

Bill knew I was having a kid, but didn’t know his name, so he just wrote, “Ed Junior’s First Toy” on that Xbox and signed it. The Japanese launch was February 22, 2002, and my first son was born on March 21, 2002. As far as the best response, definitely the custom Xboxes, and the Japanese Xbox signed by Bill Gates for my son. Some of them were just, “Here’s a bunch of shirts.” Some are better than others, for sure. GamesBeat: You had about 30 days’ worth of things to show?įries: I think I did 45 or so. I know that collectors have seen the wooden Xbox cut from Japan, and they’re going to be out there scouring the world to find one of those. I probably have a bit of a collector’s mindset. I’ve been a bit of a collector myself, like with arcade machines. But it was fun to get people’s reactions. It seemed like every cupboard I opened or shelf I looked on, there was something related to Xbox. I think Xbox is just such a part of my life that it infected every part of my house as well. Why did you keep it all? What’s gotten the best response so far?Įd Fries: I was worried my wife was getting more followers on Instagram than I was! But no, why did I keep it all? I don’t know. You’ve been sharing all this swag on social media about your Xbox days. It’s good to have Ed here to remind us how difficult it was and how much heavy lifting had to be done by so many people. GamesBeat: People assume Microsoft’s success in the game business was preordained.
