Xbox is one of the most prestigious brands in gaming, being known for franchises like Halo and Forza. Of course, there wouldn’t be an Xbox brand, let alone a Halo or Forza, without an Xbox console to play them on. Today, this entails an Xbox Series X/S, which is able to play games like the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved and Forza Horizon 6.
Both the Xbox Series X/S and its games represent the most powerful console gaming experiences today. The same could be said back in 2001 when the first Xbox console was released. It could do much more than just run games such as Halo: Combat Evolved and Forza Motorsport.
The Xbox Is a Gaming PC Disguised as a Console
One important factor that contrasts the Xbox with its contemporaries, the GameCube and PS2, is that its hardware closely resembled a gaming PC of the era. To drive the point home, the Xbox had beefy internals that put its competition to shame, boasting 64 MB of memory, a 733 MHz Pentium III processor, and even an NVIDIA graphics chip.
The Xbox was also innovative when it came to storage. Sure, there do exist options for saving games to small 8-megabyte memory cards, but they are largely redundant compared to the 8-gigabyte hard drive, which could effectively store save files for just about every Xbox game there were. Better yet, the hard drive’s speed, combined with the processor and memory, make games generally load faster than games on the PS2.
Of course, more important than the console itself is having a controller to play its games. Inspired by the Dreamcast controller — which lacked shoulder buttons as well — the Xbox’s original controller, dubbed the Duke, was notoriously large. This led to the release of the more comfortable Controller S a year later, which became the console’s standard controller.
This is not to mention how big the Xbox console itself was considerably larger than the PS2 and even more so than the GameCube. Perhaps this served as an indicator of how ambitious the Xbox’s games were.
Xbox Changed the Game Forever
A crucial point of interest with the Xbox is that it took heavy inspiration from the earlier Dreamcast, which was innovative in many ways, especially when it comes to online gaming. Whereas the Dreamcast had SegaNet, the Xbox got Xbox Live; its impact on gaming cannot be overstated.
Many of the Xbox’s best games implemented Xbox Live in one way or another. The most prominent example is Halo 2, a sequel to what was already the most influential game ever made. Whereas the first Halo was a masterclass in local and LAN multiplayer, Halo 2 perfected fully online console gaming.
Speaking of Halo and Halo 2, both games were the envy of the gaming industry when they came out in 2001 and 2004, respectively. As a result, other FPS games, including Metroid Prime and Doom 3, took after the Halo games in their presentation. The one thing Metroid Prime and Doom 3 lacked was an intricate online multiplayer mode with a sizable player base.
Of course, there are more Xbox games than just Halo. Take Forza Motorsport, for example, which was seen at the time as a worthy competitor to the PlayStation’s Gran Turismo games. Highlights included a larger vehicle roster and more realistic physics.
Additionally, considering the close connection between the Xbox and Dreamcast, many of Sega’s games, especially previously Dreamcast-bound titles, found their way onto the Xbox. These included Shenmue II and Jet Set Radio Future, both of which are seen as superior to their Dreamcast predecessors.
As for other third-party titles, the Xbox’s hardware advantages over the PS2 and GameCube meant it could run games like Half-Life 2, which was seen as a benchmark in gaming at the time. Little more has to be said about what the Xbox could play.
Xbox Only Got Bigger From Here
The original Xbox was first released in the U.S. on November 15, 2001. Miraculously, the Xbox managed to outsell the GameCube — 24 million units versus 21.74 million units — despite the latter having the backing of Nintendo, who had been in console gaming for much longer than Microsoft.
That being said, the Xbox was no match for Sony’s almighty PlayStation 2, which sold a gargantuan 160 million units in its lifetime. The PS2 might’ve been weaker in areas, and the Xbox might’ve had better versions of popular multiplatform titles, including the Grand Theft Auto series. However, the PS2 offered so much more for gamers, especially when it came to the variety of games available.
With the Xbox, it might’ve been known for FPS games like Halo and racing titles like Forza Motorsport, but it was weaker when it came to platforming games. One will just have to play Blinx: The Time Sweeper and compare it to the PS2’s Ratchet & Clank for reference.
Still, the Xbox had so much promise that Microsoft wasn’t about to leave the console market. Microsoft released the Xbox 360 in 2005, and its success led to the releases of the Xbox One in 2013 and Xbox Series X/S in 2020. Over the last 25 years, the Xbox brand has had its ups and downs, but fans fans are eager to see what’s next.