Power On: The Story of Xbox Review

When Microsoft held their Xbox 20th Anniversary Celebration in November of 2021 to look back on twenty years of being in the console business, there were a couple announcements that garnered my attention. The most obvious one was announcing that Halo Infinite Multiplayer would be available right away to mark the occasion, which would be a few weeks ahead of its anticipated release date. The second one was that there would be a documentary detailing how Xbox came to fruition.

Being able to take a peek behind the curtain is always fun and interesting but expectations for the documentary were low. The assumption was that the film would be somewhere around thirty minutes with some interviews spied in. Upon release of Power On: The Story of Xbox, my expectations were blown out of the water immediately when glancing at the sheer size of the documentary. Power On: The Story of Xbox is a six part series, with each part being around 40 minutes for a total run time of 240 minutes and 53 second which means it is over 4 hours long.

The big question is should you spend your time watching it?

Putting the length into perspective, Power On has a longer running time that Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, or using a somewhat more modern example, longer than Lord of The Rings: Return of The King. If you are an Xbox fan, a gamer or even a fan of the history of modern technology, chances are you will absolutely love this documentary and don’t let the run time scare you off as they are broken into six parts, all which fly by thanks to the excellent production from Ten100.

You could easily watch one or two of these a night or you could, and I fully expect most people to binge this series. Power On: The Story of Xbox is available for free on YouTube, which is great because a lot of people will be able to access this fantastic documentary for free, but its a little unfortunate it didn’t also go to another streaming service like Netflix to gain even more eyes on it.

Ten100 is a Los Angeles based production company that was founded in 2010 and according to IMDB really only has one major documentary credit on their resume, which makes the level of quality of Power On, even more impressive. The reason that you could binge this series easily is how its constructed. Power On features an absurd amount of old footage, that has likely never been seen by the public outside of Microsoft, mixed in with game footage, not just from Xbox but the whole industry, mixed in with animations and interviews.

There are some classic interviews woven in from people who likely said no to the documentary but there are plenty of people who were interviewed just for this series, who are some of the biggest names from the history of Microsoft including Seamus Blackely, Robbie Bach, Don Mattrick and Phil Spencer. Power On also features interviews from outside of Microsoft including former PlayStation President Jack Tretton, game developers and game journalists. It is the combination of all of these elements, weaving in and out that keep the pace flowing and the content constantly Interesting.

However, even the with the best editing, none of this would be interesting if the whole story of how Xbox came to be wasn’t interesting. How did a software company most known for Windows get into the console business? As is key to any good show leaving it hooks in you is paramount and making you want one more episode is the goal. Each chapter ends on the perfect note, making you want to find out what happens next

Putting Pen To Paper

Chapter 1 Renegades takes a look at what started out as four hardcore gamers who worked for the Direct X division of Microsoft and had a passion for gaming. These four people were gamers who loved games and wanted to make games. Thanks to working on the forefront of technology at the time with Direct X, they wanted to make hardware that was easy to develop for and would have the best games.

All of these people were in their mid 20’s and explains a lot. Had these four people been older, they might have had bit more reservation and wouldn’t have dreamed about entering the console marketplace. There were many other reasons that Microsoft decided to entertain the idea of building a game console including the Sony PlayStation 2 encroaching on their PC reign.

Chapter 1 follows these renegades as they try to get important people on board with their idea, which turned out to be a lot harder than expected. Microsoft was a software company and that was what paid the bills. However once enough passionate people were found that got behind the idea of a Direct X Box, it was then trying to convince Bill Gates that their pitch was the correct one as there was another team from Windows who thought building something similar to what was already on the marketplace was the way to go. The way in which the team from Direct X won the pitch against the Windows team is epic.

Once Microsoft figured out they were going to be building the console, the documentary looked at how the team figured out what components would be included, most Interesting was that Windows as it was known wasn’t going to be included to the surprise of Bill Gates. Instead the Xbox team had to steal the code for Windows so they could make it work as a base for the gaming console.

Once Xbox got approval from the higher ups, it was onto prototyping the console in a office that was built in the parking garage and figuring out how to convince developers to make games for Xbox and how it benefited developers.

Those Who Forget History?

Power On is a six part series with almost four of six chapters dedicated to the formation, creation and launch of the original Xbox, which included some of the successes and woes. Its important that the documentary spent so much time on the earlier stages on Xbox because there were so many opportunities for things to not work and to fall apart.

Even the acquisition of Bungie, who would go onto make Halo: Combat Evolved, the Xbox exclusive was riddled with bugs and frame rate issues just months before its launch. If it launched in that state, there is a decent chance that Xbox doesn’t exist today. Halo was a system seller and could arguably be the last of its kind since. Halo got people into the Xbox ecosystem and created a worldwide phenomenon that would go on to smash entertainment launch records across all mediums. Its very fitting that Halo Infinite seems to have brought the series full circle with fans and critics enamoured with the game, both for its classic feel and modern approach to the series.

The remaining chapters look at the 360 and how it broke ground initially but eventually encountered one of the biggest hardware bugs of all time with the Red Ring of Death and what Microsoft did to try to stop the problem and eventually what the solution was to fix it.

The final chapter looks at the missteps of the Xbox One and its bumbled launch messaging. From the forced inclusion of Kinect, to the always connected messaging to the higher price tag than the competition. All things that could’ve doomed the brand, but its important to see how the company took the licks and rebounded over the next five years and rebuilt the brand under the leadership of Phil Spencer.

Conclusion

Upon finishing Power On, one thing that resonated with me the most was how much respect Microsoft had earned the hard way over the years and how much Xbox has done for the gaming industry over the years. Without a doubt, Xbox has pushed the medium forward in so many ways that may seem like commonplace now but were bold decision made by Microsoft.

The decision to include a hard drive and a broadband ethernet port on the original Xbox while other companies were still using dial up and memory cards. The creation of Xbox Live that was boosted off the starting line with the Xbox Live Starter Pack that included that one ear headpiece that we all owned and wouldn’t be seen dead using today with our 7.1 Wireless, noise cancelling headsets. The creation of achievements, the inclusion of Netflix on the Xbox 360 that made your gaming console also a streaming device. The Kinect, despite its failure due to lack of hardcore games, was a technical masterpiece that found many uses outside of gaming and even most recently the Xbox Adaptive Controller that opens the world of gaming up to people with disabilities.

It’s easy to forget about these as they pass one by one and become the standard but when using hindsight, Microsoft has been pushing boundaries in gaming since before the Xbox released in 2001.

As a dedicated gamer and having owned an Xbox since November of 2001 and at least one Xbox every generation it was a great, nostalgic trip down memory lane. Above and beyond that, there was many things that were learned about each version of Xbox that likely aren’t common knowledge. Power On is a no stone left unturned documentary about how Xbox came to be and the highs and lows over the years.

Obviously, everything you remember about Xbox over the past 20 years is here from the giant duke controller, Halo, Xbox Live, Achievements to the Red Ring of Death. Even less successful ideas like the Wii challenger known as the Kinect and how much Xbox one wanted to be the entertainment box.

Power on not only dives deep into all of these fantastic gaming memories but it goes behind the scenes with people putting their careers on the line, duct tapping systems together, and crunching to get everything together at the very last minute many more times than you would imagine.

Without going deep into spoilers of some of the best (and worst) Xbox moments before the console was ever created, Power On: The Story of Xbox is without a doubt a must watch for any gamer and a prerequisite for the Xbox fan.