Talking Point: It’s Been 20 Years Since Xbox 360 Was Revealed Live On MTV

2025 marks the 20-year anniversary of Xbox 360, with the seminal Xbox console launching way back in November 2005; kicking off the seventh generation of consoles. To this day, the system is still revered and played by many – and we’ve been reminded today that it’s 20 years on the dot since Microsoft first revealed the console.

That’s right, on May 12th, 2005, Microsoft held its MTV special event to reveal Xbox 360, alongside a bunch of games that were set to release in and around the console’s launch later that year. We’ve thrown the presentation up above so you can get all nostalgic for the era – just try not to cringe too much at some of the contents within.

We’ve got live music, ‘Pimp my Ride’ customisations, questionable interviews and hella-dated video effects; accumulating in what feels like a portal to a completely different era. It’s fascinating to go back and watch though, and it’s certainly an interesting look at where Microsoft and the gaming industry was at back then.

Thinking more about that time in general though, it’s strange to think that Xbox 360 will be two decades old later this year. We still enjoy so much of its library on both native hardware and via backwards compatibility to this day – it just doesn’t feel that long ago due to how timeless lots of those games are!

Anyway, we suppose this presentation deserves to be remembered – not necessarily for the event itself, but more for the revolutionary product it introduced to the gaming world. It’ll be an even bigger party for Xbox 360 once November rolls around, but for now, lets revel in a bit of MTV nostalgia while thinking back to a very, very different time for Microsoft and Xbox.

Do you remember this presentation? What about the era in general? Get in and amongst it down in the comments section below.