“One of the most controversial choices at the time was whether the Xbox should have a modem in it or not. It sounds bizarre now but most people at the time were connecting to the internet via a dial-up modem.
“So the decision to add a modem in there was fought and fought and actually went all the way up to Robbie Bach. There was a big difference of opinion because at the time there were a lot of dial-up multiplayer services, and we knew if we supported that we could get a lot of people playing.
“The idea of having an Ethernet connection in your home was pretty new at that time, and not many people had it.
“And I remember that this was one of the clear demands that Robbie made, he said we were building the machine for the future, that we were going to bet on people signing up to broadband.
“Once he made that decision. No-one went back.”
An in-depth look at how Microsoft got into the console race, tracing the two years from product conception to launch.