Xbox is a video game console brand made by Microsoft. It began in 1998 when four employees decided to try to make a system to compete with Sony's PlayStation 2. The employees took apart four Dell computers and built the console from the parts. The employees named the console DirectX Box because it used Microsoft's DirectX graphics program. They showed the console to Ed Fries, who was the leader of Microsoft's game publishing business, and he liked the idea.[1][2][3] During work on the project, the name was changed to Xbox.[4]
↑Dudley, Brier (May 25, 2011). "Last of Xbox Dream Team, Otto Berkes Is Moving On". The Seattle Time. Seattle Times Co. p. A12. Berkes and Hase were among a group of four who first pushed Microsoft to develop a Windows-based gaming system to compete with Sony's PlayStation 2, which was luring game companies from the Windows platform in the late 1990s. The other two were Seamus Blackley, who left in 2002, and Kevin Bachus, who left in 2001.
↑Dudley, Brier (May 24, 2011). "Exclusive: Microsoft loses last Xbox founder, mobile PC visionary". The Seattle Times. Seattle Times Co. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2011. In 1998, Berkes and his team ordered a few Dell laptops, took them apart and built the first prototypes of a Windows gaming console. In order to appeal to young people, the name zBar (pronounced zed-BAH); laterm Ed Fries was leading Microsoft's games publishing business when the four Xbox founders pitched a "Direct X Box" based on the Windows DirectX graphics technology that was developed by Berkes' team.
↑Alexander, Leigh (August 14, 2009). "Interview: Former Microsoft Exec Fries Talks Xbox's Genesis". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved May 25, 2011. Direct X-Box, of course, was truncated to 'Xbox,' -- and "marketing hated the name," says Fries. "They went off and created this whole, long list of better names for the machine." In focus testing, the marketing team left the name 'Xbox' on that long list simply as a control, to demonstrate to everyone why it was a horrible name for a console. "Of course, 'Xbox' outscored, in focus testing, everything they came up with. They had to admit it was going to be the Xbox."