Support NeoGAF

[DosGamer]

With all of the xbox rumors floating around recently, it got me thinking about the early days of the console. I remember working at Gamestop upon its release and it was wildly regarded as a ugly ass brick looking system with a big bulky controller.
It sold poorly at first as the Playstation and Nintendo garnered most of the attention and sales.
Then the demo units popped up in stores and that changed the game.
Customers saw that the xbox could rip cd's and they got to play Halo for the first time.... realizing just how special it was.

Fast forward to present day and thinking about it... I dont think Gamestop or BestBuy ever got the credit for pushing the sells of that console. It took that momentum with it and pushed out Halo 2 and 3... and eventually the 360. At that point shoddy build construction and the RROD took away much of the progress.

I wonder if Halo or the Xbox for that matter would have ever taken off if it had not been for the kiosks?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Same can be said for any console maker. I remember tons of Sega, Sony and Nintendo kiosks at any game store or gaming department. A Sears store by my university had one playable game system and it was always an SNES where they'd rotate games like Ken Griffey Baseball, Super Metroid and DK. And it wasnt even a Nintendo looking kiosk made by Nintendo. It was just a part of the game store that had a big TV and it always had a SNES hooked up. One game shop actually had an Atari Jaguar always hooked up and I played Raiden on it all the time. A store called Compucentre (long gone) had a Saturn demoing Daytona USA and Panzer Dragoon. EB had PS2s with a demo sampler disc I tried all the time and I also remember seeing PS2s with Madden Football.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Gamestop is going to help plenty when all those Xboxes come stampeeding in for trade in value.

 

[Deerock71]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

 

[Puscifer]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

100% and lan parties we're back in full force during those days from all the the built in networking. Also being able to make/buy Ethernet cables that were terminated in different ways to make 8 player lan possible was awesome. Some fighting games even used it so you could have individual playing space for tournaments for the ones that used it.

It was definitely a niche, though. But they rode the lightning on multiplayer innovation back then. Sure it was 50 bucks, but getting messages from friends and cross game invites when playing stuff like Ninja Gaiden felt like the future, and it was.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

Seems like such a long time ago when Live and all that were the new hotness. It was the right system, at the right time, with the right games. At least for that core group that wanted the online play and the lan parties and all that.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

There were demo kiosks for every console in all major electronics stores here

 

[Kacho]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

The OG had phenomenal exclusives and superior third party ports. It offered so much more than Halo.

 

[Die Namek Ability]

Anecdotal for sure, but i remember many times going into an EB games/Game Crazy and now GameStop where the employees would try to convince me and my brothers that the PS2 and later PS3 was a POS and that the XBox was far superior, even going as far as to grab games off the shelf and compare to us the little pictures on the back to somehow prove to us the XBox was better. Truly pathetic behavior. I didnt put much thought into it at the time but looking at how the super XBox fanbois have evolved over time it was just typical toxic behavior. I'm not saying this never happened with PS side, i just only experienced it form the Xbox side.

 

[havoc00]

I definitely helped sell about 100 Xboxes myself I’d loiter around Best Buy and sell people on the power of X!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The OG had phenomenal exclusives and superior third party ports. It offered so much more than Halo.

Also a HDD as standard. Some buddies had tons of Sega and Nintendo roms installed. I played Contra III on it!

 

[Deerock71]

The OG had phenomenal exclusives and superior third party ports. It offered so much more than Halo.

It wasn't called Halobox for nothing.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

And it was sick. Halo 1 is the best in the series to this day IMO.

Funny how they got their foot in the door with an exclusive console seller and now they’re gonna try to tell their fans exclusives no longer matter. Good luck.

 

[Kacho]

Also a HDD as standard. Some buddies had tons of Sega and Nintendo roms installed. I played Contra III on it!

Fuuuuck yes dude! I would rip my Limp Bizkit CDs to my Xbox and listen to that while playing PGR. Shit was incredible.

 

[Die Namek Ability]

I definitely helped sell about 100 Xboxes myself I’d loiter around Best Buy and sell people on the power of X!

You joke but this was a real thing

 

[havoc00]

You joke but this was a real thing

Would people really?

 

[Spyxos]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

This.

After I saw Halo in an electronics store, I had to have it. And we didn't have any demo stations at Gamestops.

 

[diffusionx]

I worked at EB Games at the time and can confirm. It was part of MS' outreach program for sure, and also, the original Xbox was a very good console that did a lot of interesting stuff, had good games, and was very good for "hardcore" gamers.

 

[Raven117]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

This. That entire brand is owed to this one simple fact.

Continued in the 360 generation by being the first one out of the gate…. And easier to port to.

It’s been downhill since the announcement of the Xbox one.

 

[Del_X]

If Xbox had a truly groundbreaking game to demo they could do this (they don't).

Halo Infinite could have been that if it had the emergent gameplay it deserved.

 

[iHaunter]

The OG had phenomenal exclusives and superior third party ports. It offered so much more than Halo.

Only main exclusive I can think of is ES3. Other than that, they were on Par. PS2 was far superior overall.

 

[diffusionx]

Only main exclusive I can think of is ES3. Other than that, they were on Par. PS2 was far superior overall.

KOTOR, Project Gotham, Jade Empire, Forza, Shenmue 2 (in the US), Riddick, JSRF, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ninja Gaiden... not to mention it usually had the better version of third party games compared to PS2, like is Splinter Cell might as well have been exclusive...

Yea PS2 was a better system overall but you're selling it short.

 

[DaGwaphics]

KOTOR, Project Gotham, Jade Empire, Forza, Shenmue 2 (in the US), Riddick, JSRF, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ninja Gaiden... not to mention it usually had the better version of third party games compared to PS2, like is Splinter Cell might as well have been exclusive...

Yea PS2 was a better system overall but you're selling it short.

It was an amazing system. It really got a boost from the Sega deal. 360 was great as well, with the refined online the digital store and gamerscore and all that. Not that the X1/Series systems aren't great pieces of hardware that you can have a ton of fun with, but I think that gaming has just run out of big new innovations at the moment.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I remember they had demo units where you could play this

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

The OG had phenomenal exclusives and superior third party ports. It offered so much more than Halo.

No doubt halo catapulted it into the main stream

Yeah bought it for doa 3, jet set radio, shenmue 2, gun valkrye, Panzer dragoon orta, pgr .

(Pretty much sega games)

 

[reinking]

I wonder if Halo or the Xbox for that matter would have ever taken off if it had not been for the kiosks?

It wasn't just the kiosks that changed everything. It was all of the free stuff MS was giving to EB/GS managers. I received 3 Xboxs (to be fair, I won one of them with most monthly Xbox sales in my district), an insane number of games and XBL Gold account for five years. Every store in my district (with the exception of mine, we stayed neutral) was an Xbox store. In other words, if you came in off of the street and asked which console to get, Xbox was pushed first because of the loyalty MS bought with the swag.

 

[Bry0]

KOTOR, Project Gotham, Jade Empire, Forza, Shenmue 2 (in the US), Riddick, JSRF, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ninja Gaiden... not to mention it usually had the better version of third party games compared to PS2, like is Splinter Cell might as well have been exclusive...

Yea PS2 was a better system overall but you're selling it short.

Mechassault 1,2.

For my tastes I actually like the games on Xbox a lot more overall than ps2, and I think a lot of those games aged well. Both had tons of must plays though.

Playing dead or alive 3 on launch was just insane, and halo 1 was just leagues ahead of a lot of shooters at the time. I went on a 6th gen binge last summer and halo is just light years ahead of every other console shooter from that gen. it’s almost shocking how much better it holds up. The only thing close are the pc games that got Xbox ports like doom 3 and half life 2.

 

[simpatico]

I remember trading in my PS2 stuff for an Xbox. It really felt like a half gen upgrade in terms of quality. Ripping CDs, the Halo flashlight, notable upgrades to the sports titles etc. Good times. PS2 has a waaaaay better library in hindsight, but OG Xbox is underrated. Hard to go back to since most of the content is available on PC.

 

[A.Romero]

Retail in general helped the gaming business but now times have changed. I don't think it would make much a difference because the older generations pretty much already know what they want and the younger generations are exposed to sufficiente marketing through the Internet, in particular through streamers.

 

[Codes 208]

Gamestop is going to help plenty when all those Xboxes come stampeeding in for trade in value.

Not even then. They will reject trade ins when they hit a certain limit (ive seen them reject trade ins for switches and xbox series s back in 2022 when the newer systems were still a bitch to find)

 

[Astray]

People need to understand that those kiosks are bought and paid for by Microsoft.

They pay Gamestop for placement of those kiosks, almost like a space lease. They also pay a marketing company to design and execute those kiosks, and provide consoles and demo builds for them.

If you feel that this is lacking in the present time, it's because Microsoft decided the ROI from those kiosks doesn't justify the expense anymore.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

I think the modding community really helped the og Xbox as well.

It was outrageous for a time. Xbmc, streaming video from pc to tv, dvd, cds, emulators, your games stored on hardrive

If you knew what you were doing you could have the ultimate media box over 10 years before it became mainstream. (Ironically via kodi which is xbmc)

And because the og Xbox wasn’t on sale for very long before the 360 came out and it was dropped, this modding didn’t seem to have had much impact on piracy, especially because halo 2 was so popular and modded Xbox=ban on live.

I mean really, has any console before or after had such a dedicated community which went to the lengths of this:

The scene was absolutely crazy back then and defiantly helped with both sales and perception of Xbox.

 

[Sub_Level]

My first time playing Halo was at a Walmart kiosk. I was like wew this seems a bit wild.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

Yup. I remember seeing the reviews drop and saying fuuccckkkkkk, I can't possibly miss this.

The same day, with a huge hangover, I asked my brother (couldn't drive) to take me the fuck to the city (~1h drive) to buy the Xbox + Halo. Played all fucking night. Was mind blowing stuff honestly. That feeling killer game for a console launch, I've not really felt it as strong since then I'll be honest.

 

[Warablo]

I mean back then, there were demo units of all the consoles

 

[Gambit2483]

I definitely helped sell about 100 Xboxes myself I’d loiter around Best Buy and sell people on the power of X!

 

[German Hops]

the Halo fleshlight

What?

 

[KuraiShidosha]

I despise this notion that the Xbox was some undesired clunky box. I grew up in the 90s, and was a teen when the Xbox came out. ALL my friends and I were obsessed with it, having LAN parties even camped outside in the backyard of my buddies house with 4 of us in a tent and linked up every console and TV together for 16 man blood gulch CTF. Some of the best gaming moments in my life. I never had that with the PS2 or GC so fuck this anti-Xbox rhetoric just because the brand failed in modern times. Every system sucks today anyway, even PC. I have a 7950x3D and a 4090 and I play nothing but 20+ year old games. It's dead, Jim.

 

[simpatico]

I think the modding community really helped the og Xbox as well.

It was outrageous for a time. Xbmc, streaming video from pc to tv, dvd, cds, emulators, your games stored on hardrive

If you knew what you were doing you could have the ultimate media box over 10 years before it became mainstream. (Ironically via kodi which is xbmc)

And because the og Xbox wasn’t on sale for very long before the 360 came out and it was dropped, this modding didn’t seem to have had much impact on piracy, especially because halo 2 was so popular and modded Xbox=ban on live.

I mean really, has any console before or after had such a dedicated community which went to the lengths of this:

The scene was absolutely crazy back then and defiantly helped with both sales and perception of Xbox.

It was really the last "cool" console. Ever since then we've had repackaged gaming laptops outside of Nintendo. In some ways the OG Xbox was the last console.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

Microsoft lucked out with Halo. They lassoed lightning and made people buy their bulky box to play it.

It wasn’t luck to buy out Bungie after seeing the positive response when Halo demoed, then forcing their Mac game to be Microsoft exclusive.

 

[Ikutachi]

Ctrl + F morrowind 0 results what?

 

[Phase]

It was all because of the games. That's why it was as successful as it was. Plain and simple. Kiosks were a very small part of the advertising and not a driving factor.

 

[OrtizTwelve]

First time playing Halo on the XBOX when we brought it home was insane for the time, it was a totally different and unique experience compared to other games on the market. The feeling of being woken up as the master chief with the covenant boarding your ship and the music kicking in--- fuck it was great.

 

[MarkMe2525]

I definitely helped sell about 100 Xboxes myself I’d loiter around Best Buy and sell people on the power of X!

Wait.. that was you?

 

[TexMex]

are you joking

 

[DaGwaphics]

The only product today that I can see really benefiting from the kiosks is the VR headsets. I can see where demoing those might hook a lot of people. Sure, you might lose a few as well if it makes them motion sick too bad, but it is a tech that not everybody has had experience with.

 

[Come On Tars]

Same can be said for any console maker. I remember tons of Sega, Sony and Nintendo kiosks at any game store or gaming department. A Sears store by my university had one playable game system and it was always an SNES where they'd rotate games like Ken Griffey Baseball, Super Metroid and DK. And it wasnt even a Nintendo looking kiosk made by Nintendo. It was just a part of the game store that had a big TV and it always had a SNES hooked up. One game shop actually had an Atari Jaguar always hooked up and I played Raiden on it all the time. A store called Compucentre (long gone) had a Saturn demoing Daytona USA and Panzer Dragoon. EB had PS2s with a demo sampler disc I tried all the time and I also remember seeing PS2s with Madden Football.

I have memories of an experience like this with Nintendo 64. Might have been a sears. Couch and big tv. Kids were playing wave race on that. To the right of that a standing kiosk with shadows of the empire Hoth level. The nostalgia is so gd strong. If I had a Time Machine that’s a moment I’m curious about and how much my memory has warped it. It was my “Christmas story” moment. I can’t find any pics online of a similar setup. Maybe it was a dream….

 

[Frwrd]

the Halo fleshlight

What?

 

[Damigos]

i am wondering if the xbox business as a whole was profitable for MS until now.
Considering the 80 bn buyouts, the RROD, kinect, the must put day 1 releases on GamePass, low sales etc was it actually profitable until now ?

 

[CashPrizes]

I bought an Xbox just after launch, knew Halo was a killer app, and that it was more powerful then the PS2 which I already owned. Also had heard Sega was going to prioritize development for Xbox, so it was like my 2nd Dreamcast. Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Shenmue 2, loved it.