The Xbox (name derived from "DirectX box") is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2 , Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube . The name came’s from a group of Microsoft DirectX developers, but later changed to Xbox after focus testing. The marketing team apparently "created this whole, long list of better names for the machine", former Microsoft VP of game publishing Ed Fries said in an interview with Gamasutra.

The Xbox was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe. It is the predecessor to Microsoft's Xbox 360  console. It was discontinued in late 2006, although the final Xbox game (Madden NFL 09) was released in August 2008. Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was discontinued on March 2, 2009; any in-warranty repair now needed will not be undertaken and faulty consoles will replaced with an XBOX360 instead.

The Xbox was the first to wield a hard disk drive, used primarily for storing game saves and content downloaded from Xbox Live. This eliminated the need for separate memory cards(although some older consoles, such as the TurboGrafx-CD, Sega CD (http://www.wantitall.co.za/Video-Games/Sega-CDX-Video-Game-Console__B000GHWQUY) and Sega Saturn  had featured built-in battery backup memory prior to 2001). An Xbox user could rip music from standard audio CDs to the hard drive, and these songs were used for the custom soundtracks in some games.

The Xbox was the first gaming product to feature Dolby Interactive Content-Encoding Technology, which allows real-time Dolby Digital encoding in game consoles. Previous game consoles could only use Dolby Digital 5.1 during non-interactive "cut scene" playback.

Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries. This is largely due to a bulky tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size 3.5-inch hard drive. The Xbox has also pioneered safety features, such as breakaway cables for the controllers to prevent the console from being pulled from the surface it rests on.

The Xbox has sold 24 million units worldwide as of May 10, 2006, according to Microsoft. This is divided out to 16 million units sold in North America, six million units in Europe, and two million units sold in Asia.