Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The XBOX turns 5; XBL turns 4
Today marks the 5th anniversary of the release of the original XBOX and the 4th anniversary of XBOX Live.
I still remember my wife surprising me with an early Christmas gift back in 2001. We had just bought a house and were preparing to move in, so we were trying to save our money for house-related stuff.
The following year, I was chosen to be an XBOX Live beta tester, so I spent too much time playing NFL Fever 2002 and doing all of the beta tasks.
Four years later, XBL is still the key differentiator for MSFT. No one else has been able to build such a reliable online gaming platform. Just look at EA's miserable network if you need an example. I won't buy EA games that I would want to play online because EA's network performance is so bad. And I'm betting Sony is going to have similar problems.
And with the upcoming launch of HD movie and TV downloads, XBL is only getting better.
XBOX.com has other gamers' thoughts on the past 5 years.
Today marks the 5th anniversary of the release of the original XBOX and the 4th anniversary of XBOX Live.
I still remember my wife surprising me with an early Christmas gift back in 2001. We had just bought a house and were preparing to move in, so we were trying to save our money for house-related stuff.
The following year, I was chosen to be an XBOX Live beta tester, so I spent too much time playing NFL Fever 2002 and doing all of the beta tasks.
Four years later, XBL is still the key differentiator for MSFT. No one else has been able to build such a reliable online gaming platform. Just look at EA's miserable network if you need an example. I won't buy EA games that I would want to play online because EA's network performance is so bad. And I'm betting Sony is going to have similar problems.
And with the upcoming launch of HD movie and TV downloads, XBL is only getting better.
XBOX.com has other gamers' thoughts on the past 5 years.
¶ 7:42 AM 
About Shawn Morton
Married father of 4, social media strategist at Nationwide, consumer electronics enthusiast, hair metal aficionado.
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