Was the Xbox originally going to be an 'X' box?

I remember seeing a photo of this in a 1999 issue of TIME which also featured screenshots of the "Master and Machine" tech demo.



It would have been kinda cool to have one sitting on top of the 'box.

 

AFAIK this was only a placeholder and a concept at best. I doubt that anyone actually hoped this would be a final product.

The XBOX design derives from its namesake's origin, the DirectX and its former logo.

 

I used to have a document detailing some of the official Microsoft Xbox V1 SKU concept designs. God alone knows where it is now, but if I get a chance I'll dig for it. Makes for interesting viewing and you can see where the designs were heading.

 

That would be cool if you could find it!

 

Sorry if I sound like a complete idiot here -- what do you mean in billet alone? I'm not familiar with that word and I looked it up. If you have the time and could let me know if your meaning is on the lsit here that would be great:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/billet

/ontopic -- that design would have made for a either a huge hassle for microsoft and it's unrealistic. Just think of designing things to fit into that shape with wires and whatnot weaving every which way; you get my drift. Most people find it convenient to be able to put their consoles in an area like a theatre system and if people ever wanted to move the console it would be pretty difficult. With their final choice for a box shape, it atleast made it:
1) Portable
2) More convenient
3) lighter
4) Easier to fit components without re-designing things -- therefore wasting for of microsofts capital; which was in the end put to a good cause.

Just a question: I've heard that microsoft actually lost money on the selling of the actual Xbox Console(s) and only made their money on it from their live subscription service, game realeses [particularily halo] and accessories. Am I correct??

 

Wow horrible spelling. I understand how we can't edit our posts, but I actually meant to either remove the 'lighter' off the list or add a question mark to the end of it. And what I meant was that likely it woulda cost a lot of microsofts funds to design the Xbox in that shape and how theiir final choice resulted in a good one where the saved a bit more thanif they did their out of the box design. That really sounded corny didn't it...

 

Microsoft actually lost quite a bit per xbox AND xbox 360 sold. They do indeed rely big time on game and digital sales.

The expansion and growth of the LIVE service has certainly made the ride a LOT easier for them though. With 20 million XBL subscribers, what can you say? With all those people paying monthly/annual LIVE fees + Possibly purchasing marketplace content + Buying games to play online. It all adds up to some very big numbers for MS in the end.

Then you have to think of those that don't have LIVE, there's quite a few of those guys too.

-Doom

 

Wow that's crazy! Ya that's totally not something they could have made profitable gain from. But still, 11-12K is a huge price man.

 

I meant couldn't make profital gain from easily ***

 

The original Xbox was derived from a low end computer wasn't it?

 

celeron!!

 

Actually its a mobile pentium 3 processor.

 

Isn't that what ASSEMbler meant when he said p3?

 

The original 's were relatively cheap tbh, prices have shot up now of course!

A lot of the machining was done manually, rather than CNC.

Lastly the finished item was polished/buffed, not plated.

 

...The polishing/buffing took even longer!