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The Xbox 360 is a video game console that was developed by Microsoft Corporation as a successor to its Xbox game console and released beginning in November 2005 in North America. The new console is a radically different machine from its predecessor, both in appearance and internally. It incorporates several innovative features and has greatly improved performance. For example, it provides support for high definition graphics, thereby offering a much more realistic gaming experience when used with a high definition television. It also includes wireless controller support at the time of launching, a world first. Moreover, it has been designed as a total media control center rather than being just a game console. This has been made possible in large part through the use of a new CPU (central processing unit) called Xenon in place of the Intel CPU used on the Xbox. Xenon was custom-designed and produced by IBM based on the PowerPC chips which were formerly used in Macintosh computers. The Xbox 360 also uses a very different and much more advanced graphics processing chip, called Xenos, which was designed by ATI instead of NVIDIA. Storage capacity for games has been greatly increased by building in a 12x dual-layer DVD drive, and an external high-definition DVD drive and a large capacity hard disk drive are available as options at extra cost. Microsoft's first game machine, the Xbox, which was introduced in 2001, featured impressive power for the time as well as a number of big-name video game titles and it popular online component, Xbox Live. However, although sales have surpassed 20 million units worldwide, it was still greatly outsold by Sony's PlayStation 2 and may have resulted in a substantial financial loss. In contrast to its earlier model, the Xbox 360 was introduced before introduction of the next generation models of the other major game console makers, Sony and Nintendo, rather than after. Although this may help Microsoft increase sales because consumers are impatient to get newer technology and new games, it also puts it at a disadvantage because those companies will both be able to learn from Microsoft's product, including its mistakes, and will be able to incorporate still newer technologies and further improvements in performance. Created November 1, 2006. |