Nick, Julian, and Esteban explore the notable games and lasting impact of the Xbox.

The Birth of HD
 

The Xbox is something special. It took online gaming very seriously, it had a hard drive instead of a memory card, and it could be used as a media center, making it the first console to take on the properties of a PC. Created by Microsoft, this should come as no surprise. When it was first launched, the Xbox retailed for $300, and despite Nintendo releasing the GameCube only three days later, Microsoft sold over one million in three weeks and would go on to sell over 20 million units in its lifespan.

The launch titles of the Xbox were not stellar. However, there were some games that truly showcased what this new console could do. Project Gotham Racing showed a more carefree example of Gran Turismo, and the graphics impressed fans of that series. Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee showed off what the series looked like in full 3D, and the results were impressive. If you wanted to smash some heads, Dead or Alive 3 was there to aid you in that, as well as show off impressive fighting landscapes and other pairs of beautiful renders. However, the best game at launch and breakout star of the generation was Halo: Combat Evolved, a console shooter so good it made first-person shooters the dominant genre in the industry.

When the Xbox was released on November 15, 2001, gamers were greeted to this huge, black box with a giant X on the top that weighed over eight pounds. The weight could probably be attributed to the thought that just like a PC tower, the console will not be moved around much, and so its weight will help keep the system stable. With the console was an equally big controller, now called the “Duke.” It sported a dual-analog layout that gave the left stick primary status for all games created for the system going forward. The controller would later be replaced by the smaller Xbox Controller S, which also moved the white and black buttons below the letter buttons.

One aspect of the Xbox that many people are not aware of is the high definition functionality. Before the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the original Xbox was capable of displaying resolutions up to 1080i. That’s more than the GameCube and PlayStation 2, which could display up to 480p. Considering the Xbox was arguably the most powerful console on the market at the time, the increased resolutions made the games look much better than the other versions, including some PC games. Not every game was compatible with this attribute however, which unlike the 360 was an optional feature.

Some standout games with this feature are Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, SoulCalibur II, and Tony Hawk’s Underground, which are 720p compatible. Atari Anthology and Enter the Matrix are the two games on the Xbox compatible with 1080i. A complete list can be seen here. Obviously this is a precursor to the direction the video game industry went in the following generation, making high definition a standard feature in video games. This is why the Xbox 360 was seen at first as just a mild upgrade to the Xbox and a lot of the launch titles for the 360 looked like HD-compatible Xbox games. Although a rough first impression for the 360, this is a testament to how powerful the original Xbox was.