Founding Xbox producer Laura Fryer says her early hardware skepticism is vindicated 25 years laterFounding Xbox producer Laura Fryer says her early hardware skepticism is vindicated 25 years later

Laura Fryer, one of the original members of Microsoft Games Studios and a producer on titles like Crimson Skies, says the concerns she raised about Xbox entering the hardware market in the early 2000s are finally being validated. In a new video reported by Kotaku, Fryer — who was part of the founding Xbox team — explains that she worried Microsoft was abandoning Windows, which she describes as already holding over 90% of the PC gaming market, for a risky hardware bet the company wasn't prepared for. With Xbox now appearing to be in what Kotaku calls 'a state of collapse,' Fryer says her original skepticism has proven prescient 25 years later.

laura fryer was on the original xbox team back in the '90s and she was already skeptical. her argument: windows already dominated PC gaming at 90%+ market share, so why abandon that for a hardware gamble? 25 years later, with xbox looking rough, she says those concerns aged exactly how she expected. she talked about it in a new video covered by kotaku — admits there was some bitterness at the time since xbox was cannibalizing her existing projects like the Internet Gaming Zone.