How Xbox Happened

Next Generation has an exerpt from the book Smartbomb, discussing how it was that Microsoft came to enter the console market. From the article: "Two years before the Xbox's launch, Bill Gates and his top executives retreated to Puget Sound to discuss Microsoft's business model. A seismic shift was under way. The late nineties was a time of a burgeoning new consensus among media pundits and high-tech industry folks that the consumer world would turn its eye from desktop computers toward 'information appliances.'"

Comments

Has the world really turned to such devices?

[antifoidulus]

it seems to me that while usage of such "information devices" has increased significantly over the past few years, they haven't really replaced the PC so much as complimented it. It seems that now the PC is still the hub of our information activities, but when we cannot or do not want to use the pc, we use such information devices. However, it seems we are always either syncing data with the computer or connecting to it. Gates was wrong that they would supplant instead of compliment the PC.

Can't ignore Dreamcast

[FadedTimes]

Article doesn't mention working with Sega on the Dreamcast. Which in my opinion lead Microsoft in to making the Xbox (because the Dreamcast failed). It had the experience just a few years before launching the Xbox.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/May9 8/Segagmpr.mspx
"We have worked very closely with Sega for nearly two years to optimize Windows CE to provide the services and level of performance necessary for the exacting development requirements of video games," said Harel Kodesh, general manager, consumer appliances group at Microsoft. "We are tremendously excited by the opportunities the Dreamcast system offers to traditional video game developers and the PC gaming community."

just maybe...

[Gravis Zero]

maybe they got bored of enslaving the business world and decided to enslave children too. sounds right up their alley. :)