Xbox
The original Xbox was released on November 15, 2001, in North America, February 22, 2002, in Japan, and March 14, 2002, in Australia and Europe. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market. As part of the sixth-generation of gaming, the Xbox competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast (which stopped American sales before the Xbox went on sale), and Nintendo's GameCube. The Xbox was the first console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. The name Xbox was derived from a contraction of "DirectX Box", a reference to Microsoft's graphics API, DirectX.
Giant Bomb
In 2013 Microsoft unveiled their eighth generation video game console, the Xbox One. The Xbox One's pre-release reception was subject to strong criticism following its announcement of functionalities such as the always-on form of digital rights management (DRM), barring consumers from playing purchased games if their Xbox One could not connect to the internet once every 24 hours. On June 19, 2013, Giant Bomb broke the story that Microsoft would reverse these policies and not feature them in the console. After Klepek's article, Microsoft announced the changes later that day.