While the Xbox never really met with much success during its rather brief foray into the console market, the “one that came before” played big-brother to one of the best consoles of this generation – and today he turns ten.

On the 15th of November 2001, the Xbox hit the US market, competing directly with Sony’s Playstation 2, Sega’s Dreamcast and Nintendo’s Gamecube in the 6th generation of consoles.

We all know how that ended (spoilers: Playstation 2 won – by a large margin).

After shipping 24 million units worldwide, the Xbox was discontinued by Microsoft in 2006, paving the way for Xbox 360 to grab hold of generation 7 – which has sold almost 58 million units to date.

To celebrate this landmark for the brand, today also marks the 10 year anniversary of the original Halo, which was a hugely successful Xbox launch title, which also gets its HD overhaul release today in the form of Halo Anniversary.

So happy birthday, Xbox – you might not have been the most popular of the last generation, but you certainly set the foundation for one of the most interesting and competitive generations in gaming, and definitely upped the stakes in the console wars.

Hip hip – hoorah!