[Xbox] Power on: The Story of Xbox

ErRor88

ErRor88

Member
This is a must-watch. It gives major insight into how Xbox was created and established. It also shows how pivotal Xbox is in gaming history, and how they contributed to what we take for granted in gaming today.

I wish we get more documentaries like this from Sony and Nintendo. So they can be documented and shared in the future.






 
Surprised at how candid the Red Ring discussion is.

You'll probably never see Nintendo or Sony talk about their biggest failures like that.
 
Excited to start this tonight.

It seems like it stops on 360 though. I really, really wanted to see the behind the scenes on the Xbox One days.
 
The part about Gates being offended by Sony having the living room is what has always bothered me about Microsoft.

It's not new information and while I very much enjoy what Xbox has become it's roots were typical Microsoft.
 
I still believe in the Xbox brand for Microsoft we got to stop bringing up their past, or they don't have exclusives. There's a body of work that shows Xbox is a great console, Halo separates itself from other shooters.
 
I just began to watch it and they compared Nat Brown to their Obi-Wan Kenobi :messenger_grinning_smiling: Just too cool to see the faces that are/were behind the brand. I'm going to enjoy this one for sure!
 
Great documentary. The early days stories were the most interesting to me. They don't brush over Xbox One and Don (Don gets quite a bit of interview time), but nothing was particularly interesting about that segment. We know how bad it was. Felt like the only interesting bit was the part of the 3 step plan from Spencer and co about how to turn things around
 
The people behind this are good storytellers. I'm basically finished with the first chapter and never lost focus
 
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I know they only touched on the next-gen/cloud stuff of the modern era, but I'm surprised there wasn't a bit of a segment about the Series S leak in contrast with the no leaks TGA 2019 reveal of XSX lol
 
elliot5 said:
Great documentary. The early days stories were the most interesting to me. They don't brush over Xbox One and Don (Don gets quite a bit of interview time), but nothing was particularly interesting about that segment. We know how bad it was. Felt like the only interesting bit was the part of the 3 step plan from Spencer and co about how to turn things around
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I actually did feel a bit bad for Don after watching that one. As a group Xbox gamers really took a disliking to him (myself included), but he never quite got the chance to see his vision through. With that said, Spencer's ideas and the way he righted the ship is something else.

Super glad I hung in there with Xbox as my primary gaming device, makes it so easy for me to enjoy all the benefits of Xbox today. GP is such a game changer, especially for user like me that don't want to spend a ton of $$$, the access alone has really changed gaming for me. I almost never played indies before and now I probably spend half my gaming time in those. Plus, when you wait for price drops you aren't jumping in with everyone else, all the day ones from MS do increase the excitement factor quite a bit. Never been a better time to be an Xbox fan.

There were a lot of things that surprised me in these. I never knew that it was MS that helped to nudge Netflix into streaming.
 
Turned down GTA 3 as exclusive to Xbox when it was offered. Rockstar would be a likely Xbox exclusive dev and GTA an Xbox exclusive franchise. How unbelievably short sighted lmao. I knew immediately upon seeing GTA 3 go full 3D it would be a hit. Even the previous games despite not being the monsters GTA 3 and later titles would become, the core gameplay was always peak fun. Expanding that with voiced dialogue, and making it a more cinematic experience was always going to be a major hit. Clearly whoever had the decision making authority there messed up big.
 
elliot5 said:
I know they only touched on the next-gen/cloud stuff of the modern era, but I'm surprised there wasn't a bit of a segment about the Series S leak in contrast with the no leaks TGA 2019 reveal of XSX lol
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Yeah, they didn't cover that. That originated at Windows Central, those people seem close with MS so it always surprises me when they leak as much as they do. I thought leaking the Halo multi-player launch was in very bad taste. It would have had so much more impact at the 20th anniversary show if it never leaked. Some leaks can help build momentum and be positive, but I think that one in particular was super negative. XSS leak might have been positive, gave plenty of time for Xbox fans to wrap their heads around the idea before the official announcement (avoiding another X1 launch situation).
 
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Just finished. That was an excellent documentary and a rare glimpse of the backstage shit that goes down.

Honestly, the first few episodes painted Bill Gates as a pretty ruthless person, you wouldn't be able to tell that by looking at how mild mannered he always appears in front of the camera.
 
The documentary is of a fairly high quality. I have loved how they accompany the description of different events with animations, many based on video games.
My respects to those 4-5 DirectX pioneers in their effort to make the project they believed in a reality. Many unknown names that deserve memory and recognition that have not had it until today.
 
Really enjoyed it, all those years of being a Xbox fan coming back. The pre Kinect 360 days despite the RROD were the best Xbox has been imo. Peter Moore in particular was a good leader .

The Xbox One section was interesting, the clear differences in strategies between Moore and Mattrick even clearer here. NeoGaf and other places had a field day with the unveiling and aftermath, I was so disappointed but I have to say some of the trolling was top notch.
 
Am i the only one who was a fan of the "policies" of the OG Xbox One? Digi-fying my hard discs and being able to share em sounded legit AF.

Yes, it was extremely dumb to not be able to use the disc as the key on digified games. Yes it should have been optional. But it would have been a huge step forward in many ways imo.
 
Nikana said:
Am i the only one who was a fan of the "policies" of the OG Xbox One? Digi-fying my hard discs and being able to share em sounded legit AF.

Yes, it was extremely dumb to not be able to use the disc as the key on digified games. Yes it should have been optional. But it would have been a huge step forward in many ways imo.
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I just don't see it being optional once that tech gets introduced. So you can digitize it for your benefit, but you don't think they would also do it for their own benefit and basically end all used game sales without their cut? The backlash was warranted.
 
Punished Miku said:
I just don't see it being optional once that tech gets introduced. So you can digitize it for your benefit, but you don't think they would also do it for their own benefit and basically end all used game sales without their cut? The backlash was warranted.
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Im not saying the backlash wasn't warranted in the slightest. The PR and rollout of their decisions is legendarily bad.

Of course they would benefit from it but at the same time they had steps/policies in place to let you trade the disc in just like you could before. There really wasn't any major drawback to that aspect. If you were a Gamestop shopper you could still buy, sell, trade and if you were a digital shopper your friends could now share your purchases.

Edit: Just realized I didn't really answer your question/comment.

Could they have ended it for the own selfish reasons? Perhaps. Hindsight is 20/20 but as Microsoft is very much pushing the ideas of having your library always go with you. Backwards compat, etc. I just don't see them dropping those aspects.

However, this was after the backlash. Its fair to assume they might have done that under the old management. Even still, the writing was on the wall more and more people were going digital and people did that without even needing to be nudged in that direction. If the policies would have stood we could have more options with digital purchases today like selling them, trading, etc.
 
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It's great, but I'm one of those people that sees the OG Xbox as an anomaly looking back. It was incredible and if it wasn't for it being the new kid on the block going against a very established foothold of the ps2 it would have been a huge success. It was better in almost every way possible. To me, it was the only console that felt like a true leap within a generation coming from ps2. 360 saw some slivers of magic and was fine outside of RROD, but they never got back that 'alien' technology feel. The newer Xbox stuff seems pretty serious, but the way they came out swinging as this strange PC box with a lot of computer games, but also lots of unique Sega games + Xbox slew of exclusives. There was just nothing like it.
 
Romulus said:
It's great, but I'm one of those people that sees the OG Xbox as an anomaly looking back. It was incredible and if it wasn't for it being the new kid on the block going against a very established foothold of the ps2 it would have been a huge success. It was better in almost every way possible. To me, it was the only console that felt like a true leap within a generation coming from ps2. 360 saw some slivers of magic and was fine outside of RROD, but they never got back that 'alien' technology feel. The newer Xbox stuff seems pretty serious, but the way they came out swinging as this strange PC box with a lot of computer games, but also lots of unique Sega games + Xbox slew of exclusives. There was just nothing like it.
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It really is such an odd and extremely important device that has a story and history that is hard to truly fathom just how insane it was. It was so revolutionary that it changed gaming forever. But it changed the aspects that unless you are paying very close attention and/or are making games, most will have absolutely no clue why it was so weird and different.

I think you could argue that we would have "got there" in a lot of ways eventually but its really impossible to say.

I think theres some things that are smaller in current Xbox that have the heart of the OG like DV and DA support. The elite controller. Even the Series S to an extent is very OG Xbox vibes in terms of shaking up the "rules."
 
Some of the ideas they mentioned later as features of an always online console I thought were good. Too bad they didn't move forward with some of those but support the features on digital purchases only. The game sharing and potentially having a way to resale each digital game once on the online store could have been huge. Probably too late now since devs know that everyone will buy digital without any of the perks.
 
hilarious how MS was jumping for joy and literally crying seeing Sony announce a $599 PS3 vs their $399 Xbox 360. Then next gen they announce their console for $499 only to get owned by the $399 announcement. You think they'd remember the importance of having an equal or low cost option in comparison.
 
elliot5 said:
hilarious how MS was jumping for joy and literally crying seeing Sony announce a $599 PS3 vs their $399 Xbox 360. Then next gen they announce their console for $499 only to get owned by the $399 announcement. You think they'd remember the importance of having an equal or low cost option in comparison.
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The role reversal was something else.

It's the same with Sony though. They used a killer price to launch the PS1 over Saturn and yet turned around and did this a couple generations later. At least in MS's case they were bundling the camera which they viewed as being worth $100.
 
DaGwaphics said:
The role reversal was something else.

It's the same with Sony though. They used a killer price to launch the PS1 over Saturn and yet turned around and did this a couple generations later. At least in MS's case they were bundling the camera which they viewed as being worth $100.
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tbh it probably was worth $100 on its own, but forcing it included was a bad idea. Should've had two SKUs but that sort of ruined their plans of having a baseline hardware i guess
 
Just finished this 4 hour binge and it was excellent! Even when you know a lot of the history it still tells you new and cool insider things and puts faces to the names you heard of, really well made and ejoyable to watch. Recommended!
 
I watched all 6 "episodes" if that's what you want to call them, and that was amazing to watch as an OG Xbox fan from the beginning. I will forever be grateful to those original Direct X people who made all this happen, where 20 years later i'm sitting infront of the 4th generation of Xbox. I knew the story of how it all came to be but not as in depth as that. I think you have to give credit where credit is due that they can outright admit their mistakes and mishaps so openly, especially with it being a Microsoft company.

That said, i can't help but think that if they hadn't mishandled the Xbox One so bad that they could've been the dominant force in todays console landscape, but besides a bad pricing strategy, "TV TV TV" and Don Mattrick, the writing was on the wall that they were about to crash. They had outgrown their roots, suits took over and as they even admit, they completely sidelined the people that got them where they were, the core gamer.

It seems like they've been humbled from what happened, it's set them back so far in the gamers eyes when they had so much momentum going for them. The Series X was a good start, let's just see if they can keep the current momentum going without fucking it up again. Psychonauts did good, Forza Horizon did amazing and Halo is going back to its roots and its only the first year.

I seriously cant wait to see what all their new studios are making though so hurry it up Phil.
 
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