Xbox Boss Claims Her Company Pioneered Dual Analog Stick Controllers, but She’s Wrong

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Asha Sharma, head of Xbox, highlighted the original console’s unique features, including its built-in hard drive and Ethernet port, which made it technologically advanced for its time.
• Sharma incorrectly claimed that Xbox pioneered controllers with dual analog sticks, despite Sony and Nintendo releasing similar controllers years earlier.
• Despite these features, Xbox has never outsold Sony or Nintendo in console sales. The Xbox 360 came closest, managing to capture the North American market.
• Xbox no longer discloses its console sales figures, reflecting its challenging commercial performance compared to its competitors.

The video game industry has evolved over several decades since the first attempts to provide entertainment through electronic devices. A long list of pioneers has helped shape modern gaming. Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox are certainly among them, but the head of the latter company has credited her brand with pioneering a feature of modern controllers that had already become commonplace at both Japanese companies.

Just days before Xbox’s 25th anniversary, brand head Asha Sharma shared a commemorative message that she sent to every member of the company. In it, she briefly reviewed Microsoft’s contributions to the video game industry, starting with Microsoft Adventure.

Naturally, the executive took the opportunity to praise the company’s early efforts under the Xbox brand and highlight its first console. However, she also took a few shots at its direct competitors, PlayStation and Nintendo.

“It launched with a hard drive, at a time when competitors required players to purchase memory cards separately, and an Ethernet port, when 9 out of 10 households were still using dial-up internet connections,” Sharma said.

Was Xbox a Pioneer of Dual Analog Stick Controllers?

What caught people’s attention was that some of Sharma’s claims were inaccurate. Although the original Xbox featured “more than twice the processing power” of the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube, as she stated, her claim that Xbox was a “pioneer of dual analog stick controllers” is questionable.

By the time Microsoft launched its first Xbox console with its first controller featuring dual analog sticks (November 2001), Sony had already released four iterations of controllers with this design: the PlayStation Analog Joystick (1996), the DualAnalog (1997), the DualShock (1997), and the DualShock 2. Although the first three were sold separately, the PlayStation 2 already included the DualShock 2 in its package when it launched in March 2000.

Nintendo also introduced its own controller with dual analog sticks shortly before the Xbox launched, in September 2001.

Introducing this feature almost four years after the first example appeared hardly qualifies as pioneering, especially in the technology industry.

Xbox Has Struggled to Outsell PlayStation and Nintendo Throughout Its 25-Year History

Unfortunately, Microsoft’s hardware advancements did not translate into sales dominance. In no console generation has the company managed to outsell Sony or Nintendo in terms of systems sold. Its best attempt came with the Xbox 360, which managed to take the North American market away from its direct rival, the PlayStation 3.

Although Xbox currently offers the most powerful console, the brand has struggled so much commercially that it has stopped disclosing its hardware sales figures. Project Helix is also expected to be more powerful than PlayStation 6, but it will reportedly be more expensive as well. Only time will tell whether it has a better fate than Xbox Series X.

What do you think of Asha Sharma’s message? What did you love most about the original Xbox? Let us know in the comments.