18 Jul 09 Xbox
The original Xbox was first released in the United States of America in 2001 on November 15. The Xbox is a video game console that Microsoft created. When it was first released, the Xbox was competing with Game Cube, a video game console created by Nintendo, and with Play Station 2, a video game console created by Sony. The Xbox was Microsoft Corporation’s first video gaming console. Before its release, Microsoft had only worked with video game companies in porting over their famous windows operating system to various video consoles, such as when they worked on porting Windows CE over to the Dream Cast console, which was created by Sega.
What made the Xbox so famous was the fact that it was the first video gaming console that included a hard drive disk that was used to store saved games. Prior to this incorporation of this crucial piece of hard ware, gamers had to use separate memory cards - usually a separate one for each of their games. Keeping track of these cards and storing them was not only tedious but also very annoying and difficult for those gamers who had many many games. However, the Xbox hard drive eliminated the need for these extra cards, which made the Xbox a fully contained unit, except for the disks for the actual video games of course.
Another thing that made the Xbox so appealing to gamers was the fact that they could copy their music from their favorite compact discs right to the game console’s hard drive and then they could create custom soundtracks for at least some of the games they played. Because the Xbox had a DVD / CD ROM drive, gamers could not only use it to play the regular video games, but they could also play DVD movies and CDs on their Xbox, making it a three in one product that was useful for gamers who were limited on space, like college students in dorm rooms.
The Xbox game console also included a one hundred Megabit Ethernet networking card, which allowed gamers to connect the game console to the Internet. Through Microsoft proprietary online gaming Web site known as Xbox Live, gamers could play multi player games over the Internet with other people. Users could also buy a wireless adapter for the Xbox Ethernet port, making it possible to connect the game console wirelessly to a gamer’s wireless network. This made it so the Xbox could easily be transported from room to room without having to worry about having a long enough Ethernet cable.
Tags: Cd Rom Drive, Compact Discs, Custom Soundtracks, Dorm Rooms, Dvd Movies, Ethernet Networking, Game Cube, Memory Cards, Microsoft Corporation, Networking Card, November 15, Play Station 2, Video Consoles, Video Game Companies, Video Games, Video Gaming, Windows Operating System, Xbox Game, Xbox Hard Drive, Xbox Microsoft
