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Microsoft Celebrates Xbox's 20th Anniversary With New Gear & More

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This year on November 15th marks the 20th anniversary of the Xbox console, one of the biggest contenders in the console wars between Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. To celebrate this momentous year for the diehard gamers of "Team Green", Microsoft is launching some new merch on their web store. Furthermore, they have a few other fun things planned on the horizon.

The Xbox One, one of the latest incarnations of the Xbox console by Microsoft. Image source: Youtube
The Xbox One, one of the latest incarnations of the Xbox console by Microsoft. Image source: Youtube

As one of the company's programmers, Larry Hryb, also know by his gamer tag "Major Nelson", writes about the time before the current paradigm of game acquisition:

Twenty years ago, playing on Xbox meant hooking up your console with three (or more!) cables to a standard definition CRT TV.  You had to pre-order the hottest new games and stand in line at your favorite retail shop to pick them up. Games were played in 640×480 resolution, and you only had 8GB of storage and 64MB of memory to enjoy them with. And you either played alone or with a friend sitting next to you on the couch.

Luckily for us as a modern society, we now live in an age where that doesn't have to be the case anymore. Hryb continues on, saying:

You can now jump into your favorite games on your Xbox Series X|S console (imagine showing your past self a 4K HDR game!), on PC, or on mobile. You and your friends can play with and against the more than 100 million players who log into Xbox every month from around the world. And there's no more convincing every person in the group to go out and buy a big game.

To celebrate 20 years of Xbox play, Microsoft has created a bunch of merch that commemorates the game franchise that started it all: Halo. Plenty of items with the Xbox logo, Master Chief, and a big "20" on it now is available on the Xbox Gear Shop.

An assortment of 20th anniversary Xbox items from Microsoft, available on the Xbox Gear Shop web store.
An assortment of 20th anniversary Xbox items from Microsoft, available on the Xbox Gear Shop web store.

The anniversary items will be stocked through November 15th. As the date draws ever closer, Microsoft will have more to say about the festivities of the year. In the meantime, please let us know what you think of the time past in the comments below!

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Joshua NelsonAbout Joshua Nelson

Josh Nelson is a Magic: The Gathering deckbuilding savant, a self-proclaimed scholar of all things Sweeney Todd, and, of course, a writer for Bleeding Cool. In their downtime, Josh can be found painting models, playing Magic, or possibly preaching about the horrors and merits of anthropophagy. You can find them on Twitter at @Burning_Inquiry for all your burning inquiries.
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