Original Xbox creator says launch made him "feel like an amateur"

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20 years on, Seamus Blackley describes his Xbox "panic weekend"

Xbox
(Image credit: Microsoft)

One of the creators of the original Xbox has been sharing his thoughts ahead of the console's 20th anniversary.

Seamus Blackley, who is credited with the idea of a dedicated Microsoft console, took to Twitter earlier today to say that Xbox's imagery attached to its anniversary celebrations - due to kick off later today - "just made me all verklempt," a Yiddish word for being overcome with emotion.

While the Xbox has now become a classic console, it wasn't always smooth sailing. In his tweet, Blackley outlines a "panic weekend spent coming up with a bootup animation that would work, and implementing it, feeling like an amateur, like it was all a failure." Fortunately, that hard work seemed to pay off, and now the original console is "a classic antique."

The Xbox 20th anniversary stream takes place today at 10:00 PST/ 13:00 EST/ 18:00 GMT. Microsoft has said that the focus will be on celebration and nostalgia rather than new game announcements, but some Halo fans are convinced that a surprise drop of the Halo Infinite multiplayer mode will be unveiled at the show. A number of recent reports have pointed to something happening later today, which would see the mode arrive almost a month before the rest of the campaign, including the revamped open-world campaign. Given the strength of Halo Infinite's betas, that would mean that shooter fans will have been well-served throughout November, with Call of Duty: Vanguard and Battlefield 2042 both launching recently.

Taking a trip down memory lane? Here are the best Xbox games of all time. 

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.