11 Fascinating Gaming Moments That Almost Happened

6. Xbox One's All-Digital Future

Although it's a distant memory now (a testament to just how well Phil Spencer and his team have righted the ship in the last six years), the original Xbox One launch was a disaster. Not learning from the same mistakes Sony made a generation prior, Microsoft's new vision for consoles was destroyed by their own hubris, as they arrogantly told concerned customers that if they didn't like the direction they were going in, they could happily stick with their 360.

But customers did have the right to be concerned. At the time, the Xbox One was being pitched as an all-in-one entertainment system focused as much (or arguably, even more) on TV than actual video games. Not only that, but it was striving for an all-digital future, loaded with DRM that would require the machine to be online at least once a day, a Kinect 2.0 that needed to be plugged in for the console to work, and a new licensing model which locked players out from sharing their games.

Not every idea was sound, but the company's approach could have been salvaged with more consumer-friendly messaging. After intense backlash, Microsoft changed their tune, but it is remarkable how much the industry has veered towards their original vision recently - a future which could have been kickstarted far earlier had this marketing campaign been successful.

JB