How Xbox lost its fans, and won them back — and more from a new book about Microsoft innovation

Xbox was a product of Bill Gates’ paranoia. Back in the late 1990s, the Microsoft co-founder actually wasn’t very interested in getting into video game consoles. But he and Steve Ballmer, who would soon become Microsoft’s CEO, were worried enough about Sony’s Playstation to give the project the green light. “It was easy for Bill and Steve to imagine Sony moving from gaming on the TV to editing documents on the PC, which they saw as an existential threat to Microsoft,” write Dean Carignan and JoAnn Garbin in the new book, The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft. After launching the original Xbox in 2001, the team innovated in cloud gaming and social networking with Xbox Live in 2002, expanded the console’s functionality and footprint with the Xbox 360 in 2005 — and faced a huge backlash against the Xbox One in 2013. Avid gamers rejected the concept of an entertainment-oriented, always-connected console with digital rights protections that would prevent them from playing used games.