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The original Xbox console was a big deal when it released back in 2001 for $299. It showed that Microsoft was serious about the video game market, and marked the return of a third major player in the console space after Sega’s exit that same year. It helped to change the future of consoles being built far more like a computer than a traditional console, a line that has begun to blur with the upcoming Xbox Mode for Windows.
And many of the features of the original Xbox were far ahead of their time, many of which would become incorporated in nearly all future home consoles. Be it the ability to download content for games, play online multiplayer, or rip CDs, the Xbox was doing things that neither Sony nor Nintendo were doing. It placed a focus on online gaming, advanced audio capabilities, and power on a scale not seen before.
The console was so powerful that it still has an active community today. As for myself, the original Xbox is the primary media player in my retro game room hooked up to an old CRT television. I also have another Xbox with two arcade sticks powering a modified arcade cabinet that’s running Coinops for the ultimate arcade experience. If you too want to build a retro gaming setup, you can grab this console from the second-hand market as used original Xbox consoles have gotten pretty affordable.
A built-in hard drive
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One of the things that set the Xbox apart was that it came with a hard drive as standard. It was the very first console to have hard disk storage, unlike the PS2 that could support a hard drive as an extra feature and would only work for specific games such as Final Fantasy 11. The inclusion of the hard drive meant that you no longer needed to purchase proprietary memory cards to save game data.
The hard drive also allowed the console to download content from Microsoft’s Xbox Live game service. But beyond simple storage, the hard drive turned the Xbox into a console that is still relevant today, 15 years after Microsoft ended official support for the console in 2009. This is because of how easy the Xbox’s storage is to upgrade (of course, unofficially), a first for a home console.
The console launched with an 8 GB hard drive, but you can upgrade it with much larger modern drives. This made the console the choice of many who wanted to create their own early home media server for hosting and playing back content. Even as late as 2025, new versions of Xbox Media Center (XBMC) were still being released.
CD Ripping functionality
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One feature that I took advantage of as a teenager was the ability of the Xbox to rip CDs. Thanks to the built-in hard drive, gamers could build their own music library. I can vividly remember setting up the Xbox in the living room whenever we had parties, playing the playlists I created without the need to swap CDs all night long. And with CDs making a comeback, an old upgraded Xbox might just make for the perfect retro audio player.
The system was easy to use, didn’t require a subscription or any extra accessories to function. For many young gamers, this was their first exposure to ripping CDs and creating a custom media center. The feature would extend to the Xbox 360 before being removed in future consoles in favor of purchasing or streaming music through subscription services.
But the best feature of ripping CDs came from specific games that took advantage of it. There were many titles such as Project Gotham Racing, Tony Hawk’s Underground, and more that would allow you to play music that you ripped in-game. The memories I have of staying up late with friends adding custom entrance music to wrestlers in WW Raw 2 are some of my favorite.
Online gaming through Xbox Live
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Xbox Live changed the way we play video games and became the one feature that an entire industry copied. While PC gamers understood the importance of online gaming thanks to the rise of the MMO genre and competitive shooters like Quake and Tribes, consoles treated online access as mostly an afterthought. The Sega Dreamcast allowed for basic online play, but it was the Xbox that truly popularized it.
The original Xbox came with an Ethernet port as standard, allowing Microsoft to launch the Xbox Live service. This gave players the option to play online with and against others anytime they wanted. Games like Halo helped to establish the service, becoming one of the most popular games on the service and making the Xbox the destination for online shooters.
The service was discontinued back in 2010, but it was so popular that fans continue to keep it alive with Insignia – a substitute online platform for the original Xbox Live that allows players to take their games online. With nearly 200 games supported, it shows how important the original Xbox Live was and continues to be for many players.
Game patching and DLC downloads
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There was a time when a game released and that was that. Whatever was on the disc would be the final version of the game, regardless of whether the game had any bugs, glitches, or missing features. You might get lucky and get a Game of the Year edition that might fix some issues, but this was rare. There was simply no way to fix a game post-release.
Thanks to Xbox Live and the online capabilities built into the original Xbox, developers could now patch games with a simple download. This often came in the form of DLC and updates, many of which came alongside multiplayer map additions for games like Halo 2. It also meant that some games on Xbox got updates while their PS2 and Gamecube variants did not.
Titles like Star Wars Battlefront would get an entire map called Jabba’s Palace released for Xbox through a download on Xbox Live. Only the Xbox and PC versions of the game got this DLC/patch, while the PS2 version of the game would never gain access to this battlefield. Today, games often receive huge patches post-release and beyond through their online services, something that the Xbox helped to set the stage for.
It was essentially a gaming PC
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The original Xbox was not only powerful, but it was built differently from its competitors. It was essentially a powerful computer that hooked up to your television. Instead of custom architecture and parts, the Xbox used mostly off-the-shelf components like one would use or see in a standard Windows build. Most notably, the console used a Pentium III CPU and an NVIDIA GPU.
It also featured 64 MiB of DDR SDRAM, something that gave it a massive performance boost over other consoles. The included graphical processing unit ran at 233 MHz and was based on the NVIDIA NV2A graphics processor which supported the then standard DirectX 8.1. This made not only creating games easier, but also made porting PC titles to and from the platform far smoother.
One interesting thing about using traditional computer parts that made the Xbox unique is that upgrades are possible. There exist modifications where users have upgraded the stock Xbox Pentium chip for a desktop or mobile variant. This can help native Xbox games run at a stable 30 FPS and allow for more homebrew options, an upgrade that simply can’t be done on other consoles of the era.
Methodology
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When looking to find out just what the original Xbox could do, we turned to the experts online. We scoured Reddit for examples of features that owners of the console felt were ahead of their time. We also looked to gaming channels and influencers who have decades of experience with the original Xbox and the stand-out features they used the most, as well as the ones that were often overlooked. The writer’s own experience with the console was also taken into account, as an expert in not only its use since launch, but in various ways of modifying and using the console over the years.
