Original Xbox Designer Says Power Isn’t A Selling Point For Consoles Now
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One of the original Xbox’s designers, Seamus Blackley, said that computing power isn’t a helpful selling point anymore when it comes to consoles.
In an interview with VideoGamer, Blackley said that the power-first approach worked for the original Xbox back in 2001 since graphics weren’t as polished as they are now. Focusing the narrative on computing power helped the Xbox stand out among Japanese hardware companies.
“We were a Western company and we were saying ‘Okay, we’re going to lose money on these to make them super powerful’ and take a bet on the games being awesome,” Blackley explained. Back then, the original Xbox was the only console with a built-in hard drive that could handle games like Halo: Combat Evolved, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Fable, and Shenmue 2.
