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Xbox 360

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Xbox 360 logo
Xbox 360 logo
Xbox 360 system and controller
Xbox 360 system and controller

Xbox 360 is Microsoft's successor to their Xbox video game console, previously referred to during development as "Project Xenon". The console is expected to be released in November of 2005 in the U.S., and the launch in Europe is expected only a few weeks later. The Xbox 360 will compete for marketshare against the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Revolution, once they are released. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, a week before E³. The system's retail price has not yet been determined by Microsoft, but it is set to be "in the neighborhood" of $300 U.S. Dollars, according to Microsoft Corporate Vice President J. Allard.

With the launch of the Xbox 360, Microsoft's online gaming service, Xbox Live will go through a major upgrade adding a basic non-subscription service (Silver) to its already established premium subscription-based service (Gold).

In March 2004, Microsoft announced a new game development software strategy dubbed "XNA", believed to be for the Xbox 360.

Hardware specifications

Significantly, the Intel x86 processor of the Xbox has been replaced by a custom IBM-designed processor based on the PowerPC architecture.

A side-by-side comparison between Xbox 360 and PS3 can be seen here: [1]

According to the official Xbox website, the final specifications of the system are:

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU

  • Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz
  • Two hardware threads per core; six total
  • VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
  • 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
  • 1MB L2 cache

Custom ATI R500 Based GPU "Xenos"

  • 500 MHz GPU (90nm process)
  • 10 MB embedded DRAM (256 GB/s memory bandwidth, 2GHz Bus)
  • 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines
  • Unified shader architecture (This means that the pipelines are shared between pixel pipelines and vertex shaders; e.g. 42 pixel pipelines : 6 vertex shaders.)
  • Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second
  • Pixel Fill Rate: 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA
  • Shader Performance: 48 billion shader operations per second (96 billion shader operations per second theoretical maximum)
  • Dot product operations: CPU: 9 billion per second (Microsoft figure) CPU and GPU combined: 33.6 billion per second

Memory

  • 512 MB 700MHz GDDR-3 RAM (unified memory architecture)
  • Memory Bandwidth
    • 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
    • 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
    • 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Overall System Floating-Point Performance

Audio

  • Multichannel surround sound output
  • Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
  • 320 independent decompression channels
  • 32 bit processing
  • 256+ audio channels

Controller

File:360controller.jpg
Xbox 360 controller

The Xbox 360 has the ability to support four wireless controllers. Additionally it can support three wired controllers through the use of its USB ports (two in front, one in back). The wired controller cords are nine feet in length and are breakaway similar to those used with the Xbox.

The controller for the Xbox 360 is a similar yet improved version of the Type-S gamepad for the original Xbox. The Xbox 360 controller, adds the new feature of the Xbox guide button, which has the appearance of the Xbox 360 emblem and is surrounded by a ring of light. Pressing the Xbox guide button will bring the Xbox 360 out of sleep mode or instantly bring up the "Xbox Guide". The ring of light lights up to designate what controller "port" the gamepad is currently using and which console (if more than one) the controller is connected to. The black and white buttons have been redesigned as shoulder buttons, now refered to as bumper buttons, located above the left and right triggers. The rear of the controller has been redesigned to include a new port where the player can connect a headset. The new port replaces the old multi-purpose connector on the front of the Xbox controller.

Xbox Guide

The Xbox Guide is a tabbed interface that contains several features such as:

  • Xbox Live
  • Marketplace
  • Favorites List
  • Custom Playlists
  • Friends Lists
  • and more

Physical Dimensions and Weight

  • The Xbox 360 weights 7.7 pounds or 3.5 kg
  • 309mm wide x 83mm high x 258mm deep
  • 12.15" wide x 3.27" high x 10.15" deep

Miscellaneous

Backward compatibility

According to J Allard during Microsoft's E3 Press Conference, the Xbox 360 will be backward compatible with original Xbox games with Xbox Live support, however, it is possible that it may not be fully backward-compatible with all Xbox games. J Allard stated, "Xbox 360 will be backward-compatible with top-selling Xbox games". The ambiguous statement has many media outlets believing that Microsoft may pick and choose certain games. Steve Ballmer in an interview with Engadget has stated that they will concentrate on making sure the best selling titles, such as Halo and Halo 2, are compatible, and by engineering. Michael Brundage , a Microsoft software engineer, says in their site about the current challenge to develop an emulator, granting more reliable and solid compability.

Marketing

File:Mtv-xbox-360-unveiling.JPG
MTV's Xbox 360 TV special hosted by actor Elijah Wood.

The marketing for Xbox 360 began on March 14, 2005 with the opening of an Alternate Reality Game and viral marketing website called Ourcolony.net. Through March and April the website would give challenges to its community and if they were solved would give out a reward, usually a picture of the system or an obscure screenshot from a launch game.

The official unveiling of the system occurred on Thursday, May 12, 2005 on MTV in a program called "MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed" hosted by the actor Elijah Wood with a musical performance by the band The Killers, and the Xbox 360 was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine's May 23, 2005 issue with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates holding up one of the units.

The system was later shown off at the E3 event, but it was later discovered that the demos on the consoles at the event were not running on the 360 at all, but on some customized Apple PowerMac G5s, which is the Xbox 360 (Alpha)Dev-Kit(it is said, that they have 25-30% of the complete power of the final Xbox 360).

Further reading

See also

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