Microsoft Xbox 360
From GamerWiki
 Microsoft Xbox 360
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| Manufacturer: | Microsoft |
| Alternate Names: | |
| Announced: | 15/May/2005 |
| Release date: | JP: 10/December/2005 NA: 22/November/2005 EU: 02/December/2005 AU: 23/March/2006 |
| Initial Price: | JP: ¥37,900 NA: US$399 EU: €300/£209.99 AU: AU$649 |
| Discontinued: | ? |
Contents |
Hardware specifications
According to the official Xbox website, the final specifications of the system are:
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache
- CPU performance
- 9 billion dot product operations per second
- 500 Million Polygons per second (transform & lighting) (Microsoft figure)
Custom ATI R520 Based Graphics Processor
- 500 MHz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM (shares system RAM as well)
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- Unified shader architecture
Memory
- 512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MHz DDR
- 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
- 1 TFLOP
Audio
- Multichannel surround sound output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
Controller
The Xbox 360 has the capability 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 corders are nine feet in length and are breakaway similar to those use 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
- Custom Playlists
- Friends Lists
Media
- Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD
- All games support a 16:9 aspect ratio, and 720p and 1080i video modes.
- Anti-Aliasing will be required in every game
- Customizable face plates to change appearance
- 3 USB 2.0 ports
- Support for 4 wireless controllers
- Detachable 20GB hard drive
- Wi-Fi ready (802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g), using an Xbox 360-specific or third-party wireless bridge accessory. Xbox 360 consoles will automatically detect and link with other Xbox 360 consoles within range.
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."
Marketing
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.
Trivia
- The Xbox 360 sold 62,135 units during its first weekend after launch in Japan, and 70,000 units during its launch weekend in the UK.
External Links
Catharton discussion of the Microsoft xBox 360
This article uses source material obtained from Wikipedia The original article can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360
