Microsoft · 2001–2008

OriginalXbox

The black box that built Xbox Live: Halo, Fable, KOTOR, Jet Set Radio Future. Small print runs and a library that never got re-released — every case photographed.

[n] Xbox games in stockGreen cases, Platinum Hits, pack-in sleeves

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Why it mattered

The PC in a black box that taught consoles to go online

Microsoft's first console was, underneath, a 733 MHz Pentium III with an Nvidia graphics chip, a hard drive and an Ethernet port — parts nobody had put in a games machine before. It launched in November 2001 at $299, three days before the GameCube, with a controller the size of a dinner plate and one game that mattered: Halo. A year later Xbox Live arrived, broadband-only, with a headset in the box, and Halo 2 in 2004 turned online console play from a curiosity into the thing the next twenty years were built on. Microsoft lost money on every unit and kept going.

The library leans on shooters, racing and Sega — Shenmue II, Jet Set Radio Future and Panzer Dragoon Orta never appeared on anything else in North America — plus the Capcom and SNK fighters that ran best here, and the LucasArts Star Wars games that started on this console. Games came in green translucent DVD cases with a printed manual, and those cases yellow and crack at the hinge; Platinum Hits reprints and Not for Resale pack-ins are common and honest. Check the disc for the ring scratch the console's drive left when moved. Every disc is tested and photographed.

How we grade and photograph

Fast facts

ReleasedNovember 15, 2001 (North America)
Launch price$299 — cut to $199 within six months
MediaDVD, plus a built-in 8 GB hard drive — a console first
Units sold~24 million worldwide, fewer than 500,000 in Japan
Best sellerHalo 2 — roughly 8 million, ahead of the first Halo
Did you know?The original controller was so large that Microsoft designed a smaller one for Japan, where the Xbox launched in February 2002. The Japanese pad became the Controller S, replaced the original in North American boxes by 2003, and the big one has been nicknamed the Duke ever since — Microsoft sold a replica of it for the Xbox One in 2018.
Did you know?The Xbox was the first console with a hard drive as standard — 8 GB, enough that no memory card was needed — and the first with an Ethernet port instead of a modem. Xbox Live launched in November 2002 as a $49.99 starter kit with a headset and a year's subscription, broadband only, at a time when most American households were still on dial-up.
Did you know?Halo 2 took $125 million on its first day in November 2004, which was more than any film opening had ever managed and stood as the entertainment record until Halo 3. The Limited Collector's Edition came in a metal case with a bonus DVD, and the original Xbox Live matchmaking it ran on stayed open until April 2010.
Did you know?Sega, having just left the hardware business, treated the Xbox almost like a Dreamcast successor: Jet Set Radio Future, Shenmue II, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Gunvalkyrie and OutRun 2 all came to the Xbox and no other console in North America. Shenmue II had shipped on the Dreamcast in Europe and Japan; Americans got it only here, with the first film on a DVD in the case.
Did you know?Steel Battalion shipped in 2002 with a forty-button controller — two joysticks, three foot pedals, a gear lever and an eject button under a flip-up cover — for around $200. Capcom made a limited run, and a complete set with the controller, game and box is one of the most expensive things on any Xbox shelf.
Did you know?Every original Xbox except the last hardware revision has a clock capacitor that leaks over time and eats the traces around it, so collectors open the case and clip it out as a matter of course. The same consoles shipped with one of several DVD drives, and the Thomson drive is the one that fails; a working Samsung or Philips drive is worth knowing about.
Did you know?Microsoft cut the price from $299 to $199 in May 2002, six months after launch, and it was widely reported that the company lost money on every console sold for the whole generation. The Xbox division's losses over those years are usually estimated at around four billion dollars — the price of getting into the business.
Did you know?The last game published for the original Xbox in North America was Madden NFL 09 in August 2008, almost three years after the Xbox 360 launched. Microsoft shut down original Xbox Live in April 2010 so it could lift the friends-list cap on the 360, and Halo 2 players famously stayed logged on for weeks afterwards until the final one was disconnected.

THE SHELVES XBOX GAMES WORTH REMEMBERING

Hand-picked shelves, filled live from what is in stock right now. Best condition first — jump to a condition below.

Counts are listings in stock — the same game can appear more than once in different packaging.

The grails

Shenmue II, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Steel Battalion, Fatal Frame II, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Metal Wolf Chaos — the Xbox games collectors cross the room for.

Made in Redmond

Halo: Combat Evolved, Fable, Forza Motorsport, Project Gotham Racing, Crimson Skies, MechAssault, Brute Force, Top Spin — Microsoft Game Studios' first library, mostly bought rather than built.

Came in the box

Forza in a Not for Resale sleeve, NFL Fever 2002, the Sega GT and JSRF combo disc, the LucasArts demo disc, Platinum Hits reprints — pack-ins and budget copies, complete games in plainer clothes.

Health bars

Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Soulcalibur II with Spawn, Dead or Alive 3, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Guilty Gear X2, WWF Raw — the Xbox had the fighters and the wrestling, and Spawn.

LucasArts, before Disney

Knights of the Old Republic, Republic Commando, Star Wars Battlefront, Jedi Outcast, Mercenaries, Gladius, Indiana Jones — the Presidio publisher's best decade, and most of it started on Xbox.

Based on the motion picture

007: Everything or Nothing, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, The Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, Superman, Terminator, The Thing, Land of the Dead — from the years when every film got a game, deserved or not.

Iron sights

Halo, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six 3, Splinter Cell, TimeSplitters 2, Black, Darkwatch, Far Cry Instincts — the console that made the shooter a living-room genre.

Scoreboards and finish lines

NBA Jam, NBA Live 2006, NCAA March Madness, ESPN NFL 2K5, Top Spin, Midnight Club, Project Gotham Racing, Burnout 3, Rallisport Challenge — the sports shelf, and the racing games that share its aisle.

Sega on Xbox

Jet Set Radio Future, Shenmue II, Panzer Dragoon Orta, OutRun 2, Gunvalkyrie, ToeJam & Earl III, ESPN NFL 2K5 — when Sega stopped making consoles, it made the Xbox its new Dreamcast.

The year on the box

Sega GT 2002. NFL Fever 2002. NBA Live 2006. NCAA March Madness 2006. Madden 2005. Games that tell you exactly when they stopped being current, which is handy at a yard sale.

The definite article

The Thing. The Suffering. The Warriors. The Punisher. The Guy Game. The Bard's Tale. The Chronicles of Riddick. A shelf for games that wanted you to know there was only one of them.

Complete in case, best condition first

Every complete Xbox game in stock right now.

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Game with manual

Cart and manual, no box — the collector's middle ground.

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Loose discs

Disc only — tested, photographed, priced accordingly.

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Sealed

Factory sealed and photographed through the shrink.

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OriginalXbox

The PC in a black box that taught consoles to go online