Microsoft launched its first console, the original Xbox, back on November 15, 2001 – 20 years ago today. This was the home-market US launch – gamers in the rest of the world would have to wait until Q1 2002 to get their mitts on this hulking console. Like current-gen Xbox consoles the first one was built around x86 hardware, comprising a Pentium III CPU @733MHz, but pixels were accelerated by an Nvidia GeForce 3-based NV2A GPU running at up to 233MHz.
Over the course of its shelf life, the original Xbox sold nearly 25 million units, but was outsold by the Sony PlayStation 2 by a factor of 4-to-1 or better. Current-gen Xbox gamers can still play “thousands of Original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games” now, thanks to Microsoft’s thoughtful Xbox Backward Compatible games program.
PCs and components
- Intel Core i5-12400 and Core i5-12400F appear on eBay for US$365 and $323, respectively
- Rumour: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is begin fabbed on 5nm, comes with 24GB GDDR6X, and is 3x faster than the RTX 3090
- AMD’s latest Radeon graphics driver patches eighteen high severity vulnerabilities – it isn’t all about gaming optimisations
- Local Escalation of Privilege vulnerabilities found and patched via Intel BIOS updates
- Intel Core i7-12700H benchmark results appear in the Geekbench database
Gaming
- Let’s Celebrate Together on the Xbox 20th Anniversary, says Microsoft
- Xbox Series X Gucci available on Nov 17 for $10,000 (100 units available) at select locations
- Call of Duty: Vanguard opening week sales are down 40 per cent compared to last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
- Rockstar pulled the remastered GTA trilogy on PC, but it returned this morning. Many of those who grabbed it want their money back
Technology
- IBM has created the world’s most powerful computer after achieving a quantum-computing breakthrough
- UK gov continues Arm/Nvidia deal investigation, and it isn’t looking good for the green team
- Samsung announces a 2.5D chip-packaging technology called H-Cube, for HPC, AI, datacentre and network products (high performance and large-area packaging)
- The White House rejects Intel plans to increase chip production in China
