Zero Hour
The Xbox 360: Zero Hour launch event was a two-day celebration held in the Mojave Desert.
The event began at sunset on November 20, 2005, and concluded at 12:01 a.m. on November 22, the official North American launch date for the Xbox 360. It was designed as an exclusive experience for 3,000 winners selected through a registration process that opened on November 10, 2005, at participating websites.
Attendees were invited to experience the next generation of gaming, with hundreds of Xbox 360 gaming stations equipped with high-definition monitors and digital sound, allowing them to play the full launch lineup and other highly anticipated titles.
The Contest
Hex168 was a viral marketing campaign launched by Microsoft in October 2005 to promote its upcoming Xbox 360 console. The campaign, which included the phrase “the beginning is nigh,” involved a contest where participants were invited to submit photos or short videos depicting “the power of the hex,” defined as the unusual among the mundane. Entries could feature 0, 1, 6, or 30 people for photos, and 6 or 30 people for videos, with winners receiving a free Xbox 360 and three games, along with an invitation to a release event. The campaign concluded on November 4, 2005, and the website, http://hex168.com/, served as the central hub for the contest.
I called some friends over to help one Saturday and this was our entry. At the time, I thought they were helping me submit and entry so that I could win.
…I should have read the instructions more carefully – because if our entry won, we all won!
And so the contest went on. The idea being that the community would vote on entries they deemed worthy to win. The top entries with the most votes would take home the prize… and we were doing pretty well, actually… until we got closer and closer to the deadline.
The voting started to become incredibly skewed towards entries that were not winning entries, and when the voting closed none of the original winners were at the top (including ours).
A day later, I received an email from the contest organizers. They had found that some entries and their votes were being manipulated (no shocker there) and that their voting system could no longer be relied on. Instead, each entry was going to be reviewed by a panel of judges.
And so it was in our favor (and in the favor of the other 354 winners) that it happened. As winners we were given Xbox 360s, games, and best of all, a trip to California for the launch party. And what an event it was… a highlight for me. But why talk about it when I can show it.