REDMOND, Wash, Nov. 13, 2001 -- The line began forming eight hours before the doors of the temporary gaming arena opened inside the Universal City Walk mall. Soon, the queue stretched around a large retail store and into the parking lot. Among the more than 300 people in the human chain, some planned to skip work or school the next day. A few diehards brought pillows and wore backpacks with a change of clothing -- all for the first opportunity to experience Xbox before it hit stores.
Microsoft staged a pair of 48-hour, non-stop Xbox Unleashed events -- complete with blaring rock music, big-name DJs and free food -- earlier this month in Universal City, Calif. and in Midtown Manhattan to give gamers a preview of the company`s new gaming system. Before the doors closed, more than 5,000 people went out of their way to try what many already consider the future of gaming.
If so, the future is here. After two years of research and development, Microsoft unleashes Xbox to gamers across North America this week. Xbox arrived on store shelves with specs -- including a built-in hard disk, and a high-speed Ethernet port and three processors (one each for central, graphics and media processing) -- unmatched by any other home console and a list of game developers and game titles that reads like a Who`s Who of video games.