10 years of Xbox Live: how Microsoft created the ultimate console gaming network
A lot of fingers were crossed when Xbox Live took its tenuous first steps. Back in late 2002, the gaming landscape was very different: digital distribution was in its infancy and console multiplayer came in two flavours - split-screen or system link. It was a far cry from today's always connected, always plugged-in world. Microsoft took a serious gamble - one that paid off by ushering in a whole new era for online gaming and multimedia on consoles. Ten years on, it's remarkable how far we've come.
Imagine how different things would be if the first Xbox had launched with a dial-up modem instead of a broadband Ethernet port? It seems laughable now, but it was central to one of the early discussions Microsoft tackled for its first foray into console gaming, says Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, programming director for Xbox Live.
"One of the problems was convincing folks that [including Ethernet only] was the right thing to do," he explains. "If you looked around the landscape, nobody could tell in 2001 and 2002 what was going to happen. [But] we all felt it was going to happen: this massive sea change, of the internet altering our lives in immeasurable ways."
Microsoft's original vision for Xbox Live was to build a secure, functional, reliable online gaming infrastructure that was easy for people to use. However, laying the foundation necessary to make it all happen came with its own challenges. Getting games to even recognise the Ethernet port and play nice with internet connections required sending out a physical disc with the necessary software update. "It was an initial chicken and egg situation," says Hryb. "We had to get the software into people's hands - we couldn't tell them to download it because a lot of people didn't even have broadband at that point, which was a whole other challenge."
The launch of Xbox Live on 15 November, 2002, on the one-year anniversary of the original Xbox's debut, was met with a mix of excitement and cautious optimism. Over 250,000 starter kits - which included a headset and 12-month subscription to Xbox Live - were sold within the first two months of its launch. The service grew rapidly, but speculation grew over how successful it would be beyond the initial honeymoon phase.
Even those working behind the scenes had doubts on how the service would be received. Trailblazing headlong into new territory was a daunting road full of risks, recalls Vince Curley, one of the original architects of Xbox Live who now works as engineering lead at Bungie Studios.
"Xbox and Xbox Live were huge risks for Microsoft. No one was sure if the bets [the] company [was] making were prophetic or crazy, and the outcome of Live was especially hard to predict," he says. "Would people leave their PCs? Would they pay to play online? That uncertainty made it difficult to know what features to really invest in or how many servers to buy to support those features."
Curley compares the process to building a huge global party - only they had no idea how many people would show up. The most important thing, he says, was that the team involved in creating Xbox Live believed wholeheartedly in what they were building. And their vision and hard work helped break major new ground for console gaming.
Arcade arrival
2004 was a pivotal year for Xbox Live. In July, Microsoft announced that the service had surpassed one million subscribers. With its killer deathmatches, the launch of Halo 2 drew scores of new players to Xbox Live and set the bar high for online multiplayer. Things were really taking off, and it was time for Microsoft to pull another trick from its sleeve.
In its original incarnation, Xbox Live Arcade was more of a limited experiment than the sprawling shopfront it is today. "When we designed our Marketplace we expected 100-200 items to be in there," recalled Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten. "That was not our smartest moment ever." Rolled out in December 2004 on a disc that had to be in your Xbox to boot up the service, the first run of 27 downloadable games included a mix of classic Midway arcade ports, like Robotron: 2084, Gauntlet, and Joust. Then there was the more casual-skewed, PC-oriented fare like Bejeweled and Zuma. In a year when people were more interested in the long-awaited arrival of Fable and Halo 2, it succeeded beyond everybody's wildest expectations.
Ed Allard, vice president of studios at PopCap Games, recognised early-on that Microsoft's vision for Xbox Live was far grander than a mere online multiplayer platform, but it wasn't immediately clear to what extent Xbox Live and XBLA would expand and grow. As a publisher, it made sense to test the waters before diving in head-first.
"We were always strong believers that digital distribution would emerge as a critical piece of the console landscape, and Microsoft's commitment to Xbox Live made it seem the likely place for that to become a reality," Allard tells us. "That said, I don't think we expected the service to take root so firmly, to spread so quickly to so many players, and become so core to the console gaming experience." He admits the first iteration of Xbox Live had its rough edges, but the success of downloadable titles and early, free DLC for games like Knights of the Old Republic and Ninja Gaiden proved players were ravenous for this kind of service. It also gave Microsoft the opportunity to tinker and learn in order to nail it the second time round.
Changing the game
A year later, the arrival of Xbox 360 changed everything. More horsepower and flashier retail games were only a few pieces of the bigger puzzle. Aside from bringing a slew of new features to the table, the revamped Xbox Live experience on Xbox 360 wisely integrated the service into the dashboard, which turned out to be a big selling point for the console.
"When we were designing the Xbox 360, we had a very clear idea of what people wanted out of Xbox Live, what people wanted out of their consoles, and what they wanted out of their games," says Hryb. The battle plan was to make it a premium out-of-box experience where players could get online quickly from the word go and have access to a broad range of games, downloads, and digital content.
A crucial part of this strategy included completely overhauling Xbox Live Arcade and adding a hard drive to store digital content. On the Xbox 360, the newly re-launched Arcade was a far more accessible, refined experience. "Xbox Live Arcade shifted from being an experiment, to a valid and important business for us, which allowed us to invest more in the games," says Allard. Developers who initially shied away from the original XBLA platform due to its limitations and niche audience soon perked up over its fresh potential on Microsoft's shiny new console.
While much of the first wave of Arcade games on the Xbox 360 mirrored the vibe of the original Xbox line-up with updated re-releases, casual games and retro ports, the success of one early offering in particular helped forge a path to bring more high quality content to the channel. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved was one of the first XBLA exclusives to stand out, and it would eventually become one of Xbox Live Arcade's best-selling games.
"We still had no idea how successful XBLA was going to be, but the chance to make a launch game for the platform was too good an opportunity to miss," says Geometry Wars creator Stephen Cakebread, who also felt having an Xbox Live Arcade title would be a great way to gauge how many people were interested in the service.
The huge success of Geometry Wars and other games on the platform gave Cakebread and his team at Bizarre Creations some serious food for thought: they were suddenly in a position to self-publish new game ideas on the console directly instead of pitching prototypes around to publishers, which was the traditional route for all developers on console at the time. This model would eventually become one of the major hooks of digital distribution on Xbox Live, opening up the door for many smaller studios to carve out a niche for themselves.
Viva la indie revolution!
With its gargantuan 40-million-strong user base and easy access to built-in features like voice chat and online multiplayer, Xbox Live has grown into an attractive avenue for both large and small developers looking to score big with downloadable projects. But it took a while to get here. Microsoft courted indie developers early-on to help boost the platform's growth while lowering the barrier to create new opportunities for budding game makers to thrive. For successful indies like The Behemoth and Twisted Pixel that built their studios primarily on the back of digital-only releases, life without XBLA distribution would be very different.
"I think without a doubt the indie console community would not exist as it does today if XBLA had been dropped after the original Xbox iteration," says The Behemoth's John Baez, who co-founded the studio with artist Dan Paladin. "No other console hardware manufacturer has had the success of downloadable games that XBLA has had and many smaller developers have shared in that success."
After wrapping up the retail version of cartoonish 2D brawler Alien Hominid, The Behemoth team began exploring publishing options for their next project, code named "Ye Olde Side-Scroller", and was attracted to XBLA by the freedom it gave them to self-publish, Paladin explains. After launching Alien Hominid HD on Arcade, they decided to fully invest in digital distribution, landing a huge hit with Castle Crashers, which has now sold over three million copies. "XBLA has done great things for indies. It saved our company, it put developers on the map, it's gotten teams out of debt, and granted enough cash for a new game to be made," he says.
When retail game development was out of reach, the folks behind then newly-formed studio Twisted Pixel Games were drawn in by XBLA, though they soon realised that making downloadable games on the platform was preferable to the traditional retail model in many ways, says studio director Michael Wilford. "It was a new platform with a lot of growth potential, the costs and risks were lower, we could do original IP more easily and projects could be completed faster," he says.
After generating buzz with its early 2009 debut, The Maw, the studio stuck with XBLA and continued cranking out colourful, quirky games like 'Splosion Man and Comic Jumper. Wilford feels Arcade and other digital distribution channels have enabled a whole new generation of developers in ways not previously possible.
Xbox Live Arcade has contributed to the boom of indie developer success over the years, and Hryb says small studios have been responsible for some really excellent games on XBLA. "I just love the creativity we're seeing in this space," he says. "A lot of XBLA devs are smaller, and they're able to take more risks. That's really exciting."
Fast forward to 2012. With over 67 million consoles sold worldwide since the Xbox 360 launched in 2005 and 40 million subscribers, Xbox Live usage continues to expand. While gaming very much remains a core draw for the service, the addition of streaming video, music, and social networking features has driven new user sign-ups in recent years, says Hyrb. Entertainment usage on the Xbox 360 has grown 140 percent year-on-year, with folks spending an average of 84 hours a month on Xbox Live watching TV, enjoying sports, listening to tunes, and gaming. Xbox Live currently has millions of simultaneous users connected at any given moment, and Hryb says there are no signs of that slowing down. "The past ten years have been phenomenal," he says. "We're thrilled with the success of the service and the next ten years will be even better. We're working on some fantastic things...we want to continue to answer the call of the needs players are looking for, and perhaps [answer] some needs that they didn't know they had."
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Re: 10 years of Xbox Live: how Microsoft created the ultimate console gaming network
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