20 YEARS OF THE XBOX

TWO DECADES AGO, MICROSOFT SOUGHT TO USHER IN A NEW ERA OF GAMES - BIGGER GAMES, SMALLER GAMES, AND GAMES THAT WOULD BE MORE CONNECTED THAN EVER BEFORE. WE JOIN THOSE WHO WORKED WITH THE SYSTEM DURING ITS LIFETIME TO LOOK BACK AT THE MOST BELOVED XBOX CONSOLE

- WORDS BY NICK THORPE

When Robbie Bach outlined Microsoft's ambitions for the successor to the Xbox in 2005, they were simple but undeniably bold. “Last generation we were thought leaders. This generation we plan to be market leader.” Sure, the original Xbox was a powerful console with plenty of great games, but its lifetime sales only barely scraped past those of the GameCube – Nintendo's least successful traditional console to that point – leaving Microsoft as a distant second-place player in the home-console market. What's more, the mammoth corporation had racked up $4 billion in losses over four years to get that far. Few companies would have been able to absorb such costs, but Microsoft was willing and able to pay for a foothold in a potentially lucrative market. This time around, things would have to be different – successful companies don't stay successful by losing vast sums of money, after all.