Retrospective: The Xbox Franchise

By Mike Koss | November 24, 2008

As we’ve crested the 7th birthday of the Xbox, and the 3rd birthday of the Xbox360, it’s time for a retrospective on how Microsoft has changed the face of gaming and what will be some of the fallout for the Next Next Generation. Readily burned into our minds are the obvious things like the Red Ring Of Death, and XboxLive, but that’s only scratching the surface. Let’s pull back the outer layer and take a look at all of the little things that has helped advance the pastime of video gaming.

In this first part, we’re going to disassemble the Xbox and its impact on console video gaming.

The first thing that the Xbox brought to the gaming table was the inclusion of a hard drive for game data storage. Obviously, this removed the necessity for needing external memory cards that were easily lost or confused (which one has which saved games?); but, this also brought the ability for updates for games as well as downloadable content. The Dreamcast and PS2 had a similar capability, but the amount of content provided to the users was limited based-upon the storage size of the memory cards. Although the first incarnation omitted full game downloads, it did allow for expansions as well as bug fixes for the games. Also, for the first time, gamers were able to rip their own audio CDs and create custom soundtracks, in the games that supported it.

The next major item that impacted gaming was XboxLive. As previously noted, with the combination of this service and the hard drive, gamers were able to receive bug fixes, updates, and other downloadable content to extend the life of their games. But what XboxLive truly did was change the face of the online gaming for consoles. Until this generation, PC gamers were the only group lucky enough to have a cohesive online community directly connected with their system and games. Once again, both the Dreamcast and PS2 had online capabilities, but there was no complete and unified experience to interact with your online cohorts. With our current generation of consoles, it’s obvious the effect this has had: Sony is prepping its avatar-based online world called Home. The second large change that XboxLive brought was charging users for content. Until its advent, what we bought in the stores is what we got. Now you have the ability to hop online and purchase add-ons, as well as pay for online play. The for-pay online play has brought the ability to have quality-of-service guarantee for the games played, whereas before the quality of the online play relied heavily on the end-users internet service. This brought another experience that was limited to the PC users to the console. Before XboxLive, the community for each game was shouldered on each developer without a common framework to integrate with.

The next thing that the original Xbox was famed for was the aesthetics and size of the unit. At the time, consoles were usually aesthetically pleasing, small devices that normally saw a re-release in a smaller form-factor after being on the market for an extended period of time. The PS2 was almost half the size of the Xbox, and the Gamecube small enough to warrant a handle for easy carrying. The Xbox, however, was a large black box that took up more space than other electronics staples of the consumer: the VCR and DVD player. In an ever decreasing space, the Xbox posed a problem of where to place the device in ones entertainment center. Continuing the trend of large items, the initial Xbox controller also received backlash for its size. So much so, that when the Xbox was released in Japan, a new smaller controller was introduced to accommodate those with smaller hands. The original controller, named the Duke, was designed with ergonomics and comfort in mind. Personally, when I first used the large controller I found it be awkward to use. After some time with it, I grew accustomed to the shape but the buttons left a sour taste with certain types of games, most notably fighting games. Once the smaller controller was released in the US, it never felt quite the same after becoming comfortable with the Duke.

Another advent from the Xbox was quality of the development environment. The Xbox was basically a PC modified into a different form-factor, including the use of the Microsoft DirectX API as part of its basis. This allowed for easier migration of developers from Windows PCs to the Xbox, and vice-versa. Microsoft also didn’t hesitate to jump into the fray and help out the developers to build help increase its library footprint.

Unfortunately, one of the areas that the Xbox lacked was in Japanese market penetration. Some pin this on the fact that the Xbox was a console created by a Western company and all previously Japan-successful consoles have originated from that country. To this end, there a couple other factors that affected the Japanese penetration of the Xbox and one of those is obviously the East/West mindset. Another big factor is that the Xbox came to the table late. With a release date of November 15, 2001 in the US and February 2, 2002 for Japan, it was almost 2 years behind the PS2. Being first, or close behind, does have its benefits.

Lastly, the Xbox was the first to bring Dolby 5.1 playback during game play. Previously this had been limited to playback of movies, or similar media. This provided a greater immersion into the game and finally gave console gamers yet another feature that had been reserved for PC gamers.

As its first foray into the console gaming market, Microsoft made a big splash, in more than one way. Obviously some of these features would have made their way into the console realm, but sometimes it takes an outsider to push things forward faster. Stay tuned for next time when we dissect Microsoft’s current offering and its status in the Next Generation arena.