twirl-46573 Review of Power On: The Story of Xbox

Power On: The Story of Xbox (2021)

An utterly genius documentary about the birth of a brand

[9/10 · 13 December 2021]

If you're looking for a great documentary about one brand's rise to the top, then this is the one. Power On is a brilliant documentary about how the DirectX team created one of the most recognized and well-respected brands on the market. This six-part documentary series takes you all the way back to the early pre-release phases of Microsoft's video game console, showing you everything that went into making Xbox what it is today. It's the untold story about the people behind the box, and gives you an in-depth look of every single misstep, glitch, and mistake that occurred during Xbox's development cycle, and gives you a full inclusive history of the Xbox brand as a whole. But, it's not only just the history of the Original Xbox that makes this six-part documentary worth watching. The entire documentary series goes throughout not just the scrappy beginnings of the original Xbox and the team behind it, but the entire history of Xbox as a whole, from the Xbox 360's fatal hardware errors, all the way to the present time. It's not only a compelling story about the birth of a brand and the mistakes and missteps, but the entire documentary has a lot of unique and interesting animation as well as special effects which are most noticeable during the first 3 episodes, and primarily during Episode 2 when they showcase the original prototype Xbox seen at GDC 2000. Every single episode showcases a portion of the development history of Xbox as a brand in gaming, and it takes a lot of guts to admit your mistakes, as clearly noted in Episode 6 when they showcased the disappointing "New Generation" reveal codenamed Newcastle as a reveal for the all-in-one entertainment system known as the Xbox One. Ever single episode features a compelling segment about Xbox's development history, and everything that made Xbox what it is, including the day one November 15th, 2001 release of the groundbreaking FPS game Halo: Combat Evolved. To put it simply, this was a genius and compelling documentary, and as someone who has seen all the episodes, I loved it. Whether you're a gamer or not, I highly and strongly recommend you to check out this visually stunning and genius documentary. I promise you will enjoy it so much, just like I did.