#1 — The Big Reveal

When chronicling the defining moments in Xbox history, where better to start than right back at the very beginning? We’re heading all the way back to 2000 here, with Bill Gates taking to the stage at the Game Developers Conference to unveil a brand new gaming platform to the world. Well, sort of — while the Microsoft boss certainly introduced us to the concept of Xbox, what we saw in terms of hardware was a far cry from the chunky slab of console that would find its way into millions of homes around the world. The prototype Xbox console was nothing if not eye-catching — a hulking aluminium X-shaped beast of a thing, and fully functional too, if only at a fraction of the operating power of the final retail units. Gates refered to this as the “show-box,” and while it was immediately obvious that the final design would be something more practical, it was certainly one of the most striking ways possible to announce an entire new family of consoles.

Reports suggest that these units (there are apparently several in the wild, one of which could be seen behind Phil Spencer at 2020’s Xbox Series X|S reveal event, while another lives in Microsoft’s Visitor Center in Washington) cost somewhere in the region of $18,000 a piece to produce, so it’s probably for the best that Microsoft decided to be a little more realistic with the final design. Interestingly, all of the slides used in the presentation refer to the console as the “X-Box,” so it isn’t hard to see why that erroneous naming stuck around for so many years afterwards. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the presentation itself — skip to just before the 29-minute mark if you just want to see the actual reveal, but the whole thing is pretty interesting to look back on, provided you can tolerate that much Bill Gates.

Microsoft wasn’t the only company dropping juicy new console news at GDC in 2000, though. Sony’s Phil Harrison was there to talk up the PlayStation 2 (which had just launched in Japan days prior to the event), with actual retail hardware allowing Sony to show off not just shiny prototypes, projected stats, and tech demos, but actual games people would be able to play on the console. While Sony might have had the lead in terms of timing and brand awareness, Microsoft’s mission statement was loud and clear — make Xbox the most powerful console on the market, which of course it would absolutely go on to be. Gates would be back with more Xbox goodness in January of the following year, appearing at CES in January 2001 to reveal the final retail design of the Xbox, with a little help from… um, The Rock. Of course. Again, check it out if you haven’t. Or even if you have, actually. It’s really quite special.
“What The Rock is to sports entertainment, the Xbox will be to the video game industry: a breakthrough and certainly an original,” was quite a claim from Mr. Johnson, but you know what? He wasn’t wrong. Getting someone like The Rock involved could have been a move straight out of Sony’s playbook at the time, with much of PlayStation’s success built on making gaming seem ‘cool’ and blurring the lines between games and other forms of entertainment. It also served as something of a coup, with the SmackDown! games being some of the most popular and well-received wrestling games of the time, and the poster boy of the then-WWF coming out in support of this new console. The two presentations couldn’t be much further apart, going from Powerpoint slides and 18-grand novelty consoles to celebrity cameos and a premium product in under a year. One thing was for sure: Microsoft meant business.

Almost a year ahead of its November launch, we had seen a glimpse of the future of gaming. One of the biggest tech companies in the world was promising PC power in the console space, and given how quickly gaming technology was evolving at the time, that was a seriously exciting proposition. It would be a long wait until launch day, but it finally rolled around… and that’s a story for another time.

Tomorrow. It’s a story for tomorrow.

Were you excited by the prospect of Microsoft’s first console back in the day, or maybe you’re only today realising that seeing The Rock interrupt Bill Gates was something that had been missing from your life all this time? Get electrifying down in the comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow with our next trip down memory lane!