Xbox (Original) Review

Microsoft's first console was a PC in a trench coat and made no apology for it: a 733 MHz Pentium III, a custom NVIDIA NV2A, 64 MB of unified memory and, decisively, an 8 GB hard drive and an Ethernet port as standard. That sheet beat everything else on the shelf in 2001, and Xbox Live in 2002 turned the Ethernet jack into the first console online service that actually worked, with one account, a persistent friends list and voice chat through a bundled headset.

The problem was everything around it. The box weighed close to four kilos, the launch Duke controller was sized for nobody, and the library outside Halo, Halo 2, Ninja Gaiden and Knights of the Old Republic stayed thin next to a PS2 catalogue that never stopped growing. Japan ignored it outright. As a machine it was ahead of schedule; as a product it was a $299 loss-leading beachhead for a company nobody in the industry wanted there. The beachhead worked, which is the kindest and most accurate thing to say about it.