Xbox

The Xbox was Microsfts first real foray into Video Game Console development, while they have done gaming on the PC for many years prior, they had never touched console development till the Xbox’s release. It came in the sixth generation of video game consoles, going up against the Nintendo GameCube, the SEGA Dreamcast and the Sony PS2.

The Xbox was different to all of the consoles of its time, Instead of utilizing highly customized pieces of hardware like the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 did, the Xbox instead used hardware that was much more familiar to them. That being they utilized a PC style system and architecture for there console, bringing in the in-built hard drive to store save games directly to the console, removing the need to purchase memory cards.

Emulation of the Xbox so far has not managed to get very far, despite a couple of attempts emulation has basically never gotten past managing to get in-game in a couple of games. Performance is not to great in the emulators either. The difficulty of Xbox Emulation is likely due to how much in common it has with the PC Architecture and the sheer lack of any real documentation on how everything works. There is currently only one real Xbox emulator project that is making ground, and that is the XQEMU project.

It also brought with it an Ethernet port, and was the first video game console to bring together a proper online gaming community with there console thanks to the introduction of Xbox Live. Xbox Live didn’t just let you play games with other people, it also let you add friends to a buddy list and interact with them. Xbox’s network prowess was helped by there better and more reliable services coupled alongside the fantastic online gameplay of Halo 2.

Ultimately the Xbox fared extremely well for there first video game console, coming distant second to the PlayStation 2. Ending with over 24 million units sold, it proved more popular then Nintendo’s GameCube and eclipsed that of the SEGA Dreamcast.