Microsoft was founded on the belief that computing could put extraordinary capabilities in the hands of ordinary people. Gaming has been part of that story since the company’s beginning. 

In 1979, we released Microsoft Adventure, a text-based game that looked more like MS-DOS than an early version of Minecraft. Adapted by a single programmer, Gordon Letwin, one of Microsoft’s first 13 employees and later an architect on OS/2, the game let players explore a digital world, collect treasure, solve puzzles, and encounter mythical creatures.

A few years later, Bruce Artwick brought the magic of flight to the 16-bit IBM PC, making it possible to fly a plane from your desk. Over the following decade, Microsoft published dozens of other titles including Minesweeper, Age of Empires, and another four Microsoft Flight Simulators, while Windows helped usher in 3D gaming with partners such as id Software (which would join XBOX some 24 years later).  

In the mid-1990s, a small team working on DirectX, the technology that helped developers make games for Windows, had a big idea: using PC architecture to power the first American video game console in decades. Shortly thereafter, work began on the secret “Project Midway.” 

When the original XBOX launched in 2001, it was impossible to miss. It was 2-3x larger than rival consoles, with a giant X molded into a black enclosure and a bright alien green jewel at the center. It shipped with a hard drive when competitors asked players to buy standalone memory cards and an Ethernet jack when 9 in 10 households still used dial-up.

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