Eight Years Ago Today, The XBOX 360 Was First Announced

focus · May 2013

With only nine days to go before Microsoft officially reveals the next major version of its Xbox game console family, it's almost hard to believe that the current Xbox 360 is almost eight years old. Indeed, it was eight years ago today that Microsoft first announced the Xbox 360 via a special on MTV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kve7A1NxiUM

The TV show was basically a 30 minute infomercial for the successor to the original Xbox, and aired just a few days before the 2005 E3 trade show in Los Angeles, where Microsoft held a 90 minute press conference. We couldn't find that special at first on YouTube but thankfully someone at Neowin (thanks Nathan Weinberg_305451) found that special which was hosted by Elijah Wood and was heavy on the MTV promo stuff in addition to the Xbox 360.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LTs0AoaMYGA

The first Xbox 360 E3 2005 press conference, which again was held just a few days later, has also been uploaded to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hisMQ-YRbfQ

By the way, all of the Microsoft executives that were on stage during that E3 2005 press conference, (J Allard, Peter Moore and Robert Bach) are no longer with Microsoft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n2KqwfaHw3E

There's also this intro video that showed off some of the first Xbox 360 games, including titles like Gears of War (which wouldn't be out until fall 2006) and Frame City Killer, an action game from Namco that ended up not being released at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jznHUZKA0y4

Finally, check out this early Xbox 360 video with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates who are both shown in line waiting for Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith to open but are still talking about the Xbox 360. As you can see, Ballmer is interested in talking about about the Xbox 360's games and connectivity features while Gates, the true uber-geek, would rather talk about the high end hardware features of the console. Good times.