There frankly weren’t too many surprises at the launch of the new Xbox this week. While many came away impressed after watching the event, the broad strokes of what was revealed had already been predicted many weeks beforehand: a greater focus on entertainment and media, a redesigned version of Kinect, a new generation of gaming, and so on.
There was, however, one detail that Microsoft managed to keep under wraps until the announcement: the name. There had been much speculation about what the new console would be called, with one ‘leak’ claiming that it would be named Xbox Infinity (before the creator of that hoax came clean), while others confidently claimed that it would simply be called ‘Xbox’. Indeed, Microsoft insiders told some of us at Neowin on more than one occasion that it would just be ‘Xbox’ with no suffix or qualifier beyond that.
But it turns out that the name of the console was kept so secret that even many of those who you might have expected to know had no idea that 'Xbox One' was to be its name until it was announced. Shortly after the event, TechRadar spoke to the Marketing Director for Xbox UK, Harvey Eagle, who told them: “Truthfully, I learned tonight. It was closely guarded and I found out at the same time as you found out.”
But Eagle also said that he was actually rather excited by being kept out of the loop, and having heard so many different names being thrown around – including ‘Xbox 720’ and ‘Durango’, Microsoft’s development codename for the console – he was hoping that the real name would be one that hadn’t previously been reported.
He added: “When I heard it – given what I saw and knowing our vision – it makes perfect sense to me. It is an all-in-one gaming and TV device and we've repeated that over and over again, so the name Xbox One just works.”
Source: TechRadar | Image via Microsoft
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