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Comment by Scuds | Hacker News Reader

What could have been done besides throwing more money at it?

How did Microsoft get the original xbox into a state of relevance?

"How did Microsoft get the original xbox into a state of relevance?"

By dumping an insane amount of money into it, and waiting until the 360 to actually make any profit whatsoever. Not easy to replicate.

I have no idea why people are downvoting this, as it's pretty accurate. If anything it understates the difficulty. The original Xbox cost tons to develop, and Microsoft spent a lot more money getting games for the thing. In the process they created the canonical example of a console first-person shooter, the genre that now dominates game sales. (You could argue that Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on the N64 got there first, but Halo is the one that really moved the market to where it is now.) Then on top of that, they created Xbox Live, which has had at least as much impact on how we play games as Halo did. And you're absolutely right that they lost money in the process. So yeah, dumping an insane amount of money into creating two products that revolutionized the game industry and not recouping that investment until the the second-generation product launched is how they did it.

"Created" is a strong word for Microsoft's contribution to Halo, given the original debut of the game at MacWorld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2RMHeMGDDU

If we're playing the pedant game, what I said was:

> In the process they created the canonical example of a console first-person shooter

Whatever one thinks about Microsoft's involvement in Halo, it wasn't going to be a console game at all without them. And I don't think it's the game that changes the whole industry if it's not the game that brought PC's biggest genre to consoles in a way that made them feel like they belonged there.

Didn't it start as an RTS on the Mac, and only became an FPS when they moved it to Xbox?

it's probably unlikely microsoft has made a profit at all with the xbox. keep in mind it lost a lot of money fixing the RROD problems (not enough thermal paste will cost you $$$!). then with R&D for 3 consoles, marketing, advertising, etc i'd be surprised if the entire thing has ever made money for them.

they are just dumping money into in the hopes that they will not lose out as a competitor in the family entertainment system although they totally screwed that one up during the whole E3 XBox One fiasco.

> How did Microsoft get the original xbox into a state of relevance?

Halo. I mean, there was a pile of other Xbox exclusive games at the time that probably helped -- Fable, Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, Steel Battalion -- but the original Xbox pretty much made its name entirely on Halo and Halo 2.

They dumped a ton of money into it. They literally bought game developers to make sure Xbox would get good games. And then Xbox Live basically redefined online gaming.

But the other thing is that Microsoft has a surprisingly strong hardware game for a software company. Most of the hardware they push out has solid fundamentals, even if the overarching idea or business model has flaws.

Examples:

- Keyboards (they're consistently good middle-tier, budget keyboards)

- Mouses (again, nothing to write home about, but they'll last you many years)

- Zune HD (amazing hardware, no traction)

- Xbox (other than the controversial huuuuge controllers and then RROD problem on the 360)

- Phones (again, solid hardware even if the software leaves something to be desired)

Better engineering. One of the big issues is TERRIBLE (like.... >1/10th of a second) lag with the wireless controller.

My super hexagon score says otherwise.

>What could have been done besides throwing more money at it?

A physical media format. So that buying games has real meaning to the user.

First-party games, instead of relying on third parties to supply the system sellers.

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