Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates took some convincing before signing off on the company's vision for the original Xbox, and Ed Fries recently stopped by the IGN office to share the story.
According to the Xbox co-creator, Gates wasn't too happy when he learned, during their proposal meeting on Valentine's Day of 2000, about their plan to veer away from Windows in favor of closed gaming platform. "Bill walks in, he's holding our Powerpoint deck, throws it down on the table and says, 'This is a [blanking] insult to everything I've done at this company'—basically was the quote. And that was the start of the meeting," Fries said on the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered.
"We all turned and looked at J Allard because we knew he's mad about the Windows thing—because we forgot to, in Microsoft terms, pre-disaster him," Fries continued, noting that Allard was "like in shock for a minute" so he stepped in and tried to explain the situation before getting yelled at and shut down. Robbie Bach then tried to explain and was also shut down, after which Allard chimed in only to be shut down as well.
Then former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke up to note that the business plan said the company was going to lose a significant amount of money from this endeavor, which only escalated the situation as the meeting continued on for several hours into the night.
It wasn't until an observer at the meeting raised his hand around 8pm and said, "What about Sony?" bringing to light the fact that the company was "slowly invading the living room" and how this could be a "future threat to Microsoft." At this point, Fries said that "Bill and Steve stop and look at each other and Bill says, 'Yeah what about Sony?'" to which Ballmer replied by posing the same question.
After that, Gates approved the plan and gave his "full blessing," saying he'd provide them with all the resources they would need, and allow them to work separately from the rest of the company. Ballmer echoed Gates' sentiment, and from that point on they had "full approval to do Xbox."
For more on the origins of Microsoft's first game console, be sure to check out our full interview with Fries, during which the Xbox co-creator details the original pitch for the console, as well as the company's attempts to partner with Nintendo and Sony.
Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
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