was 15 years ago.
 
What happened was the OG Xbox lost a ton of money and didn't sell very well. The hard drive and their contract with Nvidia meant that they couldn't cut costs and drop prices over the life of the machine, so they had to drop it as quickly as possible. It's my understanding that they never sold the thing for a profit.

So they shifted to the 360, dumped the standard HD and Nvidia, and focused on the two things that really were successful on the Xbox: Halo and Xbox Live. That made the 360 a hell of a console, but it still didn't really make money and still finished in 3rd place (or close to it).

So they are shifting again. Third times the charm, right?
 
What happened?

Xbox followed it's natural evolutionary course. Almost everything you see today about the Xbox One could have been predicted way back when the OG Xbox launched.
 
The 360 and its perceived dominance in the west, and J Allard left, that dude is what made xbox great. Now except for a few hardware nerds from the OG team, it is all suits, who don't really play video games.
 
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