With a title like “Opening the Xbox,” you should likely assume it’s one of many hacker type books geared towards Microsoft’s game console. It’s not. There’s not a single line even mentioning the hobby. What author Dean Takahashi has written is an excellent history on the console and how it came to be. It’s a great companion to other books like “The Ultimate History of Video Games” which don’t have the space to discuss the latest systems at length.
Following one of the creators, Seamus Blackley, through his disaster “Trespasser” on the PC to his rise inside Microsoft, the book chronicles just about every event leading up to the launch of this system. Turmoil was constant, and Takahashi does a fine job of bringing those heated boardroom meetings to life. There’s a surprising amount of information in the PC and how it became a more viable platform for gaming. You’ll [….]