I was an NES kid growing up, and went into PC gaming for a while, before kinda falling out of the hobby right around the end of the SNES era. Which is to say, I didn’t read Next Generation, or indeed follow the gaming industry at all for the entirety of the N64/PS1 era.
It was seeing that beautiful big, black Xbox box on a shelf in Future Shop (Canadian equivalent of Best Buy) that brought me back into the fold. I wasn’t even aware Microsoft was getting into the game until then. Come to think of it, I probably wasn’t even aware Xbox was a Microsoft product until after I bought it. Which ties into that roundtable video I posted above, in which Robbie Bach talks about telling Bill Gates he didn’t want the Microsoft logo anywhere near the Xbox branding.
But having now flipped through several issues of the magazine, I can see why it would be a breath of fresh air compared to the more juvenile alternatives. Although that’s not to say NG didn’t have its share of nineties “edge” and videogame bro culture, but seeing beyond that it’s clear they were interested in covering gaming beyond cheat codes and Lara Croft’s cleavage.
Yeah, knowing what the tech landscape looks like now, 20 years later, you can’t help but shake your head at the idea that this was even within Microsoft’s grasp. Really makes me wonder about NG’s source, and how seriously this was even considered.
It’s stuff like that that makes me love reading older magazines and stories. A while back I got a GPD XD and got heavily into retro gaming, particularly the SNES, and grabbed all the old issues of a magazine called Super Play. And I loved the one-two punch of reading through that mag and then playing the games they were reviewing, as well as reading their rumours and speculations about (to them) future development in the industry.
That documentary series I mentioned in the OP is called Power On: The Story of Xbox, and as a FanFest registrant I just received an e-mail invitation to a first-look event on December 12th. That’s just one day earlier than the official launch, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is event is more than just a look at the series, and also has some guests and such in a studio. That’s just my speculation, they don’t say that in the e-mail.
Speaking of, here’s a quote from it:
Here’s the trailer:
Judging by the participation level in this thread, I’m suspecting I’m one of the few who actually cares about this, but I for one am really looking forward to this series, and will for sure attend this pre-launch event.
It was twenty years ago this month that the first issue of the Official Xbox Magazine launched covering the debut of the original Xbox console. The first cover story was Dead or Alive with a review of Halo as its game of the month. Project Ego was “previewed” years before Fable would be released.
Reviews:
Dead or Alive 3 9.5
Halo 9.5
Tony Hawk 2x 8.8
Project Gotham Racer 9.0
Transworld Surfer 8.2
NASCAR Heat 8.2
Cel Damage 6.0
Fusion Frenzy 7.8
4x4 Evo 2 5.5
Madden 2002 9.0
NFL Fever 2002 9.1
Air Force Delta Storm 7.1
Star Wars Starfighter 7.0
Weirdest ad: Mad Dash Racings green soiled underwear.
There is an 8 page history of the Xbox feature in the latest issue of Edge magazine #366. An light overview but any article that includes JSRF and the Steel Battalions controller is all right by me.
Thanks for the heads up on that. I grabbed a copy and just finished reading the article. And I gotta say, it made me curious about some of the politics that must be going on behind the scenes.
Reading articles like that, listening to podcasts like those linked above, and reading Opening the Xbox, one cannot avoid the names Seamus Blackley and J Allard and get the impression they were instrumental in the founding of Xbox. Also, I remember back then Allard was everywhere, basically the Phil of his day in terms of the outward face of Xbox.
But when watching the 20th anniversary stream, visiting the Xbox museum, or watching that roundtable above, those guys are hardly mentioned, if they’re mentioned at all. So, yeah, makes me curious about the politics of it and if there was some kind of falling out. That’s one thing I’ll be looking for in the upcoming documentary series for sure.
Thanks again. That article was a good read. I remember lusting after that Steel Battalion controller. Never could justify it, least of all because I’m not even all that into mechs. It was just so cool looking.
The cover story of the latest issue (227) of Retro Gamer magazine is a Halo retrospective. The story itself is 12 pages, and features people like Ed Fries and Jen Taylor, among others. It’s a decent read, nothing groundbreaking, but anyone interested in this thread probably wouldn’t find reading it to be a waste of time.
If your local library has Overdrive access (an ebook service) you can read it for free. That’s how I got my hands on it. Edge magazine mentioned by @Matesamo in a previous post is also available via Overdrive.
On a slightly unrelated note, I just wanted to let folks know I’ve completely redone the starting post of this thread, and moved the Ed Fries article to a later post. Just thought I’d make it a little more streamlined for people to find the official stuff.
Yes, great cover and story. I remember when they used to do special issues devoted entirely to Halo when a new game was released, I may still have one of them hanging around somewhere.
just saw this whole history thing, here is a lineup of pre launch xboxes in kiosks i was building in seattle for the launch, did you visit the big xbox balloon house touring north america during launch? i’ll post up more pics from that first year of xbox on the road if anyone wants.
I remember that Microsoft had a traveling display / demo team but I am not sure they came near me, maybe New York or Boston but I never got to go. I did not know that much about the Xbox prior to it coming out, all I knew if Gamecube had Rogue Squadron and Xbox had something called Halo. We all lined up in the same line at Toys R Us =on launch day though.
Stories and photos would be awesome, thanks for the Kiosk photo. My friend still has an original Xbox kiosk from Gamestop in her new store, it is huge. I offer to buy it but it is always no.
You say you built those kiosks? What’s the story there?
Also, the lanyard on the dude in the foreground on the second picture has me curious. It looks like an astronaut, and the M-ish shape on his chest makes me think of the MTV astronaut, but it doesn’t really look like him. Was MTV part of this balloon house party? If not, do you know what’s going on there?
we had lanyards for each event, every city we went we had a different event lanyard, passed em out to the public who visited. ha no MTV folks were around, we partnered with SOBY for a ton of events, and in the SW stag chili lol mmm
i think i have all the lanyards in my garage still - some were pretty cool, they were intended to be along the lines of a VIP concert lanyard take home kinda thing, if you didnt win any xbox swag while you visited.
for sure we all forget most gaming was not HD when the console came out, but yeah the widescreen were all HD - one of the trucks had wall mounted ones inside as a VIP lounge play area
towards E3 they upped the game even more with the SUV’s , i think most major cities had radio stations that got one full of swag and setup for demos to give away.
