Oddworld Inhabitants co-founder Lorne Lanning revealed that Microsoft once thought of releasing the Xbox for free. Add to that, Microsoft was targeting the casual gaming market for their newest gaming console back in 2001.
Over a decade ago, Microsoft had planned to give away their Xbox for free along with video games that were being sold at that time. This was what Oddworld Inhabitants co-founder Lorne Lanning revealed in a very interesting interview with GamesIndustry.
Lanning said that "at the time, Xbox thought that the core market was going to be casual. They were going to be the casual gamers' machine. Now, that's why they approached us because they said 'we think you've got something that competes in that Mario space and we think Mario's the thing to kill." He admitted that this initial talk with Microsoft made them decide to jump ship to Xbox. He added that "so now you're like, 'look, if you're going to give the box away, you're going to win. If you're going to win, we want to be on board'."
However, majority of the developers in the gaming industry were adamant at that time to try out the Xbox for the sole reason that it would be coming from Microsoft. Many developers resisted the idea of having Microsoft participating in the entertainment or gaming industry. Nonetheless, Lanning and his team went out to defend the console and said that the Xbox might provide "better environments for developers," which would result to better games at cheaper prices in the market that would result to the longevity of the gaming companies.
Then again, the idea of handing away the Xbox for free remained alive as was revealed in Microsoft's Windows 10 event last January, based on a report from VG247. Microsoft gave the attendees in the event a glimpse of Xbox's future as they showed the Xbox One app that would available for all Windows operated PCs and tablets.
Apart from that, it was said during the event that gamers would be able to stream their games to a Windows 10 PC and it was also looking at the possibility of doing it vice versa; meanwhile, game developers would be able to use Windows 10 PCs for cross-buy and cross-platform play.
Xbox One would be the latest gaming console in the Xbox brand that started in 2001; the next generation console had reached over 21 markets in total, with a Chinese release in 2014 since it was launched in 2013.
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