Encyclopedia
The
Xbox is a sixth generation era
video game console produced by
Microsoft, 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
,
Amped,
Dead or Alive 3 and
.
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.
According to the book
Smartbomb is a book wri...
, 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.
According to Dean Takahashi's book, "Opening the Xbox", the Xbox was originally going to be called the
DirectXbox, to show the extensive use of
DirectX within the console's technology. However, "Xbox" was the final name decided by marketing, but the console still retains some hints towards DirectX, most notably the "X"-shaped logo, which DirectX is famous for.
Software
The Xbox launched in North America on November 15, 2001. The greatest successes of the Xbox's launch games were
and Halo 2, which were critically well-received and were the best-selling games of the year.
Halo still remains one of the console's standout titles, while its sequel
Halo 2 is the most played game on Xbox Live. Other successful launch titles included
NFL Fever 2002,
Project Gotham Racing is a racing game [i] franchise developed by Bizarre Creations [i] and publishe ...
and
Dead or Alive 3 is a fighting game [i] in the
Dead or Alive [i] series. ...
). However, the failure of several first-party games 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 for a short time by temporarily securing PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly anticipated games such as the
Grand Theft Auto series and
although they were later ported and no longer exclusive.
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 was the first 'Mech [i] video game [i] for the Microsoft [i] ...
and
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon is a tactical shooter [i] video game [i] created by Tom Clancy [i]. ...
. Several best-selling and critically-acclaimed titles for the Xbox were published, such as
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is a critically-acclaimed stealth-based video game [i], developed by Ubisoft Montreal [i]...
,
Ninja Gaiden is a series of video game [i]s by Tecmo [i] featuring the dragon [i] ninja [i], Ryu Hayabusa [i] ...
, and
.
Take-Two Interactive's exclusivity deal with
Sony was amended to allow
Grand Theft Auto III is an action [i] computer and video game [i] ...
,
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.
In 2004,
Halo 2 is a first person shooter [i] video game [i] developed by Bungie Studios [i] ...
set records as highest grossing release in entertainment history 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 console-exclusive
Doom 3 is a sci-fi [i] horror [i] first-person shooter [i] computer game [i] develope ...
,
Half-Life 2 is a science fiction [i] first-person shooter [i] computer game [i] ...
, and
Far Cry Instincts is a video game developed and published by Ubisoft [i] for the Xbox [i] console. ...
were released.
Xbox Live
- See also: List of Xbox network games
On November 15, 2002, Microsoft launched its Xbox Live online gaming service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with other subscribers all around the world and download new content for their games to the system's
hard drive. This online service works exclusively with a broadband Internet connection. Approximately 250,000 subscribers had signed up within 2 months of Live's launch . In July 2004, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had reached 1 million subscribers, and only a year later, in July 2005, that membership had reached 2 million. An
Xbox Live Gold subscription currently costs US$50 a year .
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 ahead of the
Nintendo GameCube and behind the
PlayStation 2. Microsoft has sold 24 million consoles as of Q2 2006. Although ahead of the GameCube's 21 million , this is far behind the PlayStation 2's 106.23 million shipped .
The Xbox has enjoyed its greatest success in North America, where an estimated 13.5 million units have been sold and where it managed to outsell the PS2 for several months in 2004 . In
Europe, the Xbox's market share is currently ahead of the GameCube, but is behind the PlayStation 2.
The Xbox has not sold well 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 .
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into the Xbox internal documents and received back billions of dollars in sales. Overall though Xbox division has invested $4 billion from 2001 to 2005. 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 . 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 December 2004, thanks largely to the success of Halo 2 . Investor relations documents says that in the end of 2005 Microsoft lost more than 1 billion dollars . The Xbox project never gave an annual profit to Microsoft according to these documents. In return for the money lost, though, the Xbox gained name recognition and a dedicated fan base.
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 . 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 and content downloaded from Xbox Live. This eliminated the need for separate
memory cards . Most of the games also use the hard drive 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 play their custom soundtrack, in addition to the original soundtrack of Xbox games that support such a 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 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 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 was quietly discontinued.
Several internal hardware revisions have been made in an ongoing battle to discourage
modding , cut manufacturing costs, and to provide a more reliable DVD-ROM drive .
However, later generation of Xbox 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 newer 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: 733 MHz Intel Mobile Celeron . The part number, cache size, FSB, and even 8-way associative L2 cache all match up to a Mobile Celeron 733. The only real difference is that the actual Mobile Celeron 733 was only made in a Micro FCBGA package and not the Micro BGA2 seen on the Xbox. Intel was just rolling out the Micro FCBGA package around the time of the Xbox's introduction so it's understandable that the system was designed with the Micro BGA2 interface in mind. So for the Xbox, Microsoft had Intel put a Mobile Celeron 733 onto the older Micro BGA2 package and called it a Pentium III. For all intents and purposes a Mobile Celeron 733 is a Pentium III but the correct distinction still needs to be made here.
- Intel IA-32 instruction set
- SIMD: SSE. Four single-precision floating-point numbers in one instruction.
- Theoretical maximum 4 FLOPS/cycle
- Pentium III had architectural drawbacks that lessened real-world SSE throughput.
- SIMD: MMX. Integer functions. Switching between FPU and MMX is slow, so not of great use for 3D rendering tasks. Often used for audio and video.
- 133 MHz FSB.
- 32 kB L1 cache. 128 kB L2 Advanced Transfer Cache .
- Unified Memory Subsystem: Total Memory: 64 MB DDR SDRAM running at 200 MHz, supplied by Hynix or Samsung depending on manufacture date and location
- 6.4 GB/s Theoretical Memory Bandwidth
- Graphics Processor: 233 MHz custom chip developed by Microsoft and NVIDIA code named NV2A, the A setting it apart from the PC based NV20 and NV25 . It gained 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
- Theoretical Texture Fill Rate: 1,864 Megatexels/second
- 4 Simultaneous Textures
- 6:1 Compressed Textures through DDS
- Full Scene Anti-Aliasing
- Storage Medium: 2-5x DVD , 8 gigabyte hard disk , optional 8MB memory card for savegame transfer
- Audio Processor : NVIDIA MCPX
- Audio Channels: 64 3D channels
- 3D Audio Support: HRTF Sensaura 3D enhancement.
- MIDI DLS2 Support
- AC3 Encoded Game Audio via TOSLINK
...
- 10/100base-T ethernet
- DVD Movie Playback with a separate DVD Playback Kit/Remote required or by modding the Xbox and running DVD-playing homebrew software)
- Maximum Resolution : 640480
- Note: NTSC TV's have fewer than 500 horizontal lines. PAL TV's have fewer than 600 horizontal lines.
- EDTV Support: 480p.
- 4 proprietary USB controller ports
- Weight: 3.86 kilograms .
- Dimensions: 320 × 100 × 260 milimeters
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.
Microsoft and Nvidia chip pricing dispute
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 US$13 million discount on shipments for Nvidia's fiscal year 2002. Additionally, 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 settled on February 6, 2003, and no terms of the settlement were released.
Official Xbox accessories
Audio/video connectors
...
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 , 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 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 , any PC Ethernet cable can be used in the normal way treating the Xbox as a 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 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 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 is a first person shooter [i] video game [i] developed by Bungie Studios [i] ...
. - 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 JPEG format as well as audio in MP3 format and M+icrosoft's WMA from a Windows XP machine running the .
Controllers and removable storage
- The Xbox controller features two analog sticks, a directional pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots and six 8-bit analog action buttons . The precise layout of the controls differs between the two variations of controller.
- Standard Xbox Controller : 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. The controller has been criticized for being relatively large and bulky compared to other video game controllers . 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. Also, the standard face buttons were oriented in an oblong parallelogram rather than a uniform diamond, which was very unusual compared to other standard controllers.
- Controller S: A smaller, lighter Xbox controller. Once the standard Xbox controller in Japan , 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
- FISH Universal Transportable Memory Card Standard
...
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. Note that some recent games 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. Modding an Xbox in any 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.
Beyond gaming, a modded Xbox can be used as a media center with the
Xbox Media Center.
North America- US$299
- US$199
- US$179
- US$149
- US$129
Europe- 479€ *299€
- 249€
- 199€
- 149€
- 99€
- 99€
- 99€
- 79€
UKOceania- AU$699 AUD
- AU$239 AUD
- AU$209 AUD
- AU$188 AUD
- NZ$499 NZD
- NZ$399 NZD
- NZ$349 NZD
- NZ$299 NZD
- NZ$249 NZD
JapanOf note is the high European launch price. As with many games consoles , the Xbox was launched with a price in GBP equal to its US price in USD , and this price then converted for the rest of Europe. 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, the
360 uses the
euro 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 on April 26 2002, just a month and 12 days after its inital launch in the UK. To avoid frustrating early adopters, they offered any two current games and an extra controller for free to any purchaser who could provide a sales receipt showing the original higher price.
By September 15 2005 Microsoft reported a four billion dollar loss in selling the Xbox gaming systems.
Xbox 360
- Main article: Xbox 360
NVIDIA ceased production of the Xbox's GPU in August 2005, which marked the end of Xbox production and the quick release of the Xbox 360 featuring a new GPU from NVIDIA's rival
ATI.
When equipped with a removable hard drive add-on, the Xbox 360 supports a limited subset of the Xbox's library through emulation. Emulation adds support for higher screen resolution 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
Game Boy Advance which do contain processors from their previous respective platforms to achieve backward compatibility.
References
External links
