With Sega ending hardware development after the Dreamcast, Microsoft stepped up to the plate to be the new rival of Sony and Nintendo. The original Xbox found success. It didn't win that generation, but for the first go, Microsoft did a good job.

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They would be further rewarded the next generation with the Xbox 360, which ruled the HD side of the console wars. The Xbox One had a rough go out of the gate, but thanks to smart decisions like buying up companies and creating Xbox Game Pass, the Xbox One’s story is on a redemption arc. Let's take a look how the Xbox One, and how these other two consoles, struggled over the years.

10 Disc-Less Xbox One

Since Microsoft first started Xbox Game Pass, it has been getting better and better every year it's been out. So creating a digital only version of the Xbox One made sense, for like a $100.

Instead this was sold for a mere $50 less a normal Xbox One S. The funniest thing about this was that a normal Xbox One S, around this time, was on sale for less than that and had more functionality thanks to the disc slot. It didn't hurt the brand. It was just a confusing release and price point.

9 The Duke

The original Xbox launched with a beefy controller, which quickly received the nickname of the Duke. It wasn't completely unwieldy, but compared to its competitors, it was a less sleek model.

Eventually a smaller controller was created aimed at the Japanese market, which caught on with the West as well. Like the disc-less Xbox One, this was just an odd footnote in Xbox’s history that wasn't detrimental to the overall success of the console.

8 Pushing For Japanese Support

Tales of Vesperia Yuri, Estelle

With Sony and Nintendo being two big Japanese companies, the country seemingly did not have any room for an American console. This article details the sales data Famitsu reported on all three systems as of 2019. The original Xbox sold less than half a million units. The Xbox 360 sold about 1.6 million units.

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And the current console is around 200,000, which counts the S and X version, but not the original. Still, given those numbers, the original launch edition can't be much higher. Microsoft has tried over the years to get Japanese favorite series like Tales exclusively on their system, but nothing ever seemed to work.

7 Backing The Wrong Disc

The Blu-ray and HD DVD formats were at war when Microsoft was launching the Xbox 360.

Because they did not go with the Blu-ray, their storage capacity was small, meaning they had to ship games with multiple discs like the previous generation instead of having everything compact onto one nice disc like the PS3. On top of that they also pushed an external HD DVD player for the system. By the time it came out the war was almost over, thus rendering the add-on pointless.

6 The Red Ring Of Death

Microsoft may have had a whole year advantage above the Wii and PS3, which generated to the system's overall success, but that year head-start was also costly. The Xbox 360 was seemingly rushed out the gate, which is why the Red Ring of Death fiasco started.

Essentially units would display a red ring around the power button indicating that system was, well, not doing so well. Microsoft was kind enough to repair these system for free so good on them. IGN uncovered, during a podcast interview, that Microsoft paid over a billion dollars to ship and fix every broken unit.

5 Xbox Entertainment Studios

The Red Ring of Death was the most infamous failure in the Xbox family. That is until the Xbox One came out, which will fill in the rest of these entries.

Spoiler alert? Another big loss was shuttering the TV division, Xbox Entertainment Studios, of the company to focus on shows related to upcoming games. This happened only a year after the launch of the system thus canceling many planned shows like a Steven Spielberg run Halo show.

4 Pushing The Kinect 2.0

The original Kinect and the new version for Xbox One were impressive motion cameras. They required a lot of space to make them work, but creating controller-less motion technology was no easy task. It's a shame then that Microsoft abandoned the new model after having it mandatorily shipped with new consoles.

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Besides adding to the cost, it split developers on what to work on. That is to say, developers wasted time supporting a product that would be removed from the pack-in portions of the Xbox One less than a year later, as of June 2014.

3 Xbox One Launch

Speaking of the cost, the Xbox One launched at $500 compared to the PS4’s price of $400. The big reason for the price hike was indeed the Kinect. Sony also had a camera, but it wasn't mandatory.

The other big thing about the launch was that Sony got out ahead of them. The PS4 released almost a week earlier on November 15, while the Xbox One came out on the 22nd. Those extra few days and the price point really hurt the Xbox One from day one.

2 Xbox One Infrastructure

Supporting the Kinect, creating a TV division, and naming the price all comes back to the original Xbox One reveal event prior to E3 2013. It was here that Microsoft sent mixed messages when it came to what they were trying to achieve.

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Was this an all in one entertainment box, or was it a gaming system? Not only that, but having DRM and requiring players to constantly go online to check if a game could be used was also a marketing disaster. This prompted Sony to release a cheeky video on how to share PS4 games, which was much easier.

1 Xbox One Delays And Cancellations

Where were the games? Well, there was a promising lineup of titles, but most of them either got delayed, or canceled. There was Scalebound from PlatinumGames and Fable Legends from Lionhead Studios. The cancellation of the ladder also caused the developer to shut down.

Crackdown 3 was announced at E3 2014, but wouldn't come out until last year to lukewarm reception. Microsoft announced a remake of Phantom Dust was in the works, also at E3 2014, but due to studio complications, that version was canceled in favor of a quick, free to play remaster of the original.

NEXT: 10 Biggest Mistakes In Nintendo History, Ranked