Power On: The Story of Xbox

[thismeintiel]

Chazore said:

SKMBlake said:

I watched the first 2 episodes, I am in the middle of the third one and...

This is exactly why I don't enjoy the "Xbox brand":
- the main target was to respond to Sony's claim about the PS2 replacing PC in living rooms
- then it became all about beating Sony in their own field
- and then it was about entering in the lucrative gaming business to make money out of it, with unlimited funds from the richest company in the world

And yes, we heard about Samus the passionnate nerd who build up a prototype that could boot Windows in 3 seconds, but yeah, overall they made obvious why the Xbox brand isn't loved as much as Nintendo.

I mean, their goals and reason for entering the market aren't something to remember fondly, but tbh, I don't believe Sony's should be either, because if you remember, they only entered the market in a big way because they felt "betrayed" by another Japanese company (Nintendo), which they took Japanese levels of offence to (because that's just like the Japanese to go all Samurai period levels of pissed off, seriously, I'm not joking, history tells you how easy it was to offend them), and decided they wanted to crush their would-be partner.

The part about "replacing PC's" isn't exactly something fond to look back on, considering that was Sony wanted to crush another market.

MS's entrance wasn't noble, but neither was Sony's. Nintendo is remembered fondly because they were there when the market crashed, to pick up the pieces, while the other two were so hell bent on destroying each other and PC gaming (which is hilarious, when you look at PC gaming now, and how the other two, besides Nintendo, have adhere to the market they once sought to do away with/left behind).

That's not actually true, though. Ken Kutaragi was passionate about gaming. He worked on the SNES sound chip in secret and when he finally presented it to execs, most wanted to end the project, because gaming was seen as a fad within the company. He was able to convince the CEO to allow him to continue working with Nintendo on the chip, which eventually led to the idea of partnering for the Nintendo Play Station.

When Nintendo suddenly pulled out of the deal in favor of a (failed) partnership with Phillips, I'm sure they were upset, but most execs still just wanted to end the project. Kutaragi was, once again, able to convince the CEO about the potential of gaming, and the PlayStation was born.

So, it was born out of passion, not to just get back at Nintendo. Here's a pretty good documentary about it: