Xbox Turns 20 Show Highlights

Xbox has turned 20 years old!

Covid has put a pause on ‘IRL’ Xbox Fan Fest events, the last of which being in London in 2019. This was not going to stop the celebrations of this particular milestone though. Xbox brought the celebration to the gamers, in form of a 30(ish) minute online show.

The well paced online tribute to Xbox began with a voice over introduction from Phil Spencer, and lead into a short and sweet introduction from Robbie Bach, the original Head of Xbox from 2001. Fans were treated to an initial insight into the origins of Xbox, how it started as a small passionate group of gamers from within the Microsoft juggernaut of the 1990s. As promised by Xbox executives, there was no talk of new games or new game announcements. But there were a couple of little surprises nestled in there.

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Power On trailer

Xbox ‘Power On‘

The first of the announcements was that of a 6 episode mini-series titled ‘Power On’, airing on December 13th. The series will go into detail on the story of Xbox. From inception and the famous announcement with The Rock and Bill Gates, to Keanu Reeves’ ‘breath-taking’ E3 performance. Fans will get to learn about the inside goings on through the successes and the challenges of Xbox’s 20 year history.

Backwards compatibility

Another announcement consisted of an additional 76 titles added to the backwards compatibility library, while also letting fans know that (at least for now) new additions to the backwards compatibility library were to stop. They cited licensing, legal and technical difficulties as their reasons for stopping. The 76 games consisting of OG Xbox and Xbox 360 games includes some true blasts from the past like Kameo, Dead or Alive and a whole bunch of my favourite Star Wars games. See the full list detailed at the bottom of this article.

Halo live action

Timed somewhat well with the December 8th launch of Halo Infinite, was the announced release window of the live action Halo series airing on Paramount+. The series is set to launch in early 2022. The long awaited Halo TV series will focus on the 26th century conflict between Humanity’s United Nations Space Command and the alien Covenant. Watch the trailer below.

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Halo live action show on Paramount+

And finally, what better way to celebrate the 20 year milestone than with one of your oldest franchises? The one that put Xbox on the map by launching with the original Xbox console. Despite heavy internet rumours, the announcement of Halo Infinite multiplayer being available to download an play immediately, was a welcome surprise and perhaps the perfect way to finish the celebratory stream.

Looking to the future

Straight after the show, Major Nelson’s podcast went up with Phil Spencer joining him. Most of their discussions were reflective of the show, looking back at the history of Xbox. But they did talk about Xbox now, and gave us a hint at the future. High quality games are beginning to role out now. Phil Spencer said he is “happy” with where Xbox is now (in terms of new game releases) and we are just starting to see the fruit of the last 5 years hard work. Phil went on to mention how excited he is for the next 5-10 years with what they have planned. When you think about it like this and you see the line-up of games that Xbox has for the next year, let alone 5 years, there has never been a better time to play on Xbox. Seeing Xbox and the industry as a whole this healthy, makes me happier than ever to be a gamer. Here is to the next #Xbox20.

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List of 76 titles added to backwards compatibility library: