What was the Hard Drive in the Original Xbox actually used for?

The Original Xbox launched in 2001 and it brought a few innovations never seen before to the video game console industry. The first would be a built-in hard drive that was not an optional add-on, rather it was a core component of the Xbox hardware. But did the hard drive provide any benefit other than large storage capacity for save games and custom soundtracks? In today's episode we take a closer look at the Xbox hard drive feature and how developers took advantage of it in different ways. Was it really necessary in the end? You decide and let me know in the comments.

Sources/Credits:

►    • Power On: The Story of Xbox | Chapter 1: T...  
► https://news.microsoft.com/2001/05/16...
► https://venturebeat.com/2011/11/14/ma...
► https://games.slashdot.org/story/05/1...
► Xbox Photo Credit: Evan Amos

Timestamps:

00:00 - 01:40 - Introduction
01:41 - 03:47 - The Xbox Hard Drive and its purpose.
03:48 - 05:23 - Save Games / Custom Soundtracks
05:24 - 07:21 - Developer benefits - Fast Loading
07:22 - 09:23 - Halo 2 caching and Doom 3 Texture Steaming
09:24 - 10:11 - Morrowind and the Hard Drive
10:48 - 12:28 - How the homebrew community adopted the Hard Drive
12:29 - 14:13 - The Xbox 360 took a step back
14:14 - 15:19 - Conclusion/Outro

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#Xbox #HDD