Power On: The Story of Xbox is a six episode / 4 hour documentary that was released for free by Microsoft on the 20th anniversary of the original Xbox. It sets out on chronicling the history of the Xbox family of systems, from the very first one up to the Xbox One. The unique thing about this documentary is that it covers both on what went well with the design and release of the systems, as well as the costly mistakes that Microsoft made and what they learnt from it.
The documentary provides a much more detailed look at the process of creating the first Xbox than you would initially expect. The format has several of the key personnel involved in the creation of the Xbox recounting what happened from concept to production. The interview process feels natural and open, as if they are holding nothing back and can freely reveal the challenges that they encountered, both technologically and politically.
Archival footage is also used, from the stage events to apparently inside the Microsoft office. Although not sure how real the latter is, it at least appears real. For events where the interviewees are recounting that could not possibly have any real footage, the documentary uses comic book like, lightly animated, stills to depict the event. Interspersed with all this are clips from video games and events from competitors.
Perhaps the most engrossing aspect of the documentary is how much of an eye-opener it was for the people to convince Microsoft, a pure software company at the time, to enter the hardware scene with a games console, no less. It’s extremely interesting to see how events played out in just the right way for a group of “nobodies” to eventually pitch to Bill Gates and convince the upcoming CEO of the business case. It was high risk project that could have bombed and costed Microsoft a lot of money.
The documentary makes it clear that creating a games console from scratch, when you have no experience, and with established players in the market already, is no small feat. Everything from arranging the hardware, to designing the OS, to even just the name, has a lot of thought going into it. Each component has hundreds of issues to overcome, and it shines a light just how much of an achievement the teams at Microsoft had managed to accomplish. When they recount the situation during pitches or product displays, and anxiously awaiting the reactions and decisions of important people, knowing that their whole career hinges on it, it is a stressful (but ultimately rewarding) experience.
Just over half of the episodes focuses on the first Xbox, with the bulk on the period before its launch. Then it quickly goes over the killer release Halo and Xbox Live, both of which drastically changed the games industry. Then it finally moves over to Xbox 360, and the faster pace makes it feel like they are just glossing over it compared to the coverage of the first Xbox. Up until this point, the documentary was positive towards the brand and systems, naturally. However, surprisingly, it then moves onto the infamous Red Ring of Death, and owns up to its issues and how Microsoft scrambled to do damage control.
Then the documentary moves onto Xbox One, and the marketing problems that it had. However, what makes the Xbox One and Xbox 360 similar was the thought processes that went inside the heads of the people working on them, and how they worked hard to identifies the issues, and then solve the issues. Both times the Xbox team had managed to turn things around, albeit with a lot of time and effort. It is quite impressive on reflection at how Microsoft could have easily gone too far to go back, and forced to retire the Xbox brand.
The documentary only lightly touches upon the Xbox One X and the Xbox Series X. By this point, there were a lot more footage from marketing events and announcements rather than the animated stills, just because these things were more and more commonly recorded and shared. By the time the last episode rolls by and how relatively little time is spent on the later generations of Xbox, you can’t help but feel that maybe there should be more episodes so that there is time to go further in-depth.
Overall, Power On: The Story of Xbox is a surprisingly insightful and extremely interesting documentary on Xbox. While a lot of the focus, understandably, is on the first Xbox, going from its concept phase to design to release, the documentary doesn’t shy away from its successors and issues such as the Red Ring of Death and the Xbox One’s detrimental focus on TV. It’s main flaw though, and this is a testament to how good the documentary was, is that you will wish that it was longer so that it can go to the same level of depth into the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, as it did for the first Xbox. This documentary is a must watch for anyone who has an interest in gaming as a whole, since it is true that Xbox has, for better or worse, influence the gaming industry in many ways.
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