Was it the games? The hardware? The marketing? Tell us!
We’re fast approaching the 25th anniversary of Xbox (look out for it November 2026!), and over the past couple of decades, the brand has racked up millions of fans who have spent thousands on consoles, games and more.
It might be a fairly short history all things considered, but so much has happened in that time. Each of the original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S eras have come with their own ups and downs, from major successes like the release of Halo and the glory days of the Xbox 360 library, to the Red Ring of Death and the botched Xbox One launch.
I honestly don’t even remember what the killer app for the original Xbox was for me. It wasn’t Halo, though I did like playing it over at my brother’s friend’s house, I never owned it myself. Splinter Cell? I was hella into MGS and SC was (at the time) an Xbox exclusive that touted itself as a MGS killer. It wasn’t that, but it was still good.
Edit: No, now I remember! It was for Morrowind! My sister had gotten her own for Christmas which came with a combo of some racing game and Jet Set Radio. Later on, she had the original release of Morrowind on it which had me playing on it more than her, so I ended up buying my own Xbox with the GOTY version of Morrowind since it ran like ass on my computer.
The 360 I got because of Gears of War. I got rid of it and never got another Xbox because of GoW2 causing RROD in the system 3 times and I got sick of sending them in. By that time, everything on Xbox was also on Windows so having been into PC gaming even before the NES, I just kept my computer relatively up to date.