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With a price-dropped PlayStation 2 and a comparatively inexpensive GameCube as competition, many users were naturally reluctant to invest in the console. Microsoft countered with a £100 price drop (and its equivalent in the rest of Europe) some scant months after launch. To avoid frustrating early adopters, they offered a bundle containing two games and one controller for free to any purchaser who could provide a sales receipt showing the original higher price.
With a price-dropped PlayStation 2 and a comparatively inexpensive GameCube as competition, many users were naturally reluctant to invest in the console. Microsoft countered with a £100 price drop (and its equivalent in the rest of Europe) some scant months after launch. To avoid frustrating early adopters, they offered a bundle containing two games and one controller for free to any purchaser who could provide a sales receipt showing the original higher price.



==Screenshot gallery==

<center><gallery>
Image:Halo.jpg|''[[Halo: Combat Evolved]]''<br />[[Bungie]] ([[2001]])
Image:Crimsonskies55.jpg|''[[Crimson Skies]]''<br />[[Microsoft Game Studios|Microsoft]] ([[2002]])
Image:amped2.jpg|''[[Amped 2]]''<br />[[Microsoft Game Studios|Microsoft]] ([[2003]])
Image:Halo2 1.jpg|''[[Halo 2]]''<br />[[Bungie]] ([[2004]])
Image:DOAUltimate01.jpg|''[[Dead or Alive (video game)|Dead Or Alive: Ultimate]]''<br />[[Tecmo]] ([[2004]])
Image:Out2.jpg|''[[OutRun 2]]''<br />[[Sega]] ([[2004]])
Image:Ninjagaiden220.jpg|''[[Ninja Gaiden]]''<br />[[Tecmo]] ([[2004]])
Image:920087_20050110_screen003.jpg|''[[Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict]]''<br />[[Epic Games]] ([[2005]])
<br style="clear: left"/>
</gallery></center>
==Xbox 360==
==Xbox 360==
:''Main article: [[Xbox 360]]''
:''Main article: [[Xbox 360]]''

Revision as of 23:11, 11 May 2006

Microsoft Xbox
File:Xbox 01b.jpg
ManufacturerMicrosoft
TypeVideo game console
GenerationSixth generation era
LifespanNovember 15, 2001 (US)
February 22, 2002 (JP)
March 14, 2002 (EU)
Units sold22 million shipped (2005)
MediaDVD, CD
CPU733 MHz Intel Coppermine Core
Online servicesXbox Live
Best-selling gameHalo 2
SuccessorXbox 360

The Microsoft Xbox is a sixth generation era video game console first released on November 15, 2001 in North America, then released on February 22, 2002 in Japan, and on March 14, 2002 in Europe. The Xbox was Microsoft's first independent venture into the video game console arena, after having developed the operating system and development tools for the MSX, and having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to the Sega Dreamcast console. Notable launch titles for the console include Halo: Combat Evolved, Amped, Dead or Alive 3 and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee.

History

Development

The Xbox was initially developed within Microsoft by a small team which included Seamus Blackley, a game developer and high energy physicist. The rumors of a video game console being developed by Microsoft first emerged at the end of 1999 following interviews of Bill Gates. Gates said that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia convergence in the new times of digital entertainment. On March 10, 2000 the "X-box Project" was officially confirmed by Microsoft with a Press Release [1]

Some see the Xbox as a way to capitalize on the growing video game market, noting that the PC market growth was stagnating after the dot-com bust. According to the book Smartbomb, by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby, the remarkable success of the upstart Sony PlayStation worried Microsoft in late 1990s. The growing video game market seemed to threaten the PC market which Microsoft had dominated and relied upon for most of its revenues. As well, a venture into the gaming console market would also diversify Microsoft's product line, which up to that time had been heavily concentrated into software.

Xbox presented a standardized alternative to the near-endless variety of end-user configurations on the PC. The Xbox even brought high-end gaming technology to the mainstream, sporting a top of the line GeForce 3 equivalent graphics processor, a built-in Ethernet adapter, and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in hardware.

However, the Xbox is not without its downsides. For one, the device is large and bulky, which creates tripping hazards. Some people also do not like the cost of using the online service, Xbox Live. They argue that other companies offer similar programs that are cheaper or for free.

Software

See also: List of Xbox games
File:Full9 11.jpg
The Xbox was featured on the cover of the November 2001 issue of Wired magazine.

The Xbox launched in North America on November 15, 2001. The greatest success of the Xbox's launch games was Halo: Combat Evolved, which was critically well-received [2] and one of the best-selling games of the year. Halo still remains the console's standout title. Other successful launch titles included NFL Fever 2002, Project Gotham Racing[3] and Dead or Alive 3 [4]). However, the failure of several first-party games (including Fuzion Frenzy [5] and Azurik: Rise of Perathia [6]) damaged the initial public reputation of the Xbox.

Although it enjoyed strong third-party support from its inception, many early Xbox games did not take full advantage of its powerful hardware, with few additional features or graphical improvements to distinguish themselves from the PS2 version, and this negated one of the Xbox's main selling points. Lastly, Sony countered the Xbox by securing Playstation exclusives for highly anticipated games such as the Grand Theft Auto series and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

In 2002 and 2003, several releases helped the Xbox to gain momentum and distinguish itself from the PS2. The Xbox Live online service was launched alongside pilot titles MotoGP, MechAssault and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. Several best-selling and critically-acclaimed titles for the Xbox were published, such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Ninja Gaiden, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Take-Two Interactive's exclusivity deal with Sony was amended to allow Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and its sequels to be published on the Xbox. In addition, many other publishers got into the trend of releasing the Xbox version alongside the PS2 version, instead of delaying it for months. However, some of these games upset the parents of the younger Xbox players as not be suitable for their children.

In 2004, Halo 2 set records as highest grossing release in entertainment history [7] as well as being a successful killer app for the online service. That year, Microsoft and Electronic Arts reached a deal which would see the latter's popular titles enabled on Xbox Live. In 2005, the long-awaited Xbox-exclusive Doom 3, Half-Life 2, and Far Cry Instincts were released. Games that sell over 400,000 units in their first 9 months are designated as Platinum Hits and have their retail prices dropped.

Xbox Live

On November 15 2002 Microsoft released the Xbox Live online gaming service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with (or against) other subscribers all around the world and download new content for their games to the hard drive. This online service works exclusively with broadband. 250,000 subscribers had signed on in 2 months since Live was launched [8]. In July 2004, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live reached 1 million subscribers, and announced in July 2005 that Live had reached 2 million. An Xbox Live Subscription currently costs $50 a year [which is roughly $4 a month].

Market share

Some critics were initially concerned that the Xbox would allow Microsoft to extend its dominance of the PC software market to consoles. However, as of February 2005, estimates show the Xbox's share of the worldwide console market is only moderately ahead of the Nintendo GameCube and far behind the PlayStation 2. According to company documents, Microsoft has shipped 22 million consoles to retailers worldwide at the end of FY 2005 [9]. Although ahead of the GameCube's 20.61 million [10], this was far behind the PlayStation 2's 100 million shipped [11].

The Xbox has enjoyed its greatest success in North America, where an estimated 13.5 million units have been sold and where it managed for a month to outsell the PS2[12]. In Europe, the Xbox's market share is currently ahead of the GameCube, but is still behind the PlayStation 2.

The Xbox has sold poorly in Japan mainly because Microsoft was unable to enlist enough local developers to cater to Japanese interests. The large size of the hardware itself did not endear itself to the size-sensitive Japanese consumers. It is estimated about 450,000 units have been sold in Japan [13].

Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into the Xbox internal documents and received back billions of dollars in sales. Overall though Xbox division has lost $4 billion from 2001 to 2005. [14] In particular, the Xbox hardware itself is a loss leader, since the console was sold at a loss even at its debut price. The losses deepened when sales of the Xbox increased and when the price was reduced successive times to compete with PlayStation 2 [15]. Microsoft predicted that it would not make a profit on the Xbox for at least three years. This prediction turned out to be correct; Microsoft Game Studios, Microsoft's game division in charge of Xbox development, had its first profitable quarter reported in January 2005, thanks largely to the success of Halo 2 [16]. Investor relations documents says that in the end of 2005 Microsoft lost more than 1 billion dollars [17]. The Xbox project never gave an annual profit to Microsoft according to these documents. In return for the money loss though the Xbox gained name recognition and a dedicated fan base. [18]

Hardware

The Xbox was designed to take advantage of a slowdown in the saturated PC gaming market and incorporates a built-in Ethernet adapter. Also, the console cost as much as the high-end GeForce 3 video card alone in 2001, while having comparable graphics processing power (the Xbox's NV2A graphics chipset is a derivative of the GeForce 3). Nonetheless, most of these features were not fully exploited in its first year of launch, notably the lack of Xbox Live online multiplayer.

The Xbox was the first console to incorporate a hard disk drive, used primarily for storing game saves compressed in zip archives (eliminating the need for separate memory cards) and content downloaded from Xbox Live. Most of the games also use it as a disk cache, for faster game loading times. Some games support "Custom soundtracks," another particularly unusual feature allowed by the hard drive. An Xbox owner can rip music from standard Audio CDs to the hard drive so players can use their custom soundtrack in addition to the original soundtrack of Xbox games that support such feature.

Although the Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and runs a stripped-down version of the Windows 2000 kernel using APIs based largely on DirectX 8.1, it incorporates changes optimized for gaming uses as well as restrictions designed to prevent uses not approved by Microsoft. A similar approach (PC hardware, stripped-down Windows) was used by the Tandy VIS entertainment system. The Xbox does not use Windows CE due to Microsoft internal politics at the time, as well as limited support in Windows CE for DirectX.

The Xbox itself is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries. This is largely due to a bulky tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size 3.5" hard drive. Because of this, the Xbox has found itself a target of mild derision, as gamers poke fun at it for things like a warning in the Xbox manual that a falling Xbox "could cause serious injury" to a small child or pet. However, the Xbox has also pioneered safety features, such as breakaway cables for the controllers to prevent the console from being yanked from the shelf.

The original game controller design, which was particularly large, was similarly often criticized since it was ill-suited to those with small hands. In response to these criticisms, a smaller controller was introduced for the Japanese Xbox launch. This Japanese controller (which was briefly imported by even mainstream video game store chains, such as GameStop) was subsequently released in other markets as the "Xbox Controller S", and currently all Xbox consoles come with a "Controller S", while the original controller (known as Controller "0" or "The Duke") was quietly discontinued.

Several internal hardware revisions have been made in an ongoing battle to discourage modding (hackers continually updated modchip designs in attempt to defeat them), cut manufacturing costs, and to provide a more reliable DVD-ROM drive (some of the early units' drives gave Disc Reading Errors due to the unreliability of the Thomson DVD-ROM drives that were used). Microsoft extended the warranty on those first generation Xboxes that came with faulty drives and fixed them for free.

However, later generation of X-Box units that used the Thomson TGM-600 DVD-ROM drives and the Philips VAD6011 DVD-ROM drives were still vulnerable to failure that rendered the consoles either unable to read discs or caused them to halt the console with an error code usually indicating a PIO/DMA identification failure, respectively. These units would not be covered under the extended warranty.

Detailed specifications

  • CPU: Micro PGA2 733 MHz Intel Coppermine Core. Basically a Pentium III, although sharing more in common with the Celeron series than the Pentium III series.
  • Unified Memory Subsystem: Total (shared) Memory: 64 MB DDR SDRAM running at 200 MHz, supplied by Hynix or Samsung depending on manufacture date and location
    • Theoretical Memory Bandwidth: 6.4 GB/s
  • Graphics Processor: 233 MHz custom chip "NV2A", developed by Microsoft and nVIDIA (fits between GeForce 3 and GeForce 4 in capability). Enhanced vertex processing with 2 vertex shaders, and more flexible pixel shading than DirectX 8.
    • Theoretical Geometry Rate: 115+ million vertices/second
    • Theoretical Particle Performance: 125 M/s
    • Pipeline Configuration: 4 pixel pipelines with 2 texture units each
    • Theoretical Pixel Fill Rate: 932 Megapixels/second (233 MHz x 4 pipelines)
    • Theoretical Texture Fill Rate: 1,864 Megatexels/second (932 MP x 2 texture units)
    • Simultaneous Textures: 4
    • Compressed Textures: Yes (6:1 through DDS)
    • Full Scene Anti-Aliasing: Yes
  • Storage Medium: 2-5x DVD (XFAT), 8 gigabyte hard disk (new consoles contain a 10GB physical hard drive, though it is formatted to only use 8GB, uses XFAT), optional 8MB memory card for savegame transfer
  • Audio Processor : nVIDIA MCPX (a.k.a. Soundstorm NVAPU)
  • Broadband Enabled: Yes (10/100base-T ethernet)
  • DVD Movie Playback: Yes (separate DVD Playback Kit/Remote required or by modding the Xbox and running DVD-playing homebrew software)
  • Maximum Resolution (2x32bpp frame buffers +Z): 1920(vert.)x1080(horiz)
    • Note: NTSC (Non-HD) TV's have less than 500 horizontal lines. PAL TV's have less than 600 horizontal lines.
  • EDTV and HDTV Support: 480p/720p/1080i (see game boxes for supported resolutions).
  • Controller Ports: 4 proprietary USB ports
  • Weight: 3.86 kilograms (8.5 lb).
  • Dimensions: 320 × 100 × 260 milimeters (12.5 × 4 × 10.5 in)

Xbox and DirectX

Microsoft's set of low-level APIs for game development and multimedia purposes, DirectX, was used as a basis for the Xbox's hardware programming. The Xbox API is similar to DirectX version 8.1, but cannot be updated just like other console technologies.

Special limited editions

Main article: Xbox special limited editions

Official Xbox accessories

Audio/video connectors

  • Standard AV Cable: Provides composite video and monaural or stereo audio to TVs equipped with RCA inputs. Comes with the system. European systems come with a RCA jack to SCART converter block in addition to the cable.
  • RF Adapter: Provides a combined audio and video signal on an RF connector.
  • Advanced AV Pack: A breakout box that provides S-Video and TOSLINK audio in addition to the RCA composite video and stereo audio of the Standard AV Cable.
  • High Definition AV Pack: A breakout box, intended for HDTVs, that provides a YPrPb component video signal over three RCA connectors. Also provides analog RCA and digital TOSLINK audio outputs.
  • Advanced SCART Cable: The European equivalent to the Advanced AV Pack, providing a full RGB video SCART connection in place of S-Video, RCA composite and stereo audio connections (composite video and stereo are still provided by the cable, through the SCART connector, in addition to the RGB signal), while retaining the TOSLINK audio connector. As Europe has no HDTV standard, no High Definition cable is currently provided in those markets.

Numerous unofficial third-party cables and breakout boxes exist that provide combinations of outputs not found in these official video packages; however, with the exception of a few component-to-VGA converters and custom-built VGA boxes, the four official video packages represent all of the Xbox's possible outputs. This output selectivity is made possible by the Xbox's SCART-like AVIP port.

Networking

  • Ethernet (Xbox Live) Cable: A Cat 5 cable for connecting the Xbox to a broadband modem or router. Note that while there is an "official" Xbox 'System Link' cable (a crossover cat5e cable with one of the wires switched), any PC Ethernet cable can be used in the normal way treating the Xbox as an NIC, eg. an Xbox-Xbox connection requires a crossover cable, whereas an Xbox-switch connection requires a straight-through cable.
  • Xbox Wireless Adapter: a wireless bridge which converts data running through an Ethernet cable to a wireless (802.11b or 802.11g) signal to connect to a wireless LAN. While the official Wireless Adapter guarantees compatibility with the Xbox, almost any wireless bridge can be used.
  • Xbox Live Starter Kit: A subscription and installation pack for the Xbox Live service, as well as a headset (with monaural earpiece and microphone) that connects to a control box that plugs into the top expansion slot of a controller. The headset can in fact be replaced with most standard earpiece-and-microphone headsets; headset specialist Plantronics produce various officially-licensed headsets, including a special-edition headset for Halo 2.
  • System Link Cable: A Cat 5 crossover cable for connecting together two consoles or a Cat 5 straight through cable used in conjunction with an Ethernet hub for connecting up to four consoles, for up to 16 total players. This functionality is similar to Sega's DirectLink for Sega Saturn.

Multimedia

  • Xbox Media Center Extender: A kit that allows Xbox to act as a Media Center Extender to stream content from a Windows XP Media Center Edition PC. It can also be used for DVD playback.
  • DVD Playback Kit: Required in order to play DVD movies, the kit includes an infrared remote control and receiver. DVD playback was not included as a standard feature of the Xbox due to licensing issues with the DVD format that would have added extra cost to the console's base price. By selling a DVD remote separately, Microsoft was able to bundle the cost of the DVD licensing fee with it. Although there is nothing to prevent the Xbox from acting as a progressive-scan DVD player, Microsoft chose not to enable this feature in the Xbox DVD kit in order to avoid royalty payments to the patent-holder of progressive scan DVD playback. Later, as the price of the Xbox dropped, the DVD remote was bundled.
  • Xbox Music Mixer: A utility software bundled with a microphone that connects to an adapter that plugs into the top expansion slot of a controller. Provides a music player with 2D/3D visualizations as well as basic karaoke functions. It also allows users to upload pictures in JPG format (to create slide shows) as well as audio in WMA and MP3 format (for karaoke or a game's Custom Soundtracks feature) from a Windows XP machine running the Xbox Music Mixer PC Tool.

Controllers and removable storage

Controller S
  • The Xbox controller features two analog sticks, a digital pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots, and six 8-bit analog action buttons (ABXY, Black, and White). The precise layout of the controls differs between the two variations of controller.
    • Standard Xbox Controller (AKA "Controller O" or "The Duke"): Originally the normal Xbox controller for all territories except Japan, this has since been quietly discontinued and replaced in Xbox packs by the Controller S. It is considered to be bulky. The black and white buttons are located above the ABXY buttons, and the Back/Start buttons are located between and below the d-pad and right thumbstick.
    • Controller S: A smaller, lighter Xbox controller. Once the standard Xbox controller in Japan (codenamed "Akebono"), it was released in other territories by popular demand, and eventually replaced the standard controller in the retail pack for the Xbox console. The white and black buttons are located below the ABXY buttons, and the Back/Select buttons are similarly placed below the left thumbstick.
  • Memory Unit: An 8 MB removable solid-state memory card onto which game saves (zip archives in reality) can either be copied from the hard drive when in the Xbox Dashboard's memory manager or saved during a game. Note that some recent games (e.g. Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball) do not support this accessory as a cheat prevention measure. This system has been defeated by the Xbox hacking community, who have developed tools to modify savegames to work in a different console, though some unique technical information concerning the recipient Xbox must be known. It is also possible to save an Xbox Live account on a memory unit, making it possible to share it with another Xbox owner, assuming both have access to Xbox Live.
  • Logitech 2.4 GHz wireless controller. Approved by Microsoft for wireless gameplay with Xbox.

Modding the Xbox

The popularity of the Xbox inspired efforts to circumvent the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms, a practice informally known as modding.

There are now sites that offer to modify the software on Xboxes for free. Modding an Xbox in this manner will void its warranty, as it may require disassembly of the console. Having a modified Xbox will also disallow it from accessing Xbox Live as it contravenes the Xbox Live license agreement. However, as mentioned below – most mod chips have a disable mechanism; often built into the on/off switch, or in concert with the eject switch. So as long as the player is playing on Xbox Live with original legal games, the Live service will continue to operate normally with the mod in the off state.

Hardware modifications

Electronic

One of the main reasons that the Xbox modding community was able to thrive is that on the motherboard of the Xbox there are 12 LPC points which were used by developers for readouts when testing games. These holes allow modchips to get power and data from the motherboard, and made it possible to produce solderless adapters needing only one wire to connect to the motherboard. Another contributing factor was the Xbox's built in hard drive, which facilitated the installation of software modifications in modified Xboxes.

The original hard drive can be replaced with a larger one. Xbox games can then be copied from their DVDs to the hard disk using programs such as DVD2Xbox, PxHDDLoader, and most of the alternative dashboards; and then played directly from the hard drive. This allows the user to spare game disks from scratching and allows for faster load times. This process does require a modded Xbox using one of the alternative dashboards, and is used by scrupulous users to eliminate load times or leave their games in storage, and by unscrupulous users to play illegally copied games (see Legal Issues).

Most Xbox modding requires opening the case, which voids the Xbox's warranty. Also, most internal hardware modifications render an Xbox unable to participate in Xbox Live, which has forced many modders to use a switch that turns on and off their modifications. As of November 2004, Microsoft has implemented new ways to ban Xboxes with hard drive modifications from the Xbox Live service. One such successful use of Live to discourage modding was when the hit game Halo 2 was released, and many owners of modded consoles found out that they were permanently banned from the Xbox Live service. This resulted in the creation of On-Off switchable modchips (or add-ons) and Xbox Live friendly softmods from Xbox hacker community.

Cosmetic

Beyond the more technical electronic modifications, it is also possible to modify the Xbox aesthetically. These modifications range from the simple, such as replacing the console's green decorative "jewel" with a custom-designed one, to the complex, such as full resprays of the Xbox's plastic casing.

Software modifications

Software modding is much less intrusive, and only involves running software exploits to trick the Xbox into running unsigned program code. This allows a user to run an alternate dashboard such as UIX, Avalaunch, Evolution-X or UnleashX and in turn makes playing original (free) home-brew games or various older games through arcade emulators (eg. MAME-X) and console game emulators (eg. FCE Ultra) possible. This is especially attractive as the Xbox is designed to output to TVs, and high-quality controllers and arcade sticks are available for it.

Beyond gaming, a modded Xbox can be used as a media center with the Xbox Media Center software (XBMC) allowing the playing of DVDs without the DVD dongle/remote and streaming of music and video files from the hard drive or from another computer over a network. A modded Xbox can even be configured into a computer running Linux, FreeBSD, or Microsoft Windows CE operating systems.

Recently, the firmware for the older Samsung SDG-605B optical drives was successfully hacked to allow backups to play (not unsigned code) without the use of a soft or hard mod.

In July 2005, a 22 year old Cambridge University graduate was convicted under the EU Copyright Directive for modifying Xboxes and selling them with an upgraded 200 GB hard drive, which was pre-loaded with 80 games. This was the first conviction of its kind in the UK. (The Directive makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection systems on hardware including video game consoles). It is the first conviction since the Directive was enacted in October 2003 in the UK. He was sentenced to 140 hours community service, ordered to pay £750 costs at a court in Caerphilly, Wales, and his computer equipment was confiscated. [19][20]

An unambiguously legal way of modding the Xbox is replacing the whole motherboard to enable the installation of Linux, or other operating systems designed for PCs, without hacking any of Microsoft's copy-protection components. This effectively turns the Xbox into a standard PC, making the matter of copy protection for copyrighted Xbox games irrelevant. Most people see this as a useless procedure considering a standard PC with the same specs are relatively inexpensive. The Xbox also uses a proprietary motherboard design. Installing a PC motherboard would require extensive modifications to the case.

Price history

North America

Europe

  • €479 (Launch Price (Ireland) 14 March, 2002),
  • €299 (Launch Price (Rest of Europe) and Ireland April 26, 2002)
  • €249 (August 30, 2002)
  • €199 (2003)
  • €149 (August 27, 2004)
  • £99 (August 27, 2004)
  • €99 (Ireland; Christmas 2005 promotional price)
  • €99 (Spain, January 2006 promotional price)

UK

Oceania

  • AU$699 AUD (26 April, 2002, Launch Price) (Quickly dropped to $399 to compete with launch of Nintendo GameCube)
  • AU$399 AUD (2004)
  • AU$299 AUD (2005)
  • NZ$499 NZD (3 October, 2002, Launch Price)
  • NZ$399 NZD (2003)
  • NZ$349 NZD (2004)
  • NZ$299 NZD (2004 Q2)
  • NZ$249 NZD (2004 Q4, 2005)

Of note is the high European launch price. As with many games consoles (for example, the PlayStation series), the Xbox was launched with a price in GBP equal to its US price in USD (in this case, $/£299), and this price then converted for the rest of Europe. Obviously, ignoring the GBP-USD exchange rate in the way gives the impression of a 100% mark-up for Europe. However it seems that, while Microsoft is continuing to ignore exchange rates, for the 360 they have used the euro (whose value is much closer to that of the US Dollar than the pound) as the price basis for Europe i.e. €/$399.99 and then converted into other currencies.

With a price-dropped PlayStation 2 and a comparatively inexpensive GameCube as competition, many users were naturally reluctant to invest in the console. Microsoft countered with a £100 price drop (and its equivalent in the rest of Europe) some scant months after launch. To avoid frustrating early adopters, they offered a bundle containing two games and one controller for free to any purchaser who could provide a sales receipt showing the original higher price.


Xbox 360

Main article: Xbox 360
File:Xballlogo.jpg

NVIDIA ceased production of the Xbox's GPU in August of 2005, which almost certainly marks the end of Xbox production and the quick release of the Xbox 360 featuring a new GPU from NVIDIA's rival ATI. [21]

When equipped with a removable hard drive add-on, the Xbox 360 supports a limited subset of the Xbox's library (more than 200 games at US launch) through emulation. Emulation adds support for higher screen resolution (i.e. games originally presented in anamorphic widescreen rendered at 480p like Halo 2 are rendered at 720p on the Xbox 360) and anti-aliasing. These emulators are periodically updated to add compatibility for older games and are available for free through Xbox Live or as a file download to be burned to a CD/DVD from the Xbox web site. As the architectures are entirely different between Xbox and Xbox 360, software emulation is the only viable option for compatibility without including processors from the original Xbox, unlike the PlayStation 2 and Gameboy Advance which do contain processors from their previous respective platforms to achieve backward compatibility.

References

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Xbox_(console)&oldid=52743907"