Ep. 33: Microsoft Game Studios: The Xbox Prequel

Diving into the history of the Xbox in his recent long read, Bet on Black: How Microsoft and Xbox Changed Pop Culture, Part 1, David L. Craddock goes back to the time of JezzBall, Age of Empires, and trusty ‘ol Minesweeper: the games that kept us entertained while someone else in the house was using the phone. We discuss the import of porting Doom to show off DirectX, the PC Magazine two level Diablo demo disc, and the PR disaster of The Lion King for Windows 95. Craddock, no stranger to suddenly massively expanding the scope of his research, takes us down this rabbit hole with tales of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, and Halo’s Blood Gulch map.

See more from David L. Craddock:

Website: shacknews.com

Twitter: @davidlcraddock

Book: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/monsters-in-the-dark-the-making-of-x-com#/

Website: davidlcraddock.com

The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/