This year marks Xbox's 20th anniversary as a video game publisher. While Xbox is comparatively younger than other publishers, such as Nintendo and Sony, Xbox has had a rather storied history in terms of its presence and influence within the gaming community, to the point where a former Sega president credited Xbox for continuing Sega's vision long after the studio stopped manufacturing hardware.
Most members in the gaming community tend to associate Sega with such franchises as Sonic the Hedgehog, Bayonetta, and Yakuza, but back in the mid-80s, the studio had manufactured a number of successful video game consoles such as the Sega Genesis. Although, it was not until the release of the Sega Dreamcast that the studio ultimately decided to exclusively publish third-party titles on other systems. Now, a former president of Sega of America claims that Xbox carried the mantle of the Sega Dreamcast.
In a recent panel event that brought together many gaming industry alumni, Peter Moore, former vice-president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division and former president of Sega of America, discussed how the baton was figuratively passed from the Sega Dreamcast to the original Xbox in terms of online gaming. Moore explained that programs like Xbox Live helped to pick up where the Dreamcast left off as far as achieving an online platform for players to play remotely.
In many ways, the Dreamcast possessed features that were way ahead of its time, but one feature that Sega had been trying to actively implement in consoles since before the Sega Genesis was online multiplayer. Sega had developed the Sega Meganet, which was available only in Japan and later Brazil, which allowed players to connect to the internet. The Meganet was one of the earliest examples of online multiplayer services, but obviously, it never caught on.
It's interesting to see Moore discuss how collaborative both Sega and Xbox were during that era of gaming. At the time, Sony and Nintendo consoles were still thinking in terms of local multiplayer, while the original Xbox was one of the first mainstream gaming console to introduce an accessible online platform for players to utilize, while consoles like the PS2 had very selective titles that were available to play online and Nintendo wouldn't introduce an online service until the release of the Nintendo Wii.
Gaming has certainly come a long way since that point in history. Nowadays, it's hard for players to imagine a console without online capabilities. Not to mention just how far Xbox has come as a brand since the days of the original Xbox. Now, with the Xbox Series X continuing to be sold out, the future of Xbox is certainly bright.