Microsoft Declined To Sell Xboxes To US Military [US Army Was Turned Away From Buying Xbox 360s For Training Purposes In 2006]

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Unlike Sony, Microsoft isn’t exactly keen on the idea of selling tons of consoles to the US military. Wired magazine is reporting that in 2006, the US Army contacted Microsoft about purchasing a large number of Xbox 360s and licensing the XNA game creation tech to create training programs.

Roger Smith, the chief technology officer in charge of the US Army’s training division, told Wired magazine that the US Army was intrigued by the idea of the Xbox 360 and the XNA technology, and approached Microsoft about purchasing large numbers of the consoles for training.

Wired reports that people under 30 spend more time on video game consoles than computers. It’s only natural that they would seek the Xbox for a training platform. The exact nature of the training isn’t known, but surely they could find some use for the consoles, right?

Unfortunately, Microsoft wasn’t open to the idea. Smith approached Microsoft reps at a trade show in 2006 and asked about using Xbox 360s and XNA for military training.

The reps told him (and Smith described these guys as executives) that they wouldn’t sell them the consoles because, #1 – At the time, Microsoft was losing money on every Xbox 360 made and they were afraid they wouldn’t make the money back on the licensing fees on the games. #2 – A large military purchase could slow the supply chains to the civilian markets. #3 – Microsoft was afraid that the Xbox 360 would get a reputation as a military training machine.

When Wired contacted Microsoft for their side of the story, they forgot about this conversation and said that they would be happy to work with the US Army. Unfortunately, the Army doesn’t care anymore. “At this time we have no active or anticipated projects or R&D that are looking at using [the Xbox 360 or XNA] for military simulations.” Smith said to Wired.

We’ve seen that Sony is happy to sell products to the military. The US Air Force is using PlayStation 3s as a clustered super computer. The British Royal Navy is using Sony PSPs for video training. The Super Nintendo even was used as a US Army training tool back in the early 1990′s.