I think you made the right choice switching to these new videos. These documentaries are some of the best representations of tech history available anywhere, not just on TH-cam. I've gotta admit, I still miss your old videos, though. These are _objectively_ better, but they don't fill the same hole in my swollen, cholesterol-encrusted heart.
Absolutely right. I still think his lowspec videos and tweaking would perform just as good today, but these tech history documentaries are unlike others on TH-cam. Very few videomakers can say they went from good content to better content.
My buddy had one back in the day and it was still pretty advanced for the time, but few devs took good advantage of the hardware. Terrible for modern games, amazing for the growing category of video-board games at the time. I saw it as a hair above dragon's lair, which was saying a lot for 90s home devices. I think the bigger oof would be running windows CE.
the 3do was a very well designed console. it was just too early and missed out on things that the playstation, 32x, and saturn benefitted from like cpu cache and faster memory.
The more I watch these videos, the more I realize just how insane those times were back then. I really love these videos! From the visuals to the voice acting to the way you tell the stories, it's all really interesting and it keeps me hooked for an entire episode each and every time. Keep them up!
Would love to see a part two cover the development of the Xbox into its final release version, but what would also be cool is seeing you talk about the corporate politics which force the changes in hardware and the quick release of the 360
This is by no means the only "secret war" inside microsoft. Windows ce (for example) was a fight between three projects, one of which was completely unofficial, non-work time one. The unofficial one won.
The creation of the Duke gamepad remains a mystery to me, it very much resembles a dreamcast controller, and even the letter layout is the same, except for the colors, they are in a different order, I heard different versions, but they all sound unconvincing.
the head of sony told him straight "its a ken kutaragi project. and i do not control ken kutaragi" if he had tried to convince ken kutaragi he might have had his sony microsoft colab :p
Those 'Unnamed Reasons' That games ran better on dos was no rumor, its simple: Overhead. Computers did not have enough ram or cpu speed to run the os and a demanding game at the same time. Even when they did, performance was better when you ran it on DOS anyway. By the time steam came around windows had become both better, and defacto.
It is amazing to hear how this is all connected. Hearing how it was after the compleation of the Doom port that Gabe left. With how Valve is working on the Linux equalent of Direct X, it feels like it is going full circle.
What valve is doing is translation of direct x rather than making a linux equivalent. Vulkan already exists anyway, but there's so much to direct x than the graphics, literally everything that a Windows game does uses a direct x library of some sort, be it for networking, input or sound. Valve is doing great work though.
The original Xbox was my first console purchase. I'd had others while I was a child, but the Xbox and a copy of Halo 2 with an Xbox live sub was the first adventure I chose with my own money. I would love to hear more about it's history.
Once again, another amazing video by LowSpecGamer, what an interesting pathway for Gabe to where he is now, same for the Musketeers, imagine growing up and being nerdy gamers and all three of you get jobs at Microsoft and help develop the future of gaming.
The original XBOX is, by far, my absolute FAVORITE gaming console! I bought one back in 2010 when the console was at the end of its life-cycle and didn’t even have XBOX Live support anymore but since online multiplayer has never really been a draw for me, I STILL wound up getting all kinds of use from it, from watching DVDs to storing BOATLOADS of music and, yes, enjoying some downright AWESOME games with no need for a memory card as its built-in hard drive had more than enough storage space for me to save and save and save and save…however, if memory serves me right, the original XBOX did in fact run Windows CE, NOT any version that one would have ran on a PC at that time… Definitely want to see a Part 2 if not even a Part 3 to see how that came about with the PC “3 Musketeers” gang at the helm…🧐
03:55 My memories of the 3DO from that time are of looking through video game magazines and seeing listings for carts. The 3DO carts cost as much as an entire console did (around $200, mid 90s USD). If I understood the idea correctly, they were delivering the arcade-quality games at home (for anyone who wasn't there, the arcade hardware was always much more powerful and much more expensive, eg 15-25k for a PS1-looking racer and the GPU had yet to be invented) whereas every other console got a downgraded port by necessity. After PS1 hit the market, I found the same game for PS and N64, $15 on CD or $75 on cartridge.
Hey this is good! Glad i clicked. Thanks for the clean artwork and voice acting. Made it a lot easier to understanding and retain. If only school history was this cool...
I like your videos but it's worth pointing out that microsoft could have just adopted the OpenGL standard that was technically superior at the time and that the webtv team had a point about not using x86 because of the energy efficiency issues.
Only today did I learn this was originally a "how to optimize a game for a lower-end rig" channel. I've only known your history stuff. I hope it's been super-successful, I legit love this channel.
I wonder if this is the start where consoles start to use 'computer-like architecture' instead of a custom one. PS3 were the last Sony's home console to use a custom architecture that was notoriously hard to program for.
Eh, the original Xbox was more of an outlier than anything. The PS2 and GameCube used architectures that were different, with the PS2 being a completely original RISC CPU, and the GameCube being based on PowerPC. The next generation was all PowerPC, (yes, even the PS3 CELL) and it took until the PS4 and Xbox One to shift to x86.
To avoid leaving the channel abandoned, I recommend uploading the previous SideQuests Or will the history of technology only be available to those who want to pay?
Kinda spoiler but Microsoft lost in that generation partly because "Xbox is too much of a PC in disguise" reason. Many people choose to stick with the PS2 because they could get what Xbox had to offer from their PC (except for a few exclusives).
Great video, and a great way of telling the story. However, I think another way of reading this is that MS saw what Sony was doing with the PS1/PS2 as a threat to their PC dominance. The PS2 can run a version of Linux, so it's only a hop-skip-and a jump from there to people using their PS2 for everything most people need a PC for and MS/Windows suddenly being irrelevant in the consumer PC space because everyone already has a Playstation. I think MS says as much in their own telling of the Xbox story. Hence, why MS suddenly cared about being the games box under your tv.
Fun fact, modern arcade games are just PCs in a metal box with a lot of hardware DRM and license management (modern Sega games require an always on internet connection to verify the license) and a JAMMA connector to interface with the cabinet's monitor and controls. Sega and Taito have been doing it this way since the early 2000's and companies like Capcom etc. just make arcade software for Sega or Taito arcade platforms instead of making their own hardware now. Street fighter 4 and 5 arcade versions actually run on Taito hardware for example. And in case you are wondering yes you can run these games on a home PC with a hypervisor called Teknoparrot.
This was where the balance was starting to shift away from custom hardware. Trying to design and support custom chipsets and libraries was getting too much for many companies. Without designs that have broad support across several markets, you don’t have the money to compete against Intel, ARM, AMD/ATI, or nVidia. IBM keeps their POWER architecture pretty much for supercomputers and mainframes, but even MIPS is pretty much a shell of what it once was, thanks to ARM’s ubiquity.
I have been watching your videos and I absolutely love them. I love how you are able to deeply research obscure stories and craft them into an interesting video. I have a suggestion for a future video. You focused on xbox here but, have you ever heard of Microsoft's drama with IBM through MS-DOS and the PC clones, the wild story with Microsoft and OS/2 and eventually David Cutler's creation of Windows NT (the base of modern Windows)? It is a genuinely fascinating and wild story you have to make a video on
Dude what happened with your youtube channel. why did you have to set private or delete all those videos about how to tweak configuration files to increase framerate? that was the reason ur channel got soo famous in the first place. I really liked seeing those .
I really like this video and would love more please! For some reason YT didn't recommend this video even though I've liked and watched every single of your videos post direction change. Just dropping a comment here to boost algo a bit, although I've also ringed the bell just in case.
It's kind of funny how a business deal gone bad between Sony and Nintendo created the playstation, and a business deal gone bad between Sony and Microsoft created the Xbox.
Hope youtubes algorithm picks up on these videos they are soo well made and Im so sure that so many people would want to watch this but dont know about them or are turned off by some kind of factor(maybe thumbnail or the fact that they see the youtube Channels Name and think you still do the lowspec game optimizations.).
I knew from the get go that this big guy must be GabeN. You made me excited for the next part tho because the XBOX development was very interesting indeed.
Have you done a video on Tandy? I think the Dreamcast's use of Windows CE is much better-known than the utter disaster of the Tandy VIS, which seems so much spicier. (Tragically, Frank Durda IV died before he could finish his book on the subject. All we have left are his website and scattered Usenet posts.)
I like the new videos, but why make the old ones unavailable? There is some absolutely great information on those for ancient tech. It's almost a disservice to tech history that you have privated your videos, lmao. I was going to look for some devices that you tested to buy on second hand market and everything is unavailable ! ! !
Am I the only one who thinks the story with the Duke gamepad for the original xbox is very muddy and not fully disclosed? I have heard quite a few versions of its creation, to the point that someone relied on an ordinary small dinner food plate when designing, however, it is very similar to the Dreamcast gamepad, given that Microsoft have been working together for sega a while and even sold the rights to use windows ce, which can be found in some games and a dreamcast web browser, Don't you think that Microsoft borrowed the design and layout of the gamepad from Sega?
10:52 Months later, on February 14, 2000 Xbox team chief: Well, we’re going to change the idea from a computer to a console. I’m sure Bill will understand easily in a calm and *why do i hear boss music* _Bill enters the room_
@@LowSpecGamer this is not how I wanted our first interaction to be lol but I swear to you that the CC option was grayed out/un-clickable 45 minutes after your video dropped, at least on my Pixel 7 Pro. I know that YOU wouldn't upload it without captions, which is something I've always appreciated!
I find it kind of amusing that (around 12 minutes in) they mention PCs being easy to build... and show what looks, from that power supply, connector and layout, to be a Mac. :)
I believe I ran into this group, the directX group, back then. I was developing for OS/2, and mention on a newsgroup for OS/2 that the system's enhanced support for DOS applications would allow things like directly mapping video memory to application memory, and should enable high speed gaming under OS/2. One person, we all knew to be a Microsoft shill, answered back that microsoft would soon have those capabilities. He posted a few messages after, but then disappeared. I think he was talking about DirectX and was told to shut up about it.
I think you made the right choice switching to these new videos. These documentaries are some of the best representations of tech history available anywhere, not just on TH-cam. I've gotta admit, I still miss your old videos, though. These are _objectively_ better, but they don't fill the same hole in my swollen, cholesterol-encrusted heart.
Absolutely right. I still think his lowspec videos and tweaking would perform just as good today, but these tech history documentaries are unlike others on TH-cam.
Very few videomakers can say they went from good content to better content.
I liked these videos a lot but uh-
The views don't reflect all that quality. And that sucks because these are amazing.
"I think you made the right choice"
Stops uploading
💀
Why did he delete all of them though?? Literally no reason to do that.
@@clouds-rb9xt they are unlisted. Theres a playlist of all his older videos on his channel.
A console designed entirely out of spite.
I dig it
De Javu?
First it was Sony that got rejected by Nintendo for the SNES CD-ROM, then the Microsoft rejected by Sony for PS2
@@bitelaserkhalifoh the irony
What goes around comes around,i guess.
Also the playstation
Another one
as a webtv user i would not want to see what a webtv-designed game console would- wait the 3DO exists
My buddy had one back in the day and it was still pretty advanced for the time, but few devs took good advantage of the hardware. Terrible for modern games, amazing for the growing category of video-board games at the time. I saw it as a hair above dragon's lair, which was saying a lot for 90s home devices. I think the bigger oof would be running windows CE.
you have a webtv designed console: webtv (with a changed disk) (insert here michael mjd webtv doom gameplay)
the 3do was a very well designed console. it was just too early and missed out on things that the playstation, 32x, and saturn benefitted from like cpu cache and faster memory.
Oh hi Mr web tv.
cdtv and Phillips cdi enters the chat.
The more I watch these videos, the more I realize just how insane those times were back then. I really love these videos! From the visuals to the voice acting to the way you tell the stories, it's all really interesting and it keeps me hooked for an entire episode each and every time. Keep them up!
As a 90s PC gamer this is my favourite episode yet! Would really like to see a part 2.
Hell yeah Xbox deep lore!
Would love to see a part two cover the development of the Xbox into its final release version, but what would also be cool is seeing you talk about the corporate politics which force the changes in hardware and the quick release of the 360
Like Xbox wasn't child of Sega after they got f'd on Dreamcast by "Run on Windows CE"
This is by no means the only "secret war" inside microsoft. Windows ce (for example) was a fight between three projects, one of which was completely unofficial, non-work time one. The unofficial one won.
The creation of the Duke gamepad remains a mystery to me, it very much resembles a dreamcast controller, and even the letter layout is the same, except for the colors, they are in a different order, I heard different versions, but they all sound unconvincing.
the head of sony told him straight "its a ken kutaragi project. and i do not control ken kutaragi" if he had tried to convince ken kutaragi he might have had his sony microsoft colab :p
Those 'Unnamed Reasons' That games ran better on dos was no rumor, its simple: Overhead. Computers did not have enough ram or cpu speed to run the os and a demanding game at the same time. Even when they did, performance was better when you ran it on DOS anyway. By the time steam came around windows had become both better, and defacto.
It is amazing to hear how this is all connected.
Hearing how it was after the compleation of the Doom port that Gabe left.
With how Valve is working on the Linux equalent of Direct X, it feels like it is going full circle.
ambition+angry=console
What valve is doing is translation of direct x rather than making a linux equivalent. Vulkan already exists anyway, but there's so much to direct x than the graphics, literally everything that a Windows game does uses a direct x library of some sort, be it for networking, input or sound. Valve is doing great work though.
@@bionicgeekgrrl Valve has been a major contributor to Vulkan though.
Please continue this series! The history of Direct X and Xbox is always a fun story to listen to!
Please do continue this, I would definitely like to see a second episode of this.
The original Xbox was my first console purchase. I'd had others while I was a child, but the Xbox and a copy of Halo 2 with an Xbox live sub was the first adventure I chose with my own money. I would love to hear more about it's history.
Please continue this series. Your videos are so good. The drawings add so much life to the stories.
Once again, another amazing video by LowSpecGamer, what an interesting pathway for Gabe to where he is now, same for the Musketeers, imagine growing up and being nerdy gamers and all three of you get jobs at Microsoft and help develop the future of gaming.
The original XBOX is, by far, my absolute FAVORITE gaming console! I bought one back in 2010 when the console was at the end of its life-cycle and didn’t even have XBOX Live support anymore but since online multiplayer has never really been a draw for me, I STILL wound up getting all kinds of use from it, from watching DVDs to storing BOATLOADS of music and, yes, enjoying some downright AWESOME games with no need for a memory card as its built-in hard drive had more than enough storage space for me to save and save and save and save…however, if memory serves me right, the original XBOX did in fact run Windows CE, NOT any version that one would have ran on a PC at that time…
Definitely want to see a Part 2 if not even a Part 3 to see how that came about with the PC “3 Musketeers” gang at the helm…🧐
03:55 My memories of the 3DO from that time are of looking through video game magazines and seeing listings for carts.
The 3DO carts cost as much as an entire console did (around $200, mid 90s USD). If I understood the idea correctly, they were delivering the arcade-quality games at home (for anyone who wasn't there, the arcade hardware was always much more powerful and much more expensive, eg 15-25k for a PS1-looking racer and the GPU had yet to be invented) whereas every other console got a downgraded port by necessity. After PS1 hit the market, I found the same game for PS and N64, $15 on CD or $75 on cartridge.
Hey this is good! Glad i clicked. Thanks for the clean artwork and voice acting. Made it a lot easier to understanding and retain. If only school history was this cool...
I can't believe we're at the point where Xbox is officially old enough for Alex to make a Low Spec video on it
I would love to see more videos on this topic. It is so interesting to see the technical difficulties on devices which have transformed the world.
I like your videos but it's worth pointing out that microsoft could have just adopted the OpenGL standard that was technically superior at the time and that the webtv team had a point about not using x86 because of the energy efficiency issues.
Only today did I learn this was originally a "how to optimize a game for a lower-end rig" channel. I've only known your history stuff.
I hope it's been super-successful, I legit love this channel.
I wonder if this is the start where consoles start to use 'computer-like architecture' instead of a custom one. PS3 were the last Sony's home console to use a custom architecture that was notoriously hard to program for.
Eh, the original Xbox was more of an outlier than anything. The PS2 and GameCube used architectures that were different, with the PS2 being a completely original RISC CPU, and the GameCube being based on PowerPC. The next generation was all PowerPC, (yes, even the PS3 CELL) and it took until the PS4 and Xbox One to shift to x86.
Here from f4mi's video. Grate stuff!
“I do not control Ken Kutaragi.” That’s what he said? The CEO of Sony? Wow.
I'd love to see more of this!
I really want a part 2 to this video about the development about the final product.
To avoid leaving the channel abandoned, I recommend uploading the previous SideQuests
Or will the history of technology only be available to those who want to pay?
Kinda spoiler but Microsoft lost in that generation partly because "Xbox is too much of a PC in disguise" reason. Many people choose to stick with the PS2 because they could get what Xbox had to offer from their PC (except for a few exclusives).
You got me hooked. We need the next part of the story!
Great video, and a great way of telling the story. However, I think another way of reading this is that MS saw what Sony was doing with the PS1/PS2 as a threat to their PC dominance. The PS2 can run a version of Linux, so it's only a hop-skip-and a jump from there to people using their PS2 for everything most people need a PC for and MS/Windows suddenly being irrelevant in the consumer PC space because everyone already has a Playstation. I think MS says as much in their own telling of the Xbox story. Hence, why MS suddenly cared about being the games box under your tv.
PS2 supporting linux has more to do with taxes and laws in some countries that view more favorably PC than a video games console.
Fun fact, modern arcade games are just PCs in a metal box with a lot of hardware DRM and license management (modern Sega games require an always on internet connection to verify the license) and a JAMMA connector to interface with the cabinet's monitor and controls. Sega and Taito have been doing it this way since the early 2000's and companies like Capcom etc. just make arcade software for Sega or Taito arcade platforms instead of making their own hardware now. Street fighter 4 and 5 arcade versions actually run on Taito hardware for example. And in case you are wondering yes you can run these games on a home PC with a hypervisor called Teknoparrot.
Jeez, I remember playing 1942 plane shooter by Capcom, so long ago 🥹
This was where the balance was starting to shift away from custom hardware. Trying to design and support custom chipsets and libraries was getting too much for many companies. Without designs that have broad support across several markets, you don’t have the money to compete against Intel, ARM, AMD/ATI, or nVidia. IBM keeps their POWER architecture pretty much for supercomputers and mainframes, but even MIPS is pretty much a shell of what it once was, thanks to ARM’s ubiquity.
Why do the Direct X guys look like characters from Osomatsu-san?
I have been watching your videos and I absolutely love them. I love how you are able to deeply research obscure stories and craft them into an interesting video.
I have a suggestion for a future video. You focused on xbox here but, have you ever heard of Microsoft's drama with IBM through MS-DOS and the PC clones, the wild story with Microsoft and OS/2 and eventually David Cutler's creation of Windows NT (the base of modern Windows)? It is a genuinely fascinating and wild story you have to make a video on
I remember that my comment was in the FC3 lowspec video, I really miss the old vids :((((
Would love to see you detail the rest of this story, but, granted, I love how you tell any interesting tech story.
Dude what happened with your youtube channel. why did you have to set private or delete all those videos about how to tweak configuration files to increase framerate? that was the reason ur channel got soo famous in the first place. I really liked seeing those .
They are in the old school playlist, they are just unlisted
@@creator-link yeah found it out 6 months ago.
The Age of Empires sound effects every time Ed fries did something 😂
Definitely want a sequel for this video
Amazingly well done with incredible art and narration!
5:06 the Sega Dreamcast had Windows CE which was released in 1998
You’ve earned my subscription. I’d love to see more like this.
Dude we need you for starfield
Do you have plans to try a low spec starfield video?
Man, I would legit watch an anime adaptation of your documentaries, in the same style as the illustrations.
I really like this video and would love more please! For some reason YT didn't recommend this video even though I've liked and watched every single of your videos post direction change. Just dropping a comment here to boost algo a bit, although I've also ringed the bell just in case.
Great video. I'll be waiting for part 2
I was waiting for your next content, awesome as always!
Looking into the msx story would be a great background follow-up to this as that was their first attempt at their own system before windows took off.
I love your new videos, but we need your low spec superpowers because Starfield is coming out and it would be amazing to play on the Steam Deck...
BRO WE WANT THE CONFIGS UNLIST THEM PLEZ
It's kind of funny how a business deal gone bad between Sony and Nintendo created the playstation, and a business deal gone bad between Sony and Microsoft created the Xbox.
Hope youtubes algorithm picks up on these videos they are soo well made and Im so sure that so many people would want to watch this but dont know about them or are turned off by some kind of factor(maybe thumbnail or the fact that they see the youtube Channels Name and think you still do the lowspec game optimizations.).
This video has phenomenal quality, love the art!
Why this video never showed up in my feed? :( I have to manually search this channel from time to time in order to see this great videos
even though im subscribed i didn't even know this video was uploaded until now. really sad how youtube doesn't promote quality videos like this
Me encanta esta serie!
Only halfway through the video so far. Wanted to say again that you are such a talented media creator!
Did you really think we **wouldn't** want more Xbox lore? This is the Internet content version of "shut up and take my money!"
I knew from the get go that this big guy must be GabeN.
You made me excited for the next part tho because the XBOX development was very interesting indeed.
I want next part of this story
Have you done a video on Tandy? I think the Dreamcast's use of Windows CE is much better-known than the utter disaster of the Tandy VIS, which seems so much spicier.
(Tragically, Frank Durda IV died before he could finish his book on the subject. All we have left are his website and scattered Usenet posts.)
at least the modular windows SDK is publicly dumped now...
i know bit late you might have moved on but would love a part 2
Please do continue the story!
man i love these tech history videos!
please continue!
You tease! I need the next episode! ;)
Can I ask you where's the old videos? Just asking 😅❤
I love all these series
I like the new videos, but why make the old ones unavailable? There is some absolutely great information on those for ancient tech. It's almost a disservice to tech history that you have privated your videos, lmao. I was going to look for some devices that you tested to buy on second hand market and everything is unavailable ! ! !
They are still in a playlist, they are just unlisted
Awesome video 🎉
Am I the only one who thinks the story with the Duke gamepad for the original xbox is very muddy and not fully disclosed?
I have heard quite a few versions of its creation, to the point that someone relied on an ordinary small dinner food plate when designing,
however, it is very similar to the Dreamcast gamepad,
given that Microsoft have been working together for sega a while and even sold the rights to use windows ce, which can be found in some games and a dreamcast web browser,
Don't you think that Microsoft borrowed the design and layout of the gamepad from Sega?
I would like the follow up!
Would love to her more about it. I love the voices and the artwork. keep up the great work.
Yeah I'm loving the voice commentary
What happened to your old videos :( such as showing us how to make
Black ops 3 run on very low spec. These videos were good
They’re unlisted, check the channel playlists.
I wanna hear more!
awesome video!
So the part 2 isn't available on TH-cam?
I am still trying to make it
id love a a part 2!
This was great! I loved to hear more about anything PC related. Got any information on how Steam got started?
What no explosions? Dude you gotta have explosions in the background when your doing "the pose". (4:16)
10:52 Months later, on February 14, 2000
Xbox team chief: Well, we’re going to change the idea from a computer to a console. I’m sure Bill will understand easily in a calm and *why do i hear boss music*
_Bill enters the room_
The lord Gaben cameo caught me off guard.
😮 no closed captions! I'll be back!
It has manual closed captions in two languages
@@LowSpecGamer this is not how I wanted our first interaction to be lol but I swear to you that the CC option was grayed out/un-clickable 45 minutes after your video dropped, at least on my Pixel 7 Pro. I know that YOU wouldn't upload it without captions, which is something I've always appreciated!
I thought that i didn't see a low spec video , and there comes a low spec video
Mucha calidad gracias 😁
I worked with Craig and Eric. Great guys. Rest in peace, Eric
Amazing story telling. Thanks!
I find it kind of amusing that (around 12 minutes in) they mention PCs being easy to build... and show what looks, from that power supply, connector and layout, to be a Mac. :)
Lowspecgamer is my favorite anime.
at 8:05 subtitles is gone until 8:20
I love your videos, is basically why I subscribe to Nebula. What's better for the creator, that I watch the video at TH-cam or at Nebula? thanks!
Nebula by a long shot
Love these videos
Part 2 please.
You are the best. More please!
YES YES MORE DEEP LORE
i really want to know what went behind the scenes when they were making the XBOX!
I believe I ran into this group, the directX group, back then. I was developing for OS/2, and mention on a newsgroup for OS/2 that the
system's enhanced support for DOS applications would allow things like directly mapping video memory to application memory, and should enable high speed gaming under OS/2. One person, we all knew to be a Microsoft shill, answered back that microsoft would soon have those capabilities. He posted a few messages after, but then disappeared. I think he was talking about DirectX and was told to shut up about it.
Give us old low spec back