The original Xbox missed the mark with one thing......

[Smokey]

I think the original xbox missed the mark with one thing, a wifi adapter. I think they could've put out a wifi adapter to enable wifi on the original xbox. I think that would've been a big seller for the console, similar to how Sega released the broadband adapter to replace the 56K modem it came with. 

Do you think the OG xbox should've had a wifi adapter add-on released? Or was it not needed at the time?

[Shagger]

I think the technology behind WiFi at the time was a little too young. Playing games on a network on console had just barely become a thing on that generation of console, so to expect a wireless home network to work in any that was practical for gaming, especially when broadband internet was also in it's infancy, would have been asking a lot.

[Crazycrab]

I remember having a Sony VAIO that was one of the first Laptops to support Wi-Fi.  It worked by inserting these cards into a proprietary slot on the side, yes there weren't even any USB Wi-Fi dongles yet.  This was about 2 -3 years after the XBox came out.  The XBox 360 went on sale only about 2 more years after that so there was never really a gap for Microsoft to release such a thing

[Shortie]

As much as this would have been great to have on the original Xbox I do believe that broadband fast enough would have still been too young to manage online gaming in such a way that it would have been strong enough to manage. Yes, it would have really helped them but I feel them waiting was the better option in the long run whilst technology got better.

[Smokey]

Yeah I suppose that's true, Wifi was still too young. Hell, it took up til a few years ago to enable Wifi on the Dreamcast through the use of a Raspberry Pi configured to work w/ the Dreamcast infastructure known as DreamPi. I got one recently and it's connected over Wifi, it works well enough, it basically emulates the 56K modem in the Dreamcast, but connects wirelessly through Wifi or via an Ethernet cable, but I opted to go wireless due to space constraints.   I'm hoping one day we'll see a similar solution for Wifi for the original Xbox. That would be so cool! 🙂

Edited December 16, 2022 by Smokey

[Kane99]

Back then I doubt wifi would have worked that well for online gaming. Like Shagger said it was still a bit fresh at the time, and I honestly don't think the connect would have been good. Plus, I don't think many routers existed back then supporting wifi connections. Though I'm sure some did, they weren't probably meant for online gaming. These days they make special routers that are geared towards gaming and streaming. 

The mod scene has probably created a wifi dongle for the original Xbox, just like someone has added HDMI support, and other such things. I think today it would be possible to get it set up on wifi than it was back when it originally released. 

And on the plus side, connections through ethernet were way better, I hate playing games over wifi, because you will drop a connection once in a while. Wired connections are always best. 

[Ravenfreak]

I can imagine that the Xbox would have been even more expensive if it had a wifi adapter. Wifi was relatively new when the Xbox first released, having a wired connection was most likely more reliable than a wifi signal at the time. It'd suck if you were in the middle of a match and the Xbox was disconnected from your wifi. I do wish the Xbox 360 had it built in though, it sucked that you had to get a wireless adapter whereas the PS3 had it built in so you didn't need to purchase anything extra.