The Xbox One reversed so many plans it was nicknamed the Xbox 180
Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One in May 2013 and spent over 30 minutes on television features before showing a single game. Worse news followed: plans for daily online check-ins and limits on reselling discs. The backlash forced such a complete reversal that players mockingly renamed the console the Xbox 180.
Trouble started before the reveal. Rumours said the new console would demand a permanent internet connection, and in April 2013 a Microsoft Studios employee, Adam Orth, posted a flippant message telling critics to get used to always-on devices. The anger that followed pushed him to leave the company within days. Then the May event pitched the machine as an all-in-one entertainment box, confusing even the staff who had built it, according to Phil Spencer years later.
The licensing plan made things worse. Every game, even one bought on disc, would be tied to a player's account. The console had to go online every 24 hours or all games would lock, and publishers could restrict or charge for second-hand copies. In exchange, owners could share their library with up to ten family members and play without the disc. Critics called it hostile to customers, and Sony used its E3 show to promise no such restrictions for the PlayStation 4.
On 19 June 2013 Microsoft backed down, restoring free sharing and resale of discs and dropping the online requirement, which also killed the family sharing idea. It later stopped insisting that the Kinect camera stay plugged in, after privacy advocates raised surveillance worries. Don Mattrick, who had led the project, left in July to run Zynga.
The console launched that November in 13 markets, fewer than planned because voice recognition proved hard to localise. Cheaper and more powerful versions followed, the One S in 2016 and the One X in 2017, before the Series X and S replaced it in 2020.
Source: Xbox One
