Xbox is a ‘key Microsoft Moment’

Time magazine has included the launch of the original Xbox as a key 'Microsoft Moment'.

In part of a feature the influential magazine ran to mark the 25th anniversary of the Windows operating system, it rated the launch of the Xbox as a key moment in the firm’s history:

“By the [2001] holiday shopping season, gamers all over America wanted them, launching a three-way battle for video-game dominance between the Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube... Microsoft had a $500 million marketing budget for the game platform, which also contained a hard drive and Internet connectivity.

“The Xbox was more powerful and more expensive — not to mention heavier — than the PlayStation 2, but lacked Sony’s stable of popular games — it didn’t take off as a platform until the stunning success of Halo, a mankind-vs-aliens space opera that helped redefine the first-person shooter genre.”

Thanks to GamePolitics