Xbox is now 15 years old, and for good or for bad, it has become a mainstay of the gaming industry. In the last 15 years, Xbox has contributed significantly to gaming, most notably in ushering in the era of multiplatform game development, and in making the push towards online and connected gaming.
So much has happened in these last 15 years- how does Microsoft feel about where they’ve come? How do they feel about the three Xbox consoles, each of which has seen varying success, but each of which have left their mark on the market?
“For the original Xbox, what we did in such a short period of time and a lot of the bets we made, we were a small group of people kind of just doing whatever we wanted. It was mostly off the shelf parts that put that thing together and it was a pretty expensive box to make happen and the game content was a little all over the place. We had some incredible titles that came out of that and so there was a lot of magic in that,” Microsoft’s Xbox head Aaron Greenberg told IGN.
Xbox was great, but really, Microsoft’s legacy in the console market was solidified with what came after- the Xbox 360, which remains to this date one of the most successful gaming platforms of all tiem.
“With Xbox 360, it just felt like we got everything right. Building Xbox Live in, and a lot of people gave us a hard time about entertainment with Xbox One, but we did a lot of pioneering with entertainment with apps, digital movies, we had the 1080p streaming movies, we had Netflix, we did a lot of work with TV providers.
“[All of that] was in additional to an incredible lineup of games from the Gears franchise, Mass Effect and there were just so many, many great games. Call of Duty kind of took off on 360, Project Gotham Racing, Forza and there was a lot of greatness there,” Greenberg said.
The Xbox 360 is over ten years old right now- that is a very long time, and it’s easy to forget or take for granted just how much the Xbox 360 really did and achieved. The modern console market is shaped in the image that the Xbox 360 moulded. Naturally, great things were, and still are, expected from the Xbox 360’s successor.
“I think with Xbox One, where we are right now as I said, I think we’re really proud of what we achieved over the last couple of years in particular. I think the team has made an incredible product. I think we have an industry-leading games lineup and as we look to the into [2016] we’re going to have more AAA games, we’re planning on selling more games [in 2016] than we did in 2015.
“I think we delivered for people this [past] year. There is a lot of innovation happening and I think it’ll be exciting to get to share more about that throughout the year. It’s going to be a big year for gamers and if you’re an Xbox One owner, I think you’re going to be happy,” Greenberg said.
Hopefully we will be- so far, I’m still not personally satisfied with the Xbox One, but Microsoft have made incredible strides in making it a far more appealing product than it was back at launch. If they keep at it, I think it will soon be very hard to ignore the Xbox One, and what it brings with it to the table.
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