Microsoft Xbox

The ***Xbox*** (later referred to as *Xbox Original*) is Microsoft's very first entry in the video gaming console market and was released in 2001. It competed against the Nintendo GameCube and Sony PlayStation 2. It was succeeded by the Xbox 360.

## Why It Rocks

1. The Xbox revolutionized online gaming with Xbox Live, a fee based service released in 2002. It enabled gamers to download new content and unlike the other consoles from Sega and Sony, Xbox used an integrated Ethernet port. Xbox Live supported the original Xbox until 2010.
2. It is the first console to include a built-in hard drive for save files.
3. It introduced us to the *Halo* *and Forza* franchises.
4. It became a lot more popular with the all-American gamers, as well as the all-Canadian gamers.
5. It was the most powerful video gaming console of its generation.
6. Due to its power advantage, it has many console-exclusive games. Some games, such as the *Splinter Cell* series, had inferior versions made for Playstation 2 and Gamecube.
7. Re-released many PlayStation 2, Dreamcast and GameCube games (such as the first two *Fatal Frame and Grand Theft Auto* games) and added extra content that those versions didn't haveas well as better graphics.
8. Most multi-platform games run really well on the Xbox during that generation. Games like *Black*, which bring the competition to its limits, run effortlessly on Xbox.
9. Around 969 games was released for the system.
10. Some commercials of this console were pretty funny such as the Life is Short (banned) commercial.
11. The controller has ports where you insert memory cards or a headphone adapter for voice chat.
12. Speaking of controllers, the redesigned controller is surprisingly comfortable and was a huge improvement from the original controller.

## Bad Qualities

1. While this system became so successful in the USA and Canada, the Xbox became a very ***BAD*** console in Japan.
2. The original controller for the system was too large for many gamers hands, which gained the controller nicknames such as "Fatty" and later the "Duke". The controller that replaced it was interestingly the standard controller for the Japanese market.
3. There wasn't a "mascot character" associated with the console. Microsoft had *Blinx: The Time Sweeper* as an attempt to get a mascot but the franchise didn't last long.
4. Many early Xbox consoles tend to break down easily due to the clock capacitor acid leaking.
5. You can't use the controller when you're using a DVD-Video disc. Instead you must use a Xbox remote control to watch and use the menus.

## Reception

While it lost to the PlayStation 2 by a huge margin, the Xbox sold a respectable 24 million units and was very popular in North America, enough to get a successor, the Xbox 360.
Despite its popularity in the west however, it and the entirety of the Xbox brand for that matter, sold terribly in Japan.

The Xbox is considered the Atari of the 21st century, as the number one video gaming system in America since the Atari 2600, because it was the only American console brand which debuted in the 21st century.

## Trivia

* To some extent, the Xbox can be considered the successor to the Sega Dreamcast, to the point that the console's hardware design was strongly inspired by the Dreamcast. In fact, Sega initially negotiated with Microsoft to make the Xbox backwards compatible with the Dreamcast. That didn't happen though, instead, the Xbox got many games that were intended to be made for the Dreamcast prior to its discontinuation. The Xbox controller also shares some similarities to the Dreamcast controller.
* Despite the Duke controller's negative reception, it was later remastered as a Xbox One controller
* The name "Xbox" was derived from "DirectX Box" which was a reference to Microsoft's graphics API, DirectX