Charting the history of a company as sprawlingly massive as Microsoft is a problematic task. Doing so from the perspective of a gamer is perhaps even more difficult. Gaming is a small part of Microsoft’s overall business, yet the story of its ventures into PC gaming and Xbox exploits requires historical context. The seeds of Microsoft’s embrace of the video game industry were sown long before the Xbox was a glint in J Allard’s eye. Let’s recap the key events of this fascinating journey.
And be sure to check out our other comprehensive histories of Microsoft’s console competitors, in:
The Complete History of Sony Computer Entertainment
The Complete History of Nintendo
October 1955 – Bill Gates is born in Seattle, Washington.
1973 – Gates enrols at Harvard, where he meets fellow student and future Microsoft colleague Steve Ballmer.
April 1975 – Microsoft founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by Bill Gates and childhood friend Paul Allen, after Gates seals a distribution deal with Micro Instruments and Telemetry Systems for his Altair BASIC programming language.
January 1979 – Microsoft moves HQ from New Mexico to Bellevue, Washington, where the company remains today.
June 1980 – Steve Ballmer joins Microsoft.
1981 – Microsoft signs deal with IBM to provide an operating system for its personal computers. MS-DOS is born.
November 1985 – The first version of Microsoft Windows is launched, giving a graphical interface to MS-DOS. It’s rubbish for playing games.
March 1986 – Microsoft becomes a public company. Co-founders Gates and Allen are now millionaires.
1989 – Microsoft Office arrives.
1990 – Windows 3.0 launches. It’s still rubbish for playing games.
May 1991 – Bungie Studios is founded in Chicago by Alex Seropian and Jason Jones.
January 1994 – Bill Gates marries Melinda French. Aww.
December 1994 – Bungie releases its first hugely successful game, Marathon, for the Mac OS.
1995 – Windows 95 launches. Bill Gates tops the Forbes list of the World’s Richest People and stays at number one until 2007.
