Exactly ten years ago, on March 14, 2002, thousands of European players crowded shops for the novelty of the moment: the debut of Microsoft worldwide home console with a product that promised an incredible power and which integrated as standard, absolute novelty at the time, also an internal hard disk. Four months later than the USA, Europe welcomed the birth of Xbox and games like Halo , Project Gotham Racing , Dead or Alive 3 and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee .

From there onwards there would be stories to remember: the cold reception by the public of the mythical joypad "jumbo", revised and then a few years later with a leaner model, the birth of an Xbox Live still embryonic but we allowed him to experience the first online confrontations, the spread of the phenomenon of modding and homebrew that saw the console turn into arcade emulator and Media Playerin 2004, the launch of the Live Arcade a bootable disk, tattoos of Peter Moore and, of course, the release of titles which they made history: the first Force , the formidable rally SAYS Rallisport Challenge , the incredible porting from PC Morrowind , surprising The Chronicles of Riddick , the first Fable , Ninja Gaiden , the arrival of ex-Sony exclusive Grand Theft Auto , the very first Ghost Recon , Star Wars: KOTOR , Splinter Cell , Halo 2 and many others made the Xbox console's favorite video game fans.

But the battle with Sony was desperate for Microsoft: PS2 continued to sell a lot more about all markets and the House of Redmond couldn't afford a price war, because most components contained Xbox cososi-the hard disk in the first place-that Sony had not. It was therefore necessary to reset: a rethinking of the console and all the support that strategy in order to win a new console war . Here is the Xbox 360 in 2005, a year ahead of the next-gen console from Sony and meant to win, or at least have more chance of winning in new clash. A sleeker and "organic", an optional hard drive that allowed the creation of the cheaper model Core (later called Arcade), a wireless controller gamepad as standard but also the birth of the new Xbox Live, thought more like a social network as simple matchmaking system that had been until then. And even here, the rest is history: the innovative dashboard to Blades , the embarrassing affair RROD, the arrival of Elite model, the New Xbox Experience with his Avatar, a Video Store/Zune, the focus increasingly marked on extra-playful entertainment, the arrival of Kinect and new S-design for the console interface. And also here special titles like Halo 3 , Gears of War , Mass Effect , the Strength , Crackdown , Oblivion , Skyrim , BioShock , the Guitar Hero/Rock Band , GTA IV , Red Dead Redemption , Arkham Asylum/City , Assassin's Creed and many others that you will definitely better than us.

In short, in 10 years would have happened things and we lived always with great enthusiasm and transport for each ad, sorprendendoci, indignandoci for more or less serious problems but still always passionately attached to this wonderful world. Thus never more than now is the case of shouting: happy birthday Xbox ! And who knows how many still see:)