It’s quite shocking to see the undeniable fact that the Xbox turns 20 years old today. 20 years is a very long time. I was just 19 when the original Xbox launched in North America, and now I’m teetering on the edge of 40 and wondering where all that time went. It doesn’t feel real. The excitement around the launch, Halo, Project Gotham Racing… I can still feel it.
20 years have in some ways gone by in the blink of an eye to the extent that a console platform this old can still feel like the newcomer trying to prove itself. The reality is that Xbox bullishly made a place for itself at the table in part thanks to some tremendous exclusive launch titles. They were so good, the memories are crystal clear in my mind.
20 years ago the internet was a very different place. There was no social media to speak of, and there were only a handful of good video game websites. Print media was a much bigger deal, and yet there was still palpable excitement in the air about Halo: Combat Evolved. Xbox was arriving, but it was Halo that mattered. Everyone wanted to play the game that would blow away anything we’d seen on consoles at that point. I wanted to play it so badly I paid a huge import tax bill to get the console and a bunch of games shipped over from Canada.
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