Xbox 2001

Intro The Xbox (retroactively known as the Original Xbox) is the first video game console by Microsoft, and the first installment in the Xbox series of consoles. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, followed by Australia, Europe, and Japan in 2002. It is part of the sixth-generation console, competing with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube. It was also the first major console produced by an American company since the release of the Atari Jaguar in 1993. The console was announced in March 2000. In 1998, four engineers from the DirectX team at Microsoft – Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley, Ted Hase and team leader Otto Berkes – disassembled some Dell laptop computers to construct a prototype Microsoft Windows based video game console. The team hoped to create a console to compete with Sony's then-upcoming PlayStation 2, which was luring game developers away from the Windows platform. The team approached Ed Fries, the leader of Microsoft’s game publishing business at the time, and pitched their “DirectX Box” console based on the DirectX graphics technology developed by Berkes’ team. Fries decided to support the team’s idea of creating a Windows DirectX based console. The Xbox was Microsoft's first video game console after collaborating with Sega to port Windows CE to the Sega Dreamcast. Microsoft repeatedly delayed the console, which was first mentioned publicly in late 1999 during interviews with then-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Gates stated that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia convergence in the new times.