The Top Ten Most Influential Video Game Consoles of All Time

(8) Microsoft -- Microsoft Xbox 360

(7th Gen November 2005)

Forget for a moment that the Xbox 360 was the first high-definition game console ever -- and forget its advanced shading and physics effects. Forget that it was the first game console to enter the market with a fully integrated wireless game control system -- and forget that it sports the most solidly integrated online network that backstops and supports all of the games released on it including the ones that are not online enabled. Forget that it created social networks before we knew how critical that would be to making online gaming the blast that it is...

The single greatest contribution of the Xbox 360 actually began with the original Xbox, but it was the 360 that saw the evolutionary completion of a unified entertainment platform. More than simply a gaming console, the 360 is a media system, and its integrated Xbox Live service that allows gamers to seamlessly compete online, download arcade games, game demos, trailers, TV shows, music and movies... And there is the Windows Media Center integration, which prior to the expansion of the net-based content was one of the only ways to get music and video from the net onto your 360...

Thinking outside of the box is a standard practice at Microsoft, and in the case of the 360 it lead directly to the Kinect, an integrated controller sensor that, in conjunction with the console, turns your body into the gamepad. That is so major that we have to firmly resist hyperbole. It is difficult to imagine the system without that capability now, but when Microsoft first began to discuss it there was a lot of head scratching to be sure, and questions like, how will that make gaming better? Now we know.