2001 Launch Team Xbox: How Many?

Hi all,
My 2 cents here. All MSFTees dealing with Xbox were offered the opportunity to buy one of the Celebrations consoles. Those who didn't care often pass the opportunity to other colleagues. I would say than you can easily have a 1,000 batch for each of them.
Cheers.

 

Sorry for forgetting your exact title @mmm206 Still trying to get out to Seattle at some point, although Ive just settled into Florida myself.

 

This explains a lot... lol

I see a lot of 2nd Anniversary (All White) and Panzer Consoles that are yellowed. Now we know why. Very Cool

 

I have a question for mmm206.

Do you recall any specifics about the Transparent sample controllers (or Xbox shells)? Can you give us some insight on why they weren't as popular as the translucent colours?

Do you also recall any of the prototyping phases and what plastics were used? There's a specific plastic often used with samples in china for some stuff in my other hobby (which they use as a limited edition for fun). It's an off-white colour, sorta tan, somewhat softer to accommodate errors in the molds (cutting flash and all). Were any ever molded with this particular plastic?

Can you possibly give us some info on the Hammerhead controllers and why they even considered that controller idea?

And if possible, getting a little fun here, do you know of any instances of some "tie-dye" shells (controller or xbox shell), where the dye didnt get mixed with the plastic correctly, or maybe 2 colours were mixed in? It's always been something I take interest in.

Oh and what was your favorite jewel style (if that was answered already sorry).

 

The Hammerhead bit is easy. It was never considered for retail hardware. It just had the buttons they needed to have something up and running quickly.

See: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/hammerhead-meets-xdk/1100-2639354/

 

While we're talking about colors, jewels, and controllers...
Here' s a thread by Borman from 2014 containing some more info that some might find interesting: threads/xbox-case-manufacturing-talking-with-marco-micheletti.53078

 

That's my original email to Borman.

 

This makes sense. I am guessing they had to do this just to get a controller into the developers hands early, before pre production 1st party controllers were ready.

 

Jewels we haven't talked much about, and possibly worth another thread. Honestly, my favorites:
1) the Grey/Metalic on Silver (which I think I used on the Orange Console, because I thought it looked the best, and possibly was never introduction, from what I recall).
2) The black on silver
3) Green on Silver (once we finally got a good company to automate making these - another good story, worth an episode on "how its made")
4) Bill Gates launch edition jewel
5) Pepsi/Hulk+MountainDew

 

The silver ones were used on Kasumi Xboxes.

 

Yep I still have mine too and the controller is almost new looking compared to the nearly yellow panzer dragoon console.

 

Perhaps you know why, but was the height lowered on the top half of the shells solely due to the space the DVT extra hardware took up or did MS initially plan for the taller shells to be in it too?

I mean we all know the Xbox is HUEG but it seems like a lot of trouble to change a shell that slightly (i mean it's a lot to do, as it's something I've dealt with before, but it still seems like a waste. They probably could have fit it all into a standard shell)

 

You're saying the orange case owner, Emilio, opened up a shop with what he earned from the Xbox? That's pretty wild. I wonder how that's going.
Is the "girl" that you're talking about Kelsey from Pink Gorilla in Seattle?
All MetalJesusRocks is revealing is that it went to a "private collector"

(via YouTube - 5 months ago)

@mmm206 - What were some other experiments that never made it into production? Like we know about the glow in the dark and the Xbox Live orange case, were there ever any other concepts or special cases for other games that never made it off the drawing board?

 

The hardware cant fit in a normal shell. Not a whole lot of space when you want temperatures to be decent. Look at Sonya giant hardware, or the huge variety of Gamecube hardware, Microsoft did a good job really.

 

Hi mmm206,

Do you remember about a xbox (crystal case) with bean peas inside ? (yes real beans peas in a full working xbox).
It was for internal msfte prize published on MSW site, I tried to find the post/picture recently, but no sucess... the article is probably too old and have been deleted, I still remember about a picture with a woman holding the console in her hands.

 

The Debug kits or XDKs, Borman knows which ones, that were taller had extra video port on the back and some extra memory tucked in there somewhere which is why those DEV kits were taller. It was never a volume production design.

 

I Don't remember this, but I can guarantee you that we never put beans, peas or anything else inside any console on purpose for any reason.

 

I found a picture. It was in fact Jelly beans (november 2002)

[GALLERY=media, 1277]Xboxjellybeans by slugman posted Jul 25, 2016 at 12:32 PM[/GALLERY]

 

For reference in the future, these are pictures from an eBay auction in October 2017. These are what the consoles and the extra green duke controller came in.