Xbox celebrates its 14th birthday

It’s been 14 years since the release of the first Xbox. Although pretty much everyone recognizes the brand these days, many people still may not be familiar with how it all started. It all began when the Playstation 2 was announced, its graphics and performance were a major upgrade over what console gaming had to offer. That’s what sparked an idea over at Microsoft, the idea of making a revolutionary gaming console. Microsoft being themselves, wanted Xbox to be a bit more than your average console, offering the capabilities which were usually associated with PCs. Such capabilities being ripping Audio CDs, downloading additional content or even downloading games themselves. To cater to gamers right from the start, Microsoft made sure to have a neat launch title ready, Halo.

Xbox’s hardware was unique for its time as it resembled a PC. Sporting a custom 733MHz Pentium 3 based processor, 64MB of RAM, an HDD and a DVD drive. Its specs were twice as powerful as the PS2. In the end, the first Xbox was quite a successful console, it even managed to sell more copies in the first 3 months than its successor, Xbox 360. After about 5 years since its release, 24 million units were sold.

Its successor, the Xbox 360, continues to be one of the most popular gaming consoles with over 84 million units sold in 9 years since its launch. The 360 will celebrate its 10th birthday in just a week.

Then we have the Xbox One which is the latest and greatest. Its sales may be trailing a bit behind the PS4, but they seem to have picked up recently, going as far as winning console sales last month. Many people attribute this to the recent release of a few exclusive, long awaited titles such as Rise of the Tomb Raider.