[mosqutip]

This isn't uniformly true, though. The original Xbox was, for all intents and purposes, and amazing product launch. Same with the Kinect, Office 2003, Windows XP, etc.

This models seems to hold more truth in recent years, however. I can't come up with a solid reason why this is, but it isn't an absolute truth.

[meritt]

Unlike the rest of their products, the Xbox wasn't a massive design by committee project. It was created by 4 guys from the DirectX team, effectively their own little startup within the Microsoft world.

The Xbox was also able to leverage the past ~5 years of DirectX development and PC gaming knowledge and built a OS that was very similar to Win32 minus the HAL.

[owenwil]

I actually agree with you on this - but the Xbox came from a department that is segmented off from the rest of the company and uninfluenced by the rest of the corporate culture. The company made a breakthrough there, but in recent years they haven't been able to repeat that.