RUSEL DEMARIA
Purchase Now !
Just with Paypal
Just with Paypal
Book Details
Price
|
4.00 USD |
|---|---|
Pages
| 259 p |
File Size
|
22,737 KB |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN-13
| 978-1-138-35017-5 (Hardback) 978-1-138-35016-8 (Paperback) |
Copyright
| 2019 by Rusel DeMaria |
This book began when I was updating my game history book High Score Expanded.
I called Ed Fries, former head of Microsoft’s game division and asked
him about the real story of Xbox. That’s where it began. Ed steered me to Otto
Berkes and Ted Hase. I followed the trail, which led to a years-long effort and a
two-volume story based in large part on interviews with 93 people, all of whom
had played a role in the long road to Xbox and the promotion, approval, and
ultimate launch of Xbox and Xbox Live. This is the Xbox part of the story. Volume
2 contains the prehistory, or as I like to call it, “The Prequel.”
Just So
When I was young, I remember reading Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.
Like How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Leopard Got His Spots, How the
Elephant Got His Trunk. You might think of this book as How Microsoft Got
Its Console.
In a very real sense, I’m beginning this book at a crucial moment of an
ongoing story. I chronicle the long road taken to this point in Game of X
v.2: Prequel, which is full of stories about people and events, technology
and company culture, accidental successes and colossal failures. It’s a look
at the DOS and early Windows era as seen by the 40-plus people I interviewed
for that book alone. And in the end, that road leads to this moment,
a moment of relative calm and quiet at Microsoft. It comes after the initial
furor over the Department of Justice anti-trust actions and after years of
controversy over graphics standards has blown into a war of words and
recriminations. It comes after the departure of one of the most outrageous,
polarizing, controversial, and effective figures in Microsoft’s history. When
Alex St. John was finally fired, his talent for disruption left with him. But a
little of it remained, and as we’ll see, not everyone was willing to go back to
“normal” at Microsoft. There was more disruption to come, and it started
with a couple of guys talking in the hallway.
Online Appendix
For the fullest enjoyment of this book, we recommend exploring the extensive
Appendix compiled for this book, with many original documents
and further technical details online at https://www.crcpress.com/9781138350168.
Introduction
Author’s Postscript
So this is the story I decided to tell. I divided it into two volumes: this book
and the prequel (Game of X v.2) that tells the stories of the DOS and early
Windows days, the complex events around the development and adoption
of DirectX, and the internal struggles over graphics standards that ultimately
had a direct effect on Xbox. Also some good glimpses of Microsoft culture
and its relationships both inside and outside the company. It’s not by any
means the only approach an author could have taken, but after working on
this project for several years it became clear that what started out as a chapter
in another book now required two volumes, and that I would lead off with
the Xbox story because it’s the one more people will immediately gravitate
toward, and follow with the foundational stories in the prequel..
• I chose to focus on Microsoft as a game company, not only on Xbox.
• I chose to speak to as many people as I could find who would talk to me,
to tell the many stories that made up the whole, not a singular story with many actors.
• As much as possible, I used their words, their language, their expressions.
I wanted not only to tell stories, but to reveal something about culture
and life—the people—at Microsoft over the years. Something about the
strategies of massive companies doing business and competing against
other massive companies—and against just about everyone, including
their own internal groups.
I hope you enjoyed the book, the stories, the people, and will check out
Game of X v.2. For my part, I thoroughly enjoyed researching and writing
these books and extend my gratitude to the many people who made it possible
by sharing their time and stories with me.
-Rusel DeMaria
Table of Contents
Foreword ........................................................................................... vi
About This Book .................................................................................. x
Acknowlegments ................................................................................. xi
Prologue—The Boardroom ................................................................ xii
Part I: Betting Billions
1. Back to “Normal” ....................................................1
2. “It Could Never Happen Here” .............................13
3. Other Microsoft Initiatives ....................................19
4. The Executive Retreat: March 1999 .......................23
5. A Real Danger Emerges .........................................25
6. “Bill” Meetings ......................................................31
7. Under New Management ......................................49
8. Changing Vision ...................................................57
9. Or We Could Just Buy Someone? ..........................67
10. “Hail Mary” ..........................................................73
11. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre ...........................81
12. Inconceivable ........................................................85
13. The GDC Reveal ...................................................97
14. It’s a Go! Now What? ..........................................101
15. Xbox ATG ...........................................................105
16. The Xbox OS ......................................................119
17. Early Reveal.........................................................125
18. Launch Titles ......................................................129
19. Third-Party Titles ................................................157
20. Marketing Xbox ..................................................165
21. Hardware—A Rocky Finish.................................181
22. Pre-Launch ..........................................................187
23. Midnight Madness ..............................................191
24. Xbox—the First Year ...........................................203
Part II: Xbox Gets Connected
25. Early Live Visions ................................................207
26. Developing Xbox Live .........................................217
27. Completing Xbox Live ........................................227
28. Promoting Xbox Live ..........................................231
29. Xbox Live Beta ....................................................233
30. Xbox Live Launch ...............................................237
Epilogues
The Team .............................................................241
Author’s Postscript .................................................245
Bookscreen
