In later incarnations, Microsoft offered a feature called "Xbox Live. Subscribers have the unique experience of interacting with other gamers, streaming media, and even buying add-ons to games. This differentiation strategy has proven extremely successful, and even in the recession has a record number of sales" (Field, Patterson & Cyndecki 2009).

Microsoft's Xbox team, by virtue of listening to the needs of PC developers, was able to introduce specific innovations that were attractive to game developers. For example, the PIX, or Performance Investigator for Xbox, "allowed a developer to have an unheard-of level of introspection into why a part of the game was or wasn't working. They could pause the game, focus on something as small as a pixel, and see the entire sequence of computations that led to the pixel showing up on the screen at that particular time. No one else had created such a tool" and PIX...
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