// THE VERGE — HARDWARE & GADGET
25 years later, Xbox is trying to reinvent itself again
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Xbox has always been about trying something new, so what does Microsoft do next?
Xbox has always been about trying something new, so what does Microsoft do next?
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Microsoft has spent the past 25 years trying to shake up the game console market. The original Xbox, which launched on November 15th in 2001, took on an industry dominated by Sony and Nintendo. Twenty-five years later, Xbox finds itself in a similar position. It’s not starting from scratch this time around, but to reach another 25-year milestone, it needs to do something radically different.
The original Xbox was radically different. Born out of a fear of Sony putting a PC in the living room, Microsoft built its first game console around familiar PC technology. A custom Intel Pentium III processor powered the original Xbox, alongside an Nvidia GPU and 64MB of unified RAM. It was different from the fully custom architectures that Sony and Nintendo used at the time, allowing Microsoft to entice developers to its platform with tools that were more familiar to PC game makers.
Microsoft also included two hardware features that were unusual for a console at the time: a built-in hard drive and Ethernet port. The hard drive let game developers cache content without having to rely fully on optical discs, and Xbox players could also use it for game saves without having to purchase a separate memory card. You could even rip CDs to an Xbox and listen to custom soundtracks while playing games.