Xbox One Turns One Today, Here Are The 10 Stories That Shaped Its First Year

Xbox One Turns One Today, Here Are The 10 Stories That Shaped Its First Year

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Dan Webb

2013 was a bit of a turbulent year for Microsoft and their console gaming arm. While Sony and PlayStation came out of the blocks kicking and screaming, Microsoft and Xbox kind of flopped out of their box. From May all the way through to its launch, Microsoft had U-turned on more Xbox One policies than your traditional political party. It was a PR nightmare.

My, what a difference a year can make though, and since the launch of the Xbox One, things have gone from a rocky off-road trail to being back on track. It’s a fairly epic turnaround, in truth. This time last year the Xbox One launched, and on this, its first birthday, we track the 10 biggest stories that defined the Xbox One’s first year.

  • Phil Spencer Becomes Head of Xbox – When Marc Whitten left the Xbox team, many feared that things were about to go from bad to worse for Microsoft’s Xbox One. In fact, as far as pivotal moments go, this was it, not because of who left, but because of who came in: Phil Spencer. Right out of the gate Spencer recognised that there were “wrong decisions” made about the direction of the Xbox One and he sought to fix that. And fix that he did. You’ve only got to look at the majority of the stories below that happened since Spencer’s appointment to see how much of a difference one man can make.

  • Xbox One Launches In China – “Wow, big deal, the Xbox One launched in China… yawn.” Well, considering that video game consoles have been illegal in China since June 2000, it’s a pretty mammoth statement of intent, especially considering that China has a huge gaming market (reportedly close to $13 billion a year). It was a pretty successful launch too, beating Japan’s total sales in just one week – although, let’s be honest, that’s not too hard. In its first week on sale, the Xbox One sold 100,000 units, which considering the asking price is closer to $700, is no easy feat.
  • Microsoft Begins Its 28 Country Roll Out – When the Xbox was announced to be only coming to major markets in 2013, there was an outcry from those regions Microsoft failed to cater to. As far as business decisions go, it was an odd one. Thankfully 2014 saw them roll out the Xbox One into another 28 markets, meaning that not only could they get the consoles into more gamer’s hands worldwide, it also meant that they could extend their reach and shift more units.
  • 10 Million Consoles Sold-In – Speaking of shifting more units, the Xbox One reached the 10 million consoles “sold-in” mark just over a week ago – that means sold-in to retail, by the way. Regardless of the vague – and almost pointless – terminology, it’s a big landmark, and one that eclipses the Xbox 360’s year one sales. Not only that, but the Xbox One has outsold the PS4 in the last 2 weeks in the US, and the last 3 weeks in the UK – where it reached the 1 million units sold milestone this week too. Not bad for a console whose days were supposedly numbered.

  • The Kinectless Xbox One Is Announced – As far as defining moves of the Xbox One’s first year goes, this was one of them. Not only did the Kinectless Xbox One provide an option for consumers who wanted an Xbox One but weren’t going to pay for Kinect, but it also meant a price cut across the board – and that was for both bundles. The price cut was a biggie, meaning instead of paying $499.99 for an Xbox One, that consumers could pick it up for a paltry either $399.99 with Kinect or $349.99 without instead. Considering that the original price point was a sticking point, this came as welcome news for not just consumers, but third-party publishers who are keen to have a bigger target audience to hit. They even recently knocked an extra £30 off in the UK. Awww, bless ‘em. The best news out of all this though? The fact that the developers can harness the extra GPU the Kinect once used to create prettier games for you. Result.
  • Microsoft Buys Mojang – Yes, Microsoft bought Mojang. Yes, they spent $2 billion dollars on it. Yes, it caught us a little by surprise, well, aside from the fact that it was reported on 5 days before it actually happened. Yes, folks, that’s right, I am indeed talking about the fact that in September 2014 Microsoft announced that they had purchased Mojang, and more importantly, Minecraft, for $2 billion dollars. Mojang joins Microsoft’s impressive studio slate that includes the likes of 343, Lionhead, Rare and Turn 10, and of course, the Minecraft IP joins Microsoft’s hugely exciting slate of IPs that includes Halo, Fable, Forza and of course, Gears of War – which they bought this year too.

  • Games With Gold on Xbox One – With Sony touting PlayStation Plus for its users, Microsoft had to do something to respond, and that they did. In May of this year, a few short weeks before E3, Microsoft announced a Games With Gold program for the Xbox One, kicking things off by giving Gold members a chance to download and play Max: Curse of the Brotherhood and Halo: Spartan Assault. The program has come under scrutiny in recent months for the quality of the titles that are being offered for free, but this is a start. That, and free is free, am I right?
  • Rise of the Tomb Raider Goes Exclusive – When Crystal Dynamics and Microsoft announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider was going to be an Xbox One exclusive, the internet exploded. The once PlayStation-alligned brand was announced as being an Xbox exclusive at this year’s Gamescom. Sure, it might only be a timed-exclusive, but it’s a statement of intent for Microsoft. Don’t expect this to be the last shocking move when it comes to exclusives either, as Microsoft is reportedly investing $1 billion into securing exclusives for the Xbox One. That’s a big ol’ wad of cash!
  • Exclusives – Exclusives sell consoles, and what Microsoft has done in the first year of the Xbox One is give gamers an excuse to buy their console. Sure, this isn’t really a singular story, more of an emerging one that grows and grows with time, but we make the rules, so we're allowing it. When we say exclusives as well, we’re actually talking about quality and quantity. It’s not just sequels either, there’s actually been a great mix of titles. There’s been great new IP (Titanfall, Ryse and Sunset Overdrive), there’s been remakes like Halo: The Master Chief Collection (even though at the time of writing it’s still slightly borked) and of course, those pesky sequels (Dead Rising 3 and Forza Horizon 2). It’s been a great year to be an Xbox One owner. It truly has.

So there you go, the 10 biggest stories that defined the first year of the Xbox One. I think we can all agree that Microsoft have had a busy year. And it wouldn’t be a birthday without cake, right? Well, we have no cake, but you can head on over to this amazing giveaway if you want to win a Sunset Overdrive Xbox One. Happy birthday, Xbox One.

Comments
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  • You need 4 controllers to 100% Tomb Raider....screw that, props to Phil Spencer though, even if he does look like a dodgy serial killer.
  • @1 Your comment is irrelevant to the article. What does 100% Rise of the Tomb Raider have to do with anything? There aren't achievements for it yet.
  • Cos the game was in the article.... Could of sworn there was talk of a local coop achievement that needed 4 controllers.
  • @#3 - Kazz, the Tomb Raider in the article is the one coming in holiday 2015 =)
  • I got an Xbox Live message saying I'm getting Limbo for free when it releases on Xbox One :) It's free. I'll take it.
  • Happy 1 year xbox one but don't forget the 360 turns 9 today as well
  • I'm getting limbo for free! Can't complain tbh, great game, gonna be 1000gs and it's FREE! How many people are going to complain about this now?
  • Now they just need to get rid of that redundant tile which is a copy of whatever disc might be in the drive. oh, and let me disable the snap function. I still hate it.
  • Shouldn't that be $499 (dollars) it was £429 (pounds) wasn't it? Also what's Ryse a sequel to? ;)
  • I've got an old school friend who works in one of this scam English teaching jobs where the kids don't actually learn anything in Wuhan. He came back to UK in June for a wedding we both went to and I actually asked him about the console situation. He's been there about 5 years now and yeah consoles have been illegal but he says for at least the whole time he's been there, if you wanted one you could buy one no problem and no one would bat an eyelid.
  • @1 Umm, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is the game with the 4 player local co-op achievement which is the top down isometric shooter, sequel to the 360 game Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and the 360. Rise of Tomb Raider is the sequel to Tomb Raider, the recent and very enjoyable reboot.
  • It's been a great first year for Xbox 1.
  • Phil Spencer becoming head was the best thing to happen to Xbox. He turned the system around for the better, here's hoping he remains in the position for a long time, because I don't think there is anyone better suited or more deserving.
  • Wait, why is Ryse under "those pesky sequels", what was it a sequel to?
  • I hope they change (fix?) the language/region soon. I can't even pick English as language if I choose The Netherlands as my country. So for English spoken games I need to pick a location such as the UK and when I want to download something I can go swap back to The Netherlands to access the marketplace with my redeemed moneycards and after the download back to the UK for English. Not logic at all and a bit annoying. Overall I am really happy with my Xbox One though.
  • @#9 & 15 - Fiiiiiiixed :D
  • @ #16: i'm hoping for that too! i mean, it's like they think we don't speak english while it's being integrated more and more in the Netherlands.. sure some people can't speak english for shit but if they game, they can understand english... english should be a default language to choose as far as i'm concerned when it comes to electronics :O
  • Happy 1 year guys. Was a slow start, but man what a system it is turning out to be!
  • I love that the competition isn't restricted to the UK only. I mean we're just next door(rep of ireland) but we always miss out so cheers for the chance guy and keep up the good work! :D
  • I want Limbo for free :(
  • "The price cut was a biggie, meaning instead of paying $499.99 for an Xbox One, that consumers could pick it up for a paltry either $399.99 with Kinect or $349.99 without instead." That never happened. It stayed at $500 with Kinect and without Kinect was $400. Only recently did both versions get a price drop, and that's the temporary $50 price drop for the holidays. Xbone without Kinect has never been $400 here in the States.
  • "Updates Galore – If there’s one thing that Microsoft truly got right in its first year with the Xbox One, it was updates. Updates, updates, updates, updates. They came thick and fast, and for the most part, fixed most things that early adopters – including us – didn’t like about the console. Those updates included friend notifications, a sound mixer for apps while using Snap, external storage features, custom backgrounds, Xbox One store improvements, the ability to snap achievement lists, and so much more. It’s as if there was something wrong with the console and it needed fixing… and fix it, they did." MORE THAN THE USELESS TWITS AT SONY DO!! Sony makes you wait all year for an update. And then the update doesn't fix existing problems, and breaks even more things (including some games!). Seriously Sony, thank you SO FUCKING MUCH for letting us pay you for wallpapers, but not fixing the message problems, and breaking standby mode, and breaking a handful of games. The 2.00 update was so broken that they've put out two- not one, TWO- updates to try and correct the stuff they broke. Sony was right: greatness does await. It's called getting sick of Sony's bullshit and buying an Xbone, which is where the greatness actually is. BTW PSN goes down all the freaking time and half the time you want to go to the PlayStation Store, it gets stuck and you have to quit out and power down the console to give it another go. What a strange reversal of fortune over the past year. We went from Sony being king of the world and Microsoft being the jesters to Microsoft offering the blatantly better box while Sony screws up left, right, up, down, and every other direction you can imagine.
  • Just got couple digital things, but sadly no promise of free limbo even though I bought the xb1 on day 1.
  • I better get Limbo, dammit. I got outfit crap for Sunset Overdrive and I don't even play it any more. Hmph..
  • I've got great stories to add to the list. Remember when Microsoft tried to charge people to play used games, or borrowed games from friends? Remember when it was basically online only and if your internet went down, your console was just a brick? Remember when they said a Kinect-less console was impossible to do? Man, such GOOD times. =D
  • Cool got limbo from them. Is it same game on 360?
  • Great got an xbox message too stating I get limbo when it's released free,I will receive a code via message. Happy days!
  • @3 i believe your referrring to lara croft and the temple of osiris for 4 player co op. im holding out yet for a purchase, but deffo sticking with xbox, even though most of my mates have switched to ps4.
  • Talked to a "representative" on Xbox.com chat. The "gifts" are "random". I guess you get the good stuff if you didn't play Sunset Overdrive, which gets really boring, really fast.
  • @4 Accept my apologies lol, I'm getting my Tomb Raiders mixed up!! so many sequels these days it's hard to keep track sometimes lol
  • Still, they force region locks (not only stores but also languages) even though they initially promised they wouldn't. It's a good console, yes, but definitely not as perfect as they want you to believe it is.
  • I had the ps 1 n 2 .... Jumped to x box 360 n x box one and there's no chance of going back
  • @26 You know those first two things were just figments of your pessimistic imagination, right? You're close to the real stories but that's not what they discussed. The third one you said was totally true though, haha. No argument here; they definitely said that several times if memory serves. (No sarcasm intended)
  • Titanfall was never an exclusive on the Xbox One, it was released on the PC the very same day.
  • @#36 - When we say exclusive, we mean console exclusive. Always have done. Always will do.
  • I just bought one as I think it has taken till now to reach some sort of potential. everything was out on both platforms last year, there was no real feel of needing to upgrade so to speak. now its all out about AC unity, Halo 5, GTAV remake etc, a time to want an xbox one at last!
  • How does the UK Xbox One console differ from the U.S. Xbox One console - is the video output designed for PAL only?
  • @31 You sound like a spoilt brat, so you got something for free but because it's not what you wanted you whine about it! Personally, I've not gotten anything but I don't feel the need to complain about it.
  • I had no idea that it had already been a year. Man, am I behind! hahaha
  • @31 those prizes must be random because I got a download code for something in battlefield 4 air vehicles and I don't even play that game online. lol
  • @42 I got a pinball table.
  • @16 and @19 totally agree. I hate now I have my Xbox 360 on local UK and on language English but it still shows some Dutch in the menus -_-" At least the games are in English though!
  • Now with all the updates I like xbox one :)
  • And let's not forget Xbox Live has been hacked WAAAAAAYYYYY less than Sony has been.
  • Scarlett . even though Sharon `s remark is good, on friday I bought a brand new Mercedes from making $4876 this last five weeks and just a little over $10,000 this past munth . without a doubt it is the nicest work I've ever had . I started this eight months/ago and almost immediately was bringin in more than $81, p/h . learn the facts here now....WWW.TIME-REVIEW.COM
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