Short answers, pulled from the story.
Microsoft launched the original Xbox console in North America in November 2001. This release marked the company's first entry into the home video game market since Atari stopped selling its Jaguar system in 1996.
Four engineers from Microsoft's DirectX team named Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley, Ted Hase, and Otto Berkes began designing the system to compete with Sony's PlayStation 2. They built the hardware using components common to personal computers.
The third revision called the Xbox One launched on the 22nd of November 2013. The system featured an AMD Accelerated Processing Unit with up to 12 GB of memory.
Phil Spencer took leadership of the Xbox division in late March 2014 after succeeding Marc Whitten. Under his direction, the brand underwent significant organizational changes including renaming Microsoft Studios to Xbox Game Studios in 2019.
By May 2006, the device had sold over 24 million units. This figure represents sales data collected before the release of the second generation Xbox 360 console.