Xbox 20th Anniversary Celebration Livestream Recap

Today, Microsoft presented a special livestream to help gamers celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Xbox. If you missed the stream, don’t worry: we’ve got details of all the major announcements that you missed!

Thanks for the memories

To help remember the good old days of the Xbox, Microsoft brought in former exec Robbie Bach. He retired a decade ago and didn’t mind dishing on some juicy details, including the fact that Microsoft originally put business over gaming and that some of the bigwigs inside the company didn’t think the game system would succeed.

Upcoming documentary

Of course, there is only so much Xbox history Microsoft could fit in a short stream. Players wanting a much longer look at the company’s history can use multiple platforms to stream an upcoming six-part documentary on Dec. 13 called Power On: The Story of Xbox.

More backwards compatibility

Backwards compatibility has become a major focus of Microsoft. And as of today, over 70 new BC games have been added. This includes the Max Payne series, Viva Piñata: Party Animals, TimeSplitters 2, and many more.

Dwayne Johnson announces the Xbox Vault sweepstakes

One of the weirder elements of the stream included a promotion for the Netflix movie Red Notice, complete with an appearance by its star Dwayne Johnson. Johnson announced a sweepstakes called the Xbox Vault, where you can win prizes including an oil painting of “The Rock,” illustrating when he revealed the first Xbox on the CES stage in 2001. The sweepstakes runs now through Nov. 24 at XboxVault.com.

All about Halo

The biggest star of today’s stream was Master Chief. We saw a brief glimpse of the live-action Halo series coming to Paramount+, and we got some brief Halo Infinite discussion as well as a symphony presentation of Halo music set to scenes from the series.

All of this led to the biggest news. While Halo Infinite won’t be out as a full game until Dec. 8, the free-to-play multiplayer is available today. So whether you’re on PC, Xbox One, or Xbox Series X|S, you can start rising through the ranks right now!

Now, if anybody needs me, I’ll be getting this Halo Infinite multiplayer download started!