The day Bill Gates almost lost a $15 billion business

Bill Gates is undoubtedly a successful man. One of the great entrepreneurs in history, with a vision to start businesses at the right time to become one of the richest people in the world. Without a doubt, Microsoft, a company of which he is a co-founder, is his masterpiece, his great legacy. But also, like everyone else, he has made mistakes in his life. And one was about to cost him dearly, also financially: he thought of disapprove xbox release.

Today, the Microsoft console is one of most popular on the market, competing with Nintendo and PlayStation (Sony). With its sales, as well as games and subscriptions to Xbox Game Pass, they account for the company close to 15 billion a year. A not insignificant figure and that was about to not exist.

Ed Fries, co-creator of Xboxshared with the media specialized in video games IGN the history of ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre’. With this striking name, Microsoft baptized an important meeting in which the fate of one of the great consoles in history was decided, back in 2001, months before it was launched on the market. Something that could be “his biggest mistake”.

As Fries revealed, there were teams within the company that raised Gates and Steve Ballmer, the leaders of the company at the time, the option to create a video game console. The co-creator was on the side that chose to develop a hard drive system that was, in essence, “a PC in disguise”, as Fries called it. In this one a version of Windows would be executed, as it happens today with Xbox One. In the other ‘side’ they bet more on a traditional console, making “continuation of Sega’s Dreamcast line”.

Gate’s Choice

Bill Gates sided with the Fries team, with the idea of ​​running a version of Windows. The plan went ahead until they realized that the business plan would not be possible. So, they were forced to take a turn and create a system “closed” to run the games. This ended in the aforementioned meeting with Bill Gates and Ballmer, held on Valentine’s Day.

It was at this meeting that Bill Gates was about to make the big mistake. He came to qualify the launch of Xbox as an “insult” to everything he had done within the company. Those present expected an anger on the part of the American philanthropist for the fact that not have Windows, but not that it reached such levels. Ballmer, for his part, expresses concern about the amount of money they would lose on this project.

So everything changes when the potential of Sony was mentioned with its own console, PlayStation, and as a possible rival to Microsoft in terms of home entertainment. That was when they agreed, while a senior executive of the company expressed his opinion. “What about Sony? Sony is islowly invading classrooms with a processor here, software there… could be a threat to Microsoft.” It was then that Gates and Ballmer gave their go-ahead for the console’s launch.