Introduction

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= Xbox_(console) =
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Introduction
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The Xbox is a home video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It is
the first installment in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It
was released on November 15, 2001, in North America, followed by
Australia, Europe and Japan in 2002. As a sixth-generation console, it
competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast and Nintendo's
GameCube. It was also the first major console produced by an American
company since the release of the Atari Jaguar in 1993.

The console was announced in March 2000. With the release of the
PlayStation 2, which featured the ability to playback CD-ROMs and DVDs
in addition to playing games, Microsoft became concerned that game
consoles would threaten the personal computer as an entertainment
device for living rooms. Whereas most previous games consoles used
specially designed hardware, the Xbox was built around standard PC
components. It uses variations of Microsoft Windows and DirectX as its
operating system to support games and media playback, and is powered
by a Intel Pentium III CPU and an Nvidia GeForce 3-based GPU. The Xbox
was the first console to feature a built-in hard disk. The console was
designed to support broadband connectivity to the Internet via an
integrated Ethernet port and Xbox Live, a fee-based online gaming
service that launched in 2002. The popularity of the system's
blockbuster titles such as Bungie's 'Halo 2' (2004) contributed to the
popularity of first-person shooters and online console gaming.

The Xbox had a record-breaking launch in North America, selling 1.5
million units before the end of 2001, aided by the popularity of one
of the system's launch titles, 'Halo: Combat Evolved', which sold a
million units by April 2002. The system went on to sell a worldwide
total of 24 million units, including 16 million in North America;
however, Microsoft was unable to make a steady profit off the console,
which had a manufacturing price far more expensive than its retail
price, losing over $4 billion during its market life. The system
outsold the GameCube and the Dreamcast, but was vastly outsold by the
PlayStation 2. It also underperformed outside of the Western market;
particularly, it sold poorly in Japan due to its large console size
and an overabundance of games marketed towards American audiences
instead of Japanese-developed titles. Production of the system was
discontinued in 2005. The Xbox was the first in an ongoing brand of
video game consoles developed by Microsoft, and it was followed by the
Xbox 360 in 2005, the Xbox One in 2013, and the Xbox Series X/S
consoles in 2020.

History
======================================================================
The popularity of the Xbox, as well as (in the United States) its
comparatively short 90-day warranty, inspired efforts to circumvent
the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms, a practice
known as "cracking". Within a few months of its release the initial
layer of security on the Xbox BIOS (which relied heavily on
obfuscation) was broken by MIT student Andrew Huang and the contents
of the "hidden" boot ROM embedded on the MCPx chip were extracted
using some custom built hardware. Once this information was available,
the code was soon modified so that it would skip digital signature
checks and media flags, allowing unsigned code, Xbox game backups,
etc., to be run. Modding an Xbox in any manner will void its warranty,
as it may require disassembly of the console. Having a modified Xbox
may also disallow it from accessing Xbox Live, if detected by
Microsoft, as it contravenes the Xbox Live Terms of Use, but most
modchips can be disabled, allowing the Xbox to boot in a "stock"
configuration.

Creation and development
==========================
Before the Xbox, Microsoft had found success publishing video games
for its Windows PCs, releasing popular titles such as 'Microsoft
Flight Simulator' and the massively successful 'Age of Empires' after
the creation of DirectX, the application programming interface (API)
that allowed for direct access of the computer hardware and bypassing
Windows. However, the company had not entered the home console market
of video games, which was dominated at the time by Sony's PlayStation.
Sony was working on its next video game console, the PlayStation 2
(PS2), announced officially to the public on March 2, 1999, and
intended for the system to act as a gateway for all types of home
entertainment. Sony presented a vision where the console would
ultimately replace the desktop computer in the home. Microsoft CEO
Bill Gates saw the upcoming PS2 as a threat to Microsoft's line of
Windows PCs, worrying that the all-encompassing system could eliminate
consumer interests in PCs and drive them out of the market. With video
games rapidly growing into a massive industry, Gates decided that
Microsoft needed to venture into the console gaming market to compete
with Sony. Previously, Sega had developed a version of Windows CE for
its Dreamcast console to be used by game developers. Additionally,
Gates had directly approached Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei before the public
announcement of the PS2 regarding letting Microsoft develop
programming software for the console. However, the offer was declined
by Idei in favor of having Sony create proprietary software. Microsoft
had also attempted to meet with Hiroshi Yamauchi and Genyo Takeda of
Nintendo to potentially acquire the company, but Nintendo declined to
go further.

In 1998, four engineers from Microsoft's DirectX team--Kevin Bachus,
Seamus Blackley, Ted Hase and DirectX team leader Otto Berkes--began
discussing ideas for a new console which would run off Microsoft's
DirectX technology. Nat Brown, the Windows Software Architect at
Microsoft, would also become a regular contributor to the project
after meeting Hase in November 1998. The project was codenamed
"Midway," in reference to the Battle of Midway during World War II in
which Japan was decisively defeated by American forces, as a
representation of Microsoft's desire to surpass Sony in the console
market. The DirectX team held their first development meeting on March
30, 1999, in which they discussed issues such as getting a PC to boot
at a quicker pace than usual. The console would run off Windows 2000
using DirectX 8.1, which would allow PC developers to easily
transition into making games for the console while also granting it a
larger processing power than that of most other home consoles.
According to Blackley, using PC technology as the foundation for a
video game console would eliminate the technological barriers of most
home consoles, allowing game creators to expand further on their own
creativity without having to worry about hardware limitations.

The 4 DirectX team members encountered disagreements with the Silicon
Valley engineering team behind WebTV, which joined Microsoft after
they purchased the rights to the device. Microsoft executive Craig
Mundie wanted the project to be led by the WebTV team, who believed
the console should be built from the ground-up as an appliance running
off Windows CE; however, the DirectX team were adamant about the idea
of repurposing PC hardware components, such as a hard disk drive,
arguing that they were cheaply manufactured and could easily be
updated every year. The 4 developers gained the support of Ed Fries,
the head of Microsoft's gaming division, who believed the use of a
hard drive, in particular, would give the console a technical edge
among competitors despite its high manufacturing cost. The two
opposing teams pitched their arguments to Gates on May 5, 1999, at a
meeting attended by over twenty different people. WebTV's team, among
whom were Nick Baker, Dave Riola, Steve Perlman, and Tim Bucher, and
their sponsor, Craig Mundie, made the case that creating an appliance
would be far cheaper, highlighting that most consoles were generally
sold at around $300. They also wanted to use a custom-made graphics
chip, which could be shared across several different home devices.
Conversely, Fries, vouching for the DirectX team, argued that using a
PC hard drive would set Microsoft's console apart from competitors by
allowing for the direct implementation of online access, an argument
which Gates sided with. When Gates questioned if PC games could be
effectively ported to the new console, Blackley explained that the
machine would utilize DirectX hardware, meaning that they could be
converted easily. Gates heavily favored this proposition over WebTV's,
whose concept relied on Windows CE, a heavily stripped-down Windows
variant that was not compatible with DirectX. As such, Gates sided
with the DirectX concept and gave Berkes' team permission to create a
new video game console. Despite this, WebTV would still play a part in
the Xbox's initial launch.

Rick Thompson and Robert J. Bach were responsible for overseeing the
Xbox's design. The DirectX team began constructing prototype consoles,
purchasing several Dell computers and using their internal parts.
Initially, it envisioned that after designing the console, Microsoft
would have worked with a third-party computer manufacturer to
mass-produce the units. However, the early work showed that this would
need to be something that Microsoft would have to produce themselves,
making the prospect a far more costly operation; the name "Coffin Box"
became associated with the project as there were fears the project
would end careers at Microsoft. Further, as a gaming console, they
could not provide the direct Windows interface to users. While
Thompson and Bach had warned Gates and Steve Ballmer about these
large-scale changes from the initial proposal in late 1999, the matter
came to a head at a February 14, 2000, meeting, informally referred to
as the Valentine's Day Massacre, in which Gates furiously vented about
the new cost proposal and massive changes in this console from what
had been previously presented, since the Xbox appeared to marginalize
Windows. However, after being reminded that this was a product to
compete against Sony, Gates and Ballmer gave the project the go-ahead
along with the necessary marketing budget. Another contentious point
of design was the addition of Ethernet connectivity rather than simple
support for dial-up networking. At this point, most consumer homes had
access to Internet connectivity, but social networks had yet to be
established which would later demonstrate the viability of this
decision. The Xbox leads argued that with the planned Xbox Live
functionality, the Ethernet port would help friends be able to play
after they have graduated from schools and colleges and moved across
the country.

Throughout the console's prototyping, Microsoft was working with AMD
for the CPU on the system. According to Blackley, just prior to the
system's reveal in January 2001, the Microsoft engineers opted to
switch to an Intel CPU, a fact that had not yet been communicated to
AMD prior to the reveal.

Among the names considered for the new console were a number of
acronyms, including "Windows Entertainment Project" (WEP), "Microsoft
Total Gaming" (MTG), "Microsoft Interactive Network Device" (MIND),
and "Microsoft Interactive Center" (MIC). Also among the names
considered was "DirectX Box", referring to the system's reliance on
Direct X. At one point, Hase jokingly came up with the names "XXX-Box"
and "DirectXXX-Box" as a nod to the system's higher volume of adult
content compared to Sony or Nintendo's consoles. "DirectX Box" was
quickly shortened to "Xbox" through an e-mail conversation, and was
ultimately favored by the development team, though a number of
spelling variants were tossed around, such as xBox, XboX, and X-box.
Microsoft's marketing department did not like this name, suggesting
"11-X" or "Eleven-X" as alternatives. During focus testing, the
company put the name "Xbox" on the list of possible names simply to
prove how unpopular the Xbox name would be with consumers. However,
"Xbox" proved to be the more popular name on the list and was thus
selected as the official name of the product.

When the physical design of the controller began, circuit boards for
the controller had already been manufactured. Microsoft had asked
Sony's supplier, Mitsumi Electric, for a similar folded and stacked
circuit board design used in Sony's DualShock 2 controller, but the
company refused to manufacture such a design for Microsoft. This led
to the controller being bulky and nearly three times the size of
Sony's controller. This initial controller design was never launched
in Japan. The console instead launched with a smaller, redesigned
version named "Controller S" that did use the more compact circuit
board design.

As the development team began to tighten down the design of the Xbox,
they got help from Flextronics not only in revising the design but in
mass production, creating a factory in Guadalajara, Mexico, for this
purpose. Early production units had a high failure rate of around 25%,
which Flextronics repaired. Later iterations of the hardware design
worked to eliminate these failures.

Initial announcement and content acquisitions
===============================================
Gates first publicly mentioned the Xbox in an interview in late 1999,
stating that he wanted the system "to be the platform of choice for
the best and most creative game developers in the world". It was later
announced officially by Gates in a keynote presentation at the Game
Developers Conference in San Jose on March 10, 2000, showing off an
early prototype build of the system and a series of demos showcasing
its hardware. The presentation and the new system were well-received,
impressing developers with both the hard drive and the Ethernet port
and appealing to them with the notion of easy-to-use development
tools.

Microsoft began looking at a series of acquisitions and partnerships
to secure content for the console at this time. In early 2000, Sega's
Dreamcast sales were diminishing, in part due to Electronic Arts'
decision to bypass the console, and Sony's PlayStation 2 was just
going on sale in Japan. Gates was in talks with Sega's late chairman
Isao Okawa about the possibility of Xbox compatibility with Dreamcast
games, but negotiations fell apart over whether the Dreamcast's
SegaNet online service should be implemented. Microsoft also looked to
acquire Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Square Enix, and Midway without
success. The company did achieve success in convincing developers at
Bethesda Game Studios and Tecmo about the power of the Xbox over the
PS2, lining up 'The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind' and 'Dead or Alive
3' as Xbox console-exclusives.

Around this same time, Microsoft announced it was rebranding its Games
Group, which had been focused on developing games for Windows, to the
Microsoft Games division to make titles for both Windows and the Xbox.
Microsoft began acquiring a number of studios to add to the division,
notably Bungie in June 2000, shortly after their announcement of
'Halo: Combat Evolved'. With Microsoft's acquisition, 'Halo' switched
from being a release for personal computers to being an Xbox exclusive
release and as a launch time to help drive sales of the console.

Formal announcement and release
=================================
The Xbox was officially unveiled to the public by Gates and guest
professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson at CES 2001 in Las
Vegas on January 3, 2001. Microsoft announced Xbox's release dates and
prices at E3 2001 in May. Most Xbox launch titles were unveiled at E3,
most notably 'Halo' and 'Dead or Alive 3.'

The unit's release in November 2001 was partially hampered by the
impact of the September 11 attacks on travel, as Microsoft could not
travel to the Guadalajara facility to help test units. They were able
to arrange to ship the units locally instead of testing at Microsoft
facilities to have them ready for launch.

The system was officially launched at midnight on November 15, 2001,
three days before the subsequent launch of the Nintendo GameCube. A
special event was held on the prior night as part of the grand opening
of the flagship store of Toys 'R' Us at Times Square in New York City,
in which 1,000 systems were shipped to the store to kick off sales.
Bill Gates was present at the event, personally selling the first Xbox
console and greeting people in line and playing games with them at the
numerous display units present.

Promotion
===========
In 2002, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) banned a
television advertisement for the Xbox in the United Kingdom after
complaints that it was "offensive, shocking and in bad taste." It
depicted a mother giving birth to a baby boy, fired like a projectile
through a window, aging rapidly as he flies through the air. The
advertisement ends with an old man crash-landing into his own grave
and the slogan, "Life is short. Play more."

Discontinuation and successors
================================
The Xbox's successor, the Xbox 360, was officially announced on May
12, 2005, on MTV. It was the first next generation system to be
announced. It was released in North America on November 22, 2005.
Nvidia ceased production of the Xbox's GPU in August 2005, which
marked the end of brand-new Xbox production. The last game for the
Xbox in Japan was 'The King of Fighters Neowave' released in March
2006, the last Xbox game in Europe was 'Xiaolin Showdown' released in
June 2007, and the last game in North America was 'Madden NFL 09'
released in August 2008. Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was
discontinued on March 2, 2009. Support for Xbox Live on the console
ended on April 15, 2010.

The Xbox 360 supports a limited number of the Xbox's game library if
the player has an official Xbox 360 Hard Drive. Xbox games were added
up until November 2007. Xbox game saves cannot be transferred to Xbox
360, and the ability to play Xbox games through Xbox LIVE has been
discontinued since April 15, 2010. It is still possible to play Xbox
games with System Link functionality online via both the original
console and the Xbox 360 with tunneling software such as XLink Kai. It
was announced at E3 2017 that the Xbox One would be gaining support
for a limited number of the Xbox's game library.

Hardware
======================================================================
The Xbox was the first video game console to feature a built-in hard
disk drive, used primarily for storing game saves and content
downloaded from Xbox Live. This eliminated the need for separate
memory cards (although some older consoles, such as the Amiga CD32,
used internal flash memory, and others, such as the TurboGrafx-CD,
Sega CD, and Sega Saturn, had featured built-in battery backup memory
prior to 2001). An Xbox user could rip music from standard audio CDs
to the hard drive, and these songs were used for the custom
soundtracks in some games.

Unlike the PlayStation 2, which could play movie DVDs without the need
for a remote control (although an optional remote was available), the
Xbox required an external IR adapter to be plugged into a controller
port in order to play movie DVDs. If DVD playback is attempted without
the IR sensor plugged in, an error screen will pop up informing the
user of the need for the Xbox DVD Playback Kit. The said kit included
the IR sensor and a remote control (unlike the PS2, the Xbox
controller could not control DVD playback). Said remote was
manufactured by Thomson (which also manufactured optical drives for
the console) and went on sale in late 2002, which meant a modified
version of the remote design used by the RCA, GE and ProScan consumer
electronics of the era was used for the Xbox remote, and therefore
users wishing to use a universal remote were instructed to utilize RCA
DVD remote codes.

The Xbox was the first console to feature Dolby Interactive
Content-Encoding Technology, which enables real-time Dolby Digital
encoding. Previous game consoles could only use Dolby Digital 5.1
during non-interactive "cut scene" playback.

The Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and 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-inch hard drive.
The Xbox has also pioneered safety features, such as breakaway cables
for the controllers to prevent the console from being pulled from the
surface upon which it rests.

Several internal hardware revisions have been made in an ongoing
battle to discourage modding (hackers continually updated modchip
designs in an attempt to defeat them), to cut manufacturing costs, and
to make the DVD-ROM drive more reliable (some of the early units'
drives gave disc-reading errors due to the unreliable Thomson DVD-ROM
drives used). Later-generation units that used the Thomson TGM-600
DVD-ROM drives and the Philips VAD6011 DVD-ROM drives were still
vulnerable to failure that, respectively, either rendered the consoles
unable to read newer discs or caused them to halt the console with an
error code usually indicating a PIO/DMA identification failure. These
units were not covered under the extended warranty.

In 2002, Microsoft and Nvidia entered arbitration over a dispute on
the pricing of Nvidia's chips for the Xbox. Nvidia's filing with the
SEC indicated that Microsoft was seeking a $13 million discount on
shipments for NVIDIA's fiscal year 2002. Microsoft alleged violations
of the agreement the two companies entered, sought reduced chipset
pricing, and sought to ensure that Nvidia fulfill Microsoft's chipset
orders without limits on quantity. The matter was privately settled on
February 6, 2003.

The Xbox includes a standard AV cable which provides composite video
and monaural or stereo audio to TVs equipped with RCA inputs. European
Xboxes also included an RCA jack to SCART converter block and the
standard AV cable.

An 8 MB removable solid-state memory card can be plugged into the
controllers, onto which game saves can either be copied from the hard
drive when in the Xbox dashboard's memory manager or saved during a
game. Most Xbox game saves can be copied to the memory unit and moved
to another console, but some Xbox saves are digitally signed. It is
also possible to save an Xbox Live account on a memory unit, to
simplify its use on more than one Xbox. The ports at the top of the
controllers could also be used for other accessories, primarily
headsets for voice chat via Xbox Live.

Technical specifications
==========================
The Xbox CPU is a 32-bit 733 MHz, custom Intel Pentium III
Coppermine-based processor. It has a 133 MHz 64-bit GTL+ front-side
bus (FSB) with a 1.06 GB/s bandwidth. The system has 64 MB unified DDR
SDRAM, with a 6.4 GB/s bandwidth, of which 1.06 GB/s is used by the
CPU and 5.34 GB/s is shared by the rest of the system.

Its GPU is Nvidia's 233 MHz NV2A. It is capable of geometry
calculations for up to a theoretical 115 million vertices/second. It
has a peak fillrate of 932 megapixels/second, capable of rendering a
theoretical 29 million 32-pixel triangles/second. With bandwidth
limitations, it has a realistic fillrate of 250-700 megapixels/second,
with Z-buffering, fogging, alpha blending, and texture mapping, giving
it a real-world performance of 7.8-21 million 32-pixel
triangles/second.

Controllers
=============
The Xbox controller features two analog sticks, a pressure-sensitive
directional pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button,
two accessory slots and six 8-bit analog action buttons (A/Green,
B/Red, X/Blue, Y/Yellow, and Black and White buttons). The standard
Xbox controller (also nicknamed the "Fatty" and later, the "Duke") was
originally the controller bundled with Xbox systems for all
territories except Japan. The controller has been criticized for being
bulky compared to other video game controllers; it was awarded
"Blunder of the Year" by 'Game Informer' in 2001, a Guinness World
Record for the biggest controller in Guinness World Records Gamer's
Edition 2008, and was ranked the second-worst video game controller
ever (behind the Atari Jaguar controller) by IGN editor Craig Harris.

The "Controller S" (codenamed "Akebono"), a smaller, lighter Xbox
controller, was originally the standard Xbox controller only in Japan,
designed for users with smaller hands. The "Controller S" was later
released in other territories by popular demand and by 2002 replaced
the standard controller in the Xbox's retail package, with the larger
original controller remaining available as an accessory.

Operating system
==================
The Xbox runs a custom operating system which is based on a heavily
modified version of Windows 2000. It exports APIs similar to those
found in Microsoft Windows, such as Direct3D. Its source code was
leaked in 2020.

The user interface for the Xbox is called the Xbox Dashboard. It
features a media player that can be used to play music CDs, rip CDs to
the Xbox's built-in hard drive and play music that has been ripped to
the hard drive; it also lets users manage game saves, music, and
downloaded content from Xbox Live, and lets Xbox Live users sign in,
customize, and manage their account. The dashboard is only available
when the user is not watching a movie or playing a game. It uses many
shades of green and black for the user interface to be consistent with
the physical Xbox color scheme. When the Xbox was released in 2001,
the Live service was not online, so the dashboard's Live sections and
the network settings sub-menu were not present yet.

Xbox Live was released in November 2002, but in order to access it,
users had to buy the Xbox Live starter kit containing a headset and a
subscription. While the Xbox was still being supported by Microsoft,
the Xbox Dashboard was updated via Live several times to reduce
cheating and add features.

Games
=======
The Xbox launched in North America on November 15, 2001. Popular
launch games included 'Halo: Combat Evolved', 'Project Gotham Racing',
and 'Dead or Alive 3'. All three of these games contributed to the
Xbox's success and would go on to sell over a million copies in the
US.

Although the console gained strong third-party support from its
inception, many early Xbox games did not fully use its powerful
hardware until a full year after its release. Xbox versions of
cross-platform games sometimes came with a few additional features
and/or graphical improvements to distinguish them from the PS2 and
GameCube versions of the same game, thus negating one of the Xbox's
main selling points. Sony countered the Xbox for a short time by
temporarily securing PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly anticipated
games such as the 'Grand Theft Auto' series and the 'Metal Gear Solid'
series as well as Nintendo for the 'Resident Evil' series. Notable
third-party support came from Sega, who announced an 11-game
exclusivity deal at Tokyo Game Show. Sega released exclusives such as
'Panzer Dragoon Orta' and 'Jet Set Radio Future', which met with a
strong reception among critics.

In 2002 and 2003, several high-profile releases helped the Xbox gain
momentum and distinguish itself from the PS2. Microsoft purchased
Rare, responsible for many Nintendo 64 hit games, to expand their
first party portfolio. The Xbox Live online service was launched in
late 2002 alongside pilot titles 'MotoGP', 'MechAssault' and 'Tom
Clancy's Ghost Recon'. Several best-selling and critically acclaimed
titles for the Xbox soon followed, such as 'Tom Clancy's Splinter
Cell', and 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'. Take-Two
Interactive's exclusivity deal with Sony was amended to allow 'Grand
Theft Auto III' and its sequels to be published for the Xbox. Many
other publishers got into the trend of releasing the Xbox version
alongside the PS2 version, instead of delaying it for months.

2004 saw the release of highly rated exclusives 'Fable' and 'Ninja
Gaiden': both games would become big hits for the Xbox. Later that
year, 'Halo 2' was released and became the highest-grossing release in
entertainment history, making over $125 million in its first day and
became the best-selling Xbox game worldwide. 'Halo 2' became Xbox
Live's third killer app after 'MechAssault' & 'Tom Clancy's
Rainbow Six 3'. That year Microsoft made a deal to put Electronic
Arts' popular titles on Xbox Live to boost the popularity of their
service.

By 2005, despite notable first party releases in 'Conker: Live &
Reloaded' and 'Forza Motorsport', Microsoft began phasing out the Xbox
in favor of their next console, the Xbox 360. Games such as 'Kameo:
Elements of Power' and 'Perfect Dark Zero', which were originally to
be developed for the Xbox, became Xbox 360 launch titles instead. The
last game released on the Xbox was 'Madden NFL 09', on August 12,
2008.

Exhibition discs
==================
The Xbox Exhibition disc collection was a game demo compilation series
from Microsoft Game Studios used to advertise and preview upcoming
Xbox games, featuring several playable game demos, game trailers,
video content from G4 TV, music videos, and music from indie artists
that were downloadable to the Xbox's hard drive. These discs were
distributed at retail over seven volumes from 2002 to 2005. The discs
are credited as an early iteration of the downloadable content model,
with content including additional levels, roster updates for sports
games and expanded game types.

;Discs
Title Date of release Demos Downloads Music videos
Volume 1 January 1, 2002 |'Halo: Combat Evolved', 'Madden NFL 2003',
'NFL Fever 2003', 'Panzer Dragoon Orta', 'Quantum Redshift', 'Tom
Clancy's Splinter Cell', 'TimeSplitters 2', 'ToeJam & Earl III:
Mission to Earth', 'Whacked!' 'Dead or Alive 3' booster pack
costumes, two downloadable saves for 'Project Gotham Racing', and two
save files for 'Rallisport Challenge'. Death Cab for Cutie, John
Vanderslice, Rilo Kiley, The Dismemberment Plan, and The Long Winters.
Volume 2 March 5, 2003 'All-Star Baseball 2004', 'Capcom vs. SNK 2
EO', 'Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb', 'Kung Fu Chaos',
'MechAssault', 'MX Superfly', 'NBA Inside Drive 2003', 'Tom Clancy's
Ghost Recon', 'Vexx' 'NFL Fever 2003' roster update, and new
characters and environments for 'ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to
Earth' and 'MX Superfly'
Volume 3 July 17, 2003 'Apex', 'ATV Quad Power Racing 2', 'Brute
Force', 'Gladius', 'MLB Inside Pitch 2003', 'MotoGP 2', 'NBA Street
Vol. 2', 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War', 'Tao Feng: Fist
of the Lotus' Levels and skins for 'RLH: Run Like Hell', and an extra
mission for 'Splinter Cell' Depswa, Queens of the Stone Age, Rooney,
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Woven
Volume 4 November 26, 2003 ESPN NBA Basketball', 'Grabbed by the
Ghoulies', 'Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds', 'Metal Arms: Glitch
in the System', 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time', 'Project Gotham
Racing 2', 'Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3', 'Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles', 'Voodoo Vince' Levels for 'Ghost Recon: Island Thunder',
'Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War', and 'Star Wars: The
Clone Wars', and four new maps for 'Unreal Championship'
Volume 5 May 27, 2004 'NBA Ballers', 'Psi-Ops: The Mindgate
Conspiracy', 'Metal Slug 3', 'Ninja Gaiden', 'Shadow Ops: Red
Mercury', 'RalliSport Challenge 2', 'The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape
from Butcher Bay' 'G4 - TV 4 Gamers Episodes': G4's tips and tricks to
master Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic; Pulse Get New York
Yankee Jason Giambi's insights on ESPN Major League Baseball
Volume 6 November 17, 2004 'Full Spectrum Warrior', 'Tom Clancy's
Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow', 'NCAA Football 2005', 'Men of Valor',
'OutRun 2', 'Second Sight', 'Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space'
Volume 7 December 2004 'Burnout 3: Takedown', 'Dead or Alive
Ultimate', 'ESPN NHL 2K5', 'Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders', 'Star
Wars Republic Commando', 'The Incredibles', and 'The SpongeBob
SquarePants Movie'
Volume 8 July 6, 2005 'Advent Rising', 'Batman Begins', 'Conker: Live
& Reloaded', 'Forza Motorsport', 'Destroy All Humans!', 'Digimon
World 4', 'Juiced', 'Madagascar', 'Medal of Honor: European Assault',
'Psychonauts' and 'Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'
Volume 9 December 2005 'Burnout Revenge', 'Chicken Little', 'Ed, Edd
n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures', 'Evil Dead Regeneration', 'Forza
Motorsport', 'Frogger: Ancient Shadow', 'Harry Potter and the Goblet
of Fire', 'Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes' and 'Star Wars Battlefront II'

Services
======================================================================
On November 15, 2002, Microsoft launched its Xbox Live service,
allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with other subscribers
around the world and download new content directly to the system's
hard drive. The online service works only with a broadband Internet
connection. In its first week of operation, Xbox Live received 100,000
subscriptions, and further grew to 250,000 subscribers within two
months of the service's launch. In July 2004, Microsoft announced that
Xbox Live had reached one million subscribers; in July 2005,
membership reached two million, and by July 2007 there were more than
three million subscribers. By May 2009, the number had ballooned to
twenty million current subscribers. On February 5, 2010, it was
reported that Xbox Live support for the original Xbox games would be
discontinued as of April 14, 2010. Services were discontinued on
schedule, but a group of users later known as the "Noble 14" continued
to play for almost a month afterwards by simply leaving their consoles
on connected to 'Halo 2'. Despite the discontinuation of Xbox Live in
2010, there are revival servers, such as Insignia which has brought
back online multiplayer and other online features to the Xbox again.

Sales
======================================================================
Region Units sold (as of May 10, 2006) First available
North America 16 million November 15, 2001
Europe 6 million March 14, 2002
Asia & Pacific 2 million February 22, 2002
| **Worldwide**
| **24 million**
N/A

Prior to launching, anticipation for the Xbox was high, with Toys 'R'
Us and Amazon reporting that online preorders had sold out within just
30 minutes. Microsoft stated that it planned to ship 1-1.5 million
units to retailers by the end of the year, followed by weekly
shipments of 100,000 units.
The launch was one of the most successful in video game history, with
unit sales surpassing 1 million after just 3 weeks and rising further
to 1.5 million by the end of 2001. The system also attained one of the
highest-ever attachment rates at launch, with over 3 games selling per
unit according to the NPD Group. Strong sales were tied in large part
to the highly anticipated launch title, 'Halo: Combat Evolved', which
had surpassed sales of 1 million units by April 2002 and attained a
50% attach rate for the console. In 2003, the console had knocked the
GameCube down to third place in terms of market share. By July 2004,
the system had sold 15.5 million units worldwide--10.1 million in
North America, 3.9 million in Europe, and 1.5 million in
Asia-Pacific--and had a 33% market share in the US.

Despite strong sales in North America, Microsoft struggled to make a
profit from the Xbox due to its high manufacturing cost. With its
initial retail price of $299, Microsoft lost about $125 for every
system sold, which cost $425 to manufacture, meaning that the company
would have to rely on software sales in order to make any money.
According to Robbie Bach, "Probably six months after we shipped, you
could see the price curve and do the math and know that we were going
to lose billions of dollars." These losses were further exacerbated in
April 2002, when Microsoft lowered the retail price of the Xbox even
further to $199 in order to further driving hardware sales. Microsoft
also struggled to compete with Sony's more popular PlayStation 2
console, which generally saw far higher sales numbers, although the
Xbox outsold the PS2 in the U.S. in April 2004. By its manufacturing
discontinuation in 2005, the Xbox had sold a total of 24 million units
worldwide, 16 million of which had been sold in North America. These
numbers fell short of Microsoft's predicted 50 million units, and
failed to match the PlayStation 2's lifetime sales of 106 million
units at the time, although it did surpass the GameCube and
Dreamcast's lifetime sales of 21 million and 10.6 units, respectively,
though the GameCube turned out to be more profitable than the Xbox.
Ultimately, Microsoft lost an accumulative total of $4 billion from
the Xbox, only managing to turn a profit at the end of 2004. While the
Xbox represented an overall loss for Microsoft, Gates, Ballmer, and
other executives still saw it as a positive result for the company as
it brought them into the console marketplace against doubts raised by
the industry, and led to Microsoft's further development of other
consoles in the Xbox family.

Japan
=======
Prior to its Japanese launch in February 2002, many analysts estimated
that the Xbox would have trouble competing with the PS2 and the
GameCube, its local counterparts in the region, noting its
comparatively high price tag, lack of exclusives, and larger size
which would not fit as well in Japan's smaller living spaces.
Microsoft hoped to ship six million Japanese Xbox consoles by June
2002; however, the system had only sold a total of 190,000 units in
the region by April of that year, two months after the system's launch
in February. For the week ending April 14, 2002, the Xbox sold only
1,800 units, considerably less than the PS2 and GameCube, and failed
to see a single title reach the top 50 best-selling video games in
Japan. In November 2002, the Xbox chief in Japan stepped down, leading
to further consultations about Xbox's future, which by that point had
only sold 278,860 units in the country since its February launch. For
the week ending July 18, 2004, the Xbox sold just 272 units, even
fewer than the PSOne had sold in the same week. The Xbox did, however,
outsell the GameCube for the week ending May 26, 2002. Ultimately, the
Xbox had only sold 474,992 units in its lifetime. Factors believed to
have contributed to the console's poor market presence included its
large physical size, which contrasted the country's emphasis on more
compact designs, and a lack of Japanese-developed games to aid
consumer interest.

Modding
======================================================================
Xbox modding is the practice of circumventing the built-in hardware
and software security mechanisms of the Xbox video game console.

Methods
=========
* Modchip: installing a modchip inside the Xbox that bypasses the
original BIOS, with a hacked BIOS to circumvent the security
mechanisms.
* TSOP flashing: reflashing the onboard BIOS chip with a hacked BIOS
to circumvent the security mechanisms. The Xbox BIOS is contained on a
commodity EEPROM (the 'TSOP'), which can be made writable by the Xbox
by bridging points on the motherboard. Flashing is usually carried out
by using a specially crafted gamesave (see 'Game save exploit', below)
to flash the onboard TSOP, but the TSOP can also be de-soldered and
re-written in a standard EEPROM programmer. This method only works on
1.0 to 1.5 Xboxes, as version 1.6 (the final hardware version
produced) replaced the commodity TSOP with an LPC ROM contained within
a proprietary chip.
* Softmods: installing additional software files to the Xbox hard
drive, which exploit programming errors in the Dashboard to gain
control of the system, and overwrite the in-memory copy of the BIOS.
Soft modification is known to be safe for Xbox Live if the user
enables multibooting with the Microsoft dashboard and an original game
disc is used.
** Game save exploit: using select official game releases to load game
saves that exploit buffer overflows in the save game handling. When
these special game saves are loaded, they access an interface with
scripts for installing the necessary softmod files. Disassembly of the
Xbox is not required when installing most game save exploits.
* Hot swapping: using a computer to change the data on the hard drive.
This requires having the Xbox unlock the hard drive when it is turned
on, then swapping the powered hard drive into a running computer. By
using a Linux-based Live CD, data on the hard drive can be read,
altered, and deleted. In most cases, an automated script will
automatically install the softmod files directly to the Xbox hard
drive. This technique has been used extensively to harbor cheating on
many online games. Disassembly of the console is required to perform a
hot swap. It's the least recommended as it might shock the Xbox
hardware or the user's PC components.

Alternative operating systems
===============================
Beyond gaming, a modded Xbox can be used as a media center with
XBMC4Xbox. There are also distributions of Linux developed
specifically for the Xbox, including those based on Gentoo, Debian,
Damn Small Linux and Dyne:bolic.

Some operating systems ported to Xbox include Linux in the form of
Xbox Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Windows CE, and ReactOS.

See also
======================================================================
* Insignia (Xbox)
* List of Xbox games
* Xbox Live Marketplace

External links
======================================================================
* at xbox.com
*

License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_(console)