While the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was not the first Xbox announcement, in many ways it was the most significant. Bill Gates formally announced Microsoft's entry into the console market last March in his keynote address at the Game Developer's Conference, and there was a flashy Xbox booth at E3 2000, but it wasn't until this week at CES that the public got a chance to see the final look of the system and of course its all-important gamepad.
We'll get to all of that in detail shortly, but first, let's recap what was known about the system before CES, so we can take a look at what's changed.
In the months prior to CES a few major announcements were made. There were two separate announcements in November, first from Western Digital and then Seagate saying that the companies will provide the hard drives for the system. Back in September it was revealed that NVIDIA will be providing not only the graphics processing unit (GPU), but they will also be creating the Media Communications Processor (MPU) as well, which will power the Xbox' audio and networking systems.
Then there were the controversial announcements: the revelation that DVD movie playback will not be included out of the box, and also the lowering of the system specifications.