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# The Biggest Tech Launches of the 2000s, Year by Year
- URL: https://dailyrivet.com/biggest-tech-launches-2000s/
- Published: 2026-10-03T01:15:38.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-03T01:15:38.000Z
- Description: From the PS2 and iPod to the iPhone, Facebook and Bitcoin, explore the biggest tech launches of the 2000s, year by year.
- Author: Ryan
- Tags: 2000's, Video Games

The 2000s began with dial-up internet, flip phones, and bulky desktop computers, but ended with much of the modern digital world already taking shape. Over those ten years, people moved from buying music on CDs to downloading individual songs, from basic cell phones to touchscreen smartphones, and from visiting websites to spending a growing part of their lives on social networks.

Some of the decade’s defining launches were immediate commercial successes; others attracted relatively small audiences before their influence became clear. Looking at sales, early adoption, cultural impact, and the changes that followed, these are our picks for the biggest technology launches of each year from 2000 through 2009\. In a few years, two launches deserve a place because they tell different parts of the story.

## 2000: PlayStation 2

Sony entered the new millennium with a console that would become one of the most successful consumer electronics products ever made. The PlayStation 2 launched in Japan in March 2000 and reached North America that October, offering a major graphical upgrade over the original PlayStation and a feature that helped it appeal well beyond the usual gaming audience: DVD playback.

At the time, DVDs were replacing VHS, and standalone players could still be expensive. The PS2 gave buyers a new game console and a DVD player in one machine, making it attractive to households that might not otherwise have been shopping for another gaming system. Its usefulness as a home entertainment device helped bring it into living rooms where the games could then make their case.

Over the following years, titles such as *Grand Theft Auto III*, *Gran Turismo 3*, *Metal Gear Solid 2*, *Final Fantasy X*, *Kingdom Hearts*, and *God of War* helped make the PS2 the dominant console of its generation. Sony says more than 160 million units were ultimately sold worldwide, giving the decade an opening launch whose commercial success would be difficult to match.

## 2001: Windows XP and the Apple iPod

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/two-futures-of-2001.webp)

The two defining launches of 2001 represented different stages of the technology world. Windows XP served the enormous audience already using personal computers, while the iPod suggested how digital technology could become a more personal, portable part of everyday life.

### Windows XP

Windows XP launched worldwide in October 2001, bringing Microsoft’s consumer and business Windows lines together in a more approachable package. Its green hill wallpaper, redesigned Start menu, and colorful interface became familiar sights at a time when the home PC was becoming essential for work, school, communication, and entertainment.

The response was substantial: Microsoft reported selling more than 17 million Windows XP licenses in a little over two months. Its influence lasted much longer than that initial rush. XP became deeply embedded in homes, businesses, schools, and government systems, and Microsoft spent years encouraging some of those users to move on to newer versions.

### Apple iPod

Two days before Windows XP’s official launch, Apple introduced the original iPod, a small white music player with a mechanical scroll wheel and 5GB of storage. Its promise of roughly “1,000 songs in your pocket” offered an appealing alternative to carrying CDs, although the $399 price kept it from becoming an immediate mass-market purchase.

The iPod’s importance emerged as the product and its audience grew. It changed how people carried music and, together with Apple’s later music store, helped reshape how they bought it. The device also played a central role in Apple’s expansion from computers into consumer electronics. Windows XP was the larger launch at the time, but the iPod offered a glimpse of the portable digital world that was coming.

## 2002: Xbox Live

Online gaming existed before Xbox Live, but Microsoft’s service helped make it a more consistent part of the console experience. Launched in November 2002 for the original Xbox, it brought player identities, friends lists, matchmaking, downloadable content, and voice communication into a unified system. Players could carry a recognizable identity from one game to another rather than treating every title as a separate online destination.

That continuity became increasingly important as console multiplayer grew. Games such as *MechAssault* introduced players to the service, while *Halo 2*, released two years later, showed how compelling a connected console community could be. Playing with friends became something people expected their console to support as part of its everyday use.

Xbox Live helped normalize the persistent accounts, social features, and subscription-based multiplayer services that later became familiar across the gaming industry. Its lasting contribution was a framework for connecting players, buying additional content, and building an ongoing relationship with a gaming platform.

## 2003: iTunes Music Store

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/from-cds-to-downloads.webp)

By 2003, the demand for digital music was obvious, but buying it legally could still be awkward. File-sharing services such as Napster had shown how much people wanted access to individual tracks, even as record labels fought widespread piracy. Apple’s iTunes Music Store offered a straightforward way to turn that demand into purchases.

The store launched in April 2003 with individual songs generally priced at 99 cents. Consumers could buy the tracks they wanted, download them immediately, and transfer them to an iPod without purchasing an entire CD. That combination of convenience, clear pricing, and integration with a popular music player gave legal downloads a much stronger proposition.

Apple announced more than one million song purchases during the store’s first week, followed by more than five million within eight weeks and over 25 million by December. Those numbers helped demonstrate that consumers would pay for digital music when the experience was easy enough. Streaming would eventually overtake paid downloads, but iTunes provided an important bridge between the CD era and the way music is consumed today.

## 2004: Motorola RAZR V3 and Facebook

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/razr-vs-facebook.webp)

The technology changes of 2004 can be seen in two very different launches: a strikingly thin flip phone and a social-networking website built for college students. The Motorola RAZR V3 captured the consumer tastes of the moment, while Facebook began developing habits that would outlast the phones people used to access it.

### Motorola RAZR V3

Before smartphones settled into a familiar touchscreen shape, a cell phone’s design could be a major fashion statement. The RAZR V3 stood out with its thin aluminum body, flat keypad, color screens, and camera, giving it a distinctive appearance beside the chunkier devices around it.

Its original price placed it in premium territory, but falling prices and strong carrier promotion eventually brought it to a much wider audience. Motorola sold tens of millions of RAZR-family phones, and the design became one of the decade’s most recognizable. For many buyers, choosing a RAZR was as much about its appearance and status as the calls it could make.

### Facebook

Facebook launched at Harvard in February 2004 and expanded to additional universities, reaching roughly one million active users by the end of the year. That was an impressive start for a campus social network, although it gave little indication of the global platform Facebook would eventually become.

Its early appeal centered on connecting people within a recognizable community. As Facebook expanded, that idea grew into a much larger part of everyday communication and social life. The RAZR remains a vivid symbol of what people wanted to carry in 2004; Facebook’s significance lies in how it helped change what people did online in the years that followed.

## 2005: YouTube

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/before-and-after-youtube.webp)

Sharing video online was once a demanding process. Large files, slower internet connections, inconsistent playback formats, and the cost of hosting made it difficult for ordinary users to publish something that other people could easily watch. YouTube helped remove much of that friction by giving people a common destination for uploading and viewing video.

The first video, *Me at the zoo*, was uploaded in April 2005\. As the service expanded through the year, it showed that people would create and watch enormous amounts of online video when the process was simple enough. By the end of 2005, YouTube was reportedly serving millions of views each day, with growth accelerating from there.

Google’s $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube in 2006 illustrated how quickly its importance had become apparent. The platform went on to change entertainment, music, education, advertising, and journalism, while giving people a way to build an audience without first finding a television network or other traditional distributor. Its launch helped establish the conditions for the creator economy that followed.

## 2006: Nintendo Wii

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/wii-changes-the-living-room.webp)

In 2006, much of the gaming industry was focused on better graphics, faster processors, and more realistic games. Nintendo took a different approach with the Wii, using motion controls and accessible games to reach people who might have little interest in a conventional controller. Swinging a remote like a tennis racket was an invitation that children, parents, and grandparents could understand almost immediately.

The Wii launched in North America in November 2006 and quickly became difficult to find. Rather than matching the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on computing power, Nintendo made the way people interacted with games its main attraction. *Wii Sports*, included with the console in North America, demonstrated that approach especially well: people could grasp the basic idea within seconds and start playing together.

Nintendo reported selling roughly 600,000 Wii consoles in the Americas during the system’s first eight days, and demand remained intense well beyond launch. The Wii eventually sold more than 100 million units worldwide, showing that a new approach to interaction could expand gaming’s audience as effectively as a more powerful machine.

## 2007: Apple iPhone

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/smartphone-before-and-after.webp)

When the iPhone went on sale in the United States on June 29, 2007, smartphones were already an established category. BlackBerry was popular in business, Palm had developed sophisticated handheld devices, and Windows Mobile phones offered email, apps, and web access. Apple brought many of those ideas together around a large multitouch display that made using a phone feel substantially different.

The physical keyboard gave way to an interface people could control directly with their fingers. Browsing websites, scrolling through music, and watching video became part of a more coherent experience, with familiar gestures replacing many of the buttons and menus that had defined earlier devices.

The original iPhone still had significant limitations: there was no App Store, no 3G, and no copy and paste, while its camera was basic and its starting price was high. Even so, Apple sold its millionth iPhone just 74 days after launch. Within a few years, the touchscreen-centered design it popularized had become the model for much of the smartphone industry, bringing the idea of a computer in your pocket to a much wider audience.

## 2008: Apple App Store

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/app-economy-begins.webp)

The iPhone’s hardware changed expectations for a smartphone, but the App Store expanded what people could do with one. Apple launched the store in July 2008 alongside the iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2, providing a centralized place to browse, purchase, and install third-party applications. Users could add new capabilities to their phones, while developers gained a direct route to a growing customer base.

The early selection grew to more than 800 native applications, and users downloaded more than 10 million apps during the first weekend. Games, photo editors, social networks, navigation tools, banking services, and productivity software made the phone useful in situations its original software could never have covered on its own.

Google’s Android platform also reached consumers in 2008 with the T-Mobile G1, beginning the smartphone rivalry that would shape the following decade. The App Store’s immediate success, however, made the opportunity for mobile software especially clear. A smartphone was becoming a platform that could keep gaining new uses long after someone bought it, and the mobile-app economy grew around that possibility.

## 2009: Windows 7 and Bitcoin

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/windows-7-vs-bitcoin.webp)

The closing year of the decade again produced two launches whose significance appeared on very different timescales. Windows 7 was a major consumer technology release from the outset, while Bitcoin began as a small experiment whose wider consequences would take years to emerge.

### Windows 7

Microsoft entered 2009 needing to improve the experience and reputation of Windows. Vista had frustrated many users with compatibility problems, hardware demands, performance complaints, and intrusive security prompts. Windows 7 arrived in October with a more polished and generally better-received operating system, giving consumers and businesses a stronger reason to upgrade.

Microsoft reported selling more than 60 million Windows 7 licenses by the end of 2009, making it one of the fastest-selling operating systems of its time. Its success extended into the next decade, when it became a defining computing environment for hundreds of millions of PC users.

### Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s beginnings were far quieter. The first block of its blockchain was created on January 3, 2009, launching an experiment in decentralized digital currency that could operate without a central bank or traditional payment intermediary. Its audience was initially a small group of cryptography and computing enthusiasts, with little mainstream attention and no established market resembling the cryptocurrency industry of today.

The ideas behind that experiment eventually helped create a substantial new industry and prompted debates about money, speculation, regulation, decentralization, and energy consumption. Windows 7 was the far larger launch for ordinary consumers in 2009, but Bitcoin earns its place alongside it because of the influence that became visible later.

## A Decade That Built the Modern Digital World

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c9/ec/c9ec014c-a651-451c-83d1-b614edbd1640/content/images/2026/10/what-the-2000s-built.webp)

These launches show how quickly everyday technology changed between 2000 and 2009\. At the start of the decade, a game console’s ability to play DVDs was a major selling point. By its end, developers were delivering software directly to smartphones, people were broadcasting themselves through YouTube, social networks were connecting vast audiences, and an experimental digital currency was running across a network of computers.

The changes also overlapped in ways that made them more powerful. The iPod and iTunes helped move music beyond physical discs; the iPhone and App Store made portable software part of daily life; and Facebook and YouTube gave people new ways to connect, share, and find an audience. Meanwhile, Xbox Live and the Wii expanded the possibilities of gaming in different directions, from connected multiplayer communities to families playing together in the living room.

For anyone who lived through the decade, those developments were experienced through familiar routines: carrying a RAZR, filling an iPod, logging into Windows XP, or playing *Wii Sports* with people who had never owned a console. Looking back, those gadgets and services were more than memorable launches. Together, they helped establish the technological world that followed.