The most iconic controller in the Xbox family without a doubt, The Duke, the first controller that launched with the first Xbox in 2001. 2021 will mark the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first Xbox and even today we continue to know interesting and fun anecdotes around the development of said command.
As you know, the control of the first Xbox was extremely important, but the reality is that all that was great was ergonomic, it was and is really comfortable control, but very, very big. As is evident, in its development, different tests were carried out so that users in different countries could test it and Aaron Greenberg shared
The development of the Xbox controller, The Duke
In the focus groups we ran at the time, we gave Japanese consumers a way to try The Duke, but once they got their hands on, he exclaimed “this is so awesome!”. They were very concerned that the pad and console were compact. Our wish was to create a global games business and thus be successful in Japan. I must say that we were a little naive, we did not understand how difficult it would be to achieve this result.
Peter Moore remember what the remote was like:
Back then we were watching The Duke and we still called him The Incredible Hulk because he was tall and green. I think behind it all was the realization that the company would eventually find its way into video games and perform well. It was a reflection of the thinking of Gates, Ballmer and others, we thought that if we were really convinced to enter the video game market, in the end, with all our resources, our talent, our patience and our experience, we could achieve this.
It has rained a lot since then and only the memory of this iconic controller remains, although it should never be forgotten that the current Xbox One or Xbox 360 controller is still an evolution of that first creation with The Duke.