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Xbox
The Xbox is Microsoft's
game console, released on November 15, 2001. It is Microsoft's
first independent venture into the console arena, after
having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to
the Sega Dreamcast console. The price is currently 149
USD, 149 EUR, 99 GBP, 200 CAD, 249 AUD, 290 NZD and 1200
NOK. Notable launch titles for the console include Amped,
Dead or Alive 3, Halo: Combat Evolved, Oddworld: Munch's
Oddysee, and Project Gotham Racing.
History
The Xbox was initially
developed within Microsoft by a small crew including Seamus
Blackley, a game developer and high energy physicist.
While some critics were initially concerned that the Xbox would allow Microsoft
to extend its dominance of the PC software market to consoles,
as of February 2005 estimates show the Xbox's share of
the worldwide console market is only comparable to the
Nintendo GameCube and far behind the PlayStation 2. The
Xbox has not sold well in Japan, due to the Japanese people's
poor acceptance of non-Japanese consoles, limited Japanese
developer support, few game choices and the large size
of the hardware itself. In much of Europe, the Xbox is
currently slightly ahead of the GameCube, but is still
far behind the PlayStation 2. Microsoft predicted that
it would not make a profit on the Xbox for at least three
years and that turned out to be correct; the division
had its first profitable quarter in 2005.
In November 2002, Microsoft released the successful Xbox Live online gaming
service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games
with (or against) other subscribers all around the world
and download new content for their games to the hard drive.
This online service only works with broadband. The milestone
of 1 million subscribers was announced in July 2004.
As with all consumer electronics, several internal hardware revisions have
been made to discourage modding, cut manufacturing costs,
and to provide a more reliable DVD-ROM drive (the early
units' drives were prone to failure).
Hardware
Microsoft built
the Xbox around industry-standard PC hardware, unlike
the traditionally proprietary design of nearly all other
gaming consoles. However, it still uses standard console
architecture.
The inclusion of the hard disk not only serves as a disk cache for faster
game loading times compared to the PS2 and repository
for saved game information (eliminating the need for sold-separately
memory cards), it also allows users to download and save
new content for their games from Xbox Live and copy music
from standard Audio CDs so players can partially or completely
replace the soundtrack of Xbox games that support Custom
Soundtracks, all firsts in console history. Custom Soundtracks
are often supported in non-cinematic games (e.g. racing/driving
games) where the music is inconsequential to what is happening
in the game.
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, it incorporates restrictions designed to prevent
uses not approved by Microsoft. 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 is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries, and shipped
with an unusually large controller. This is largely due
to the large, tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size
3.5" hard drive. Despite managing to be smaller and
lighter than similar commodity PCs, the Xbox has found
itself a target of mild derision, as gamers poke fun at
it for things like a (overly cautious) warning in the
Xbox manual that a falling Xbox "could cause serious
injury" to a small child or pet. While some elements
of the Xbox's design, like break-away cables for the controllers
to prevent the console from being yanked from the shelf,
take the size into account, it has undoubtedly hurt the
system's sales to the space-conscious Japanese.
Another common complaint about the system was that the original game
controller design was seen as too large for some people.
For the Japanese Xbox launch, a new and smaller controller
was introduced, a design which was subsequently released
in other markets as the "Controller S", which
eventually replaced the original design. Currently, all
Xbox consoles come with a "Controller S", and
the original version of the controller (also known as
'The Duke') is no longer sold.
Detailed Specifications
- CPU: 733 MHz Intel pentium III processor with a
133MHz Front Side Bus
- Graphics Processor: 250 MHz custom chip named the
NV2x, developed by Microsoft and nVIDIA (comparable
to a low-end GeForce 4 Ti card)
- Total Memory: 64 MB DDR SDRAM running at 200 MHz,
supplied by Micron
- Memory Bandwidth: 6.4 GB/s
- Polygon Performance: 125 million flat-shaded polys/second
- (Microsoft figure. Some critics assert that
the Xbox's polygon-per-second number is exaggerated
by unrealistic testing conditions.)
- Sustained Polygon Performance: 100+ M/s (transformed
and lit polygons per second)
- Micropolygons/particles per second: 125 M/s
- Particle Performance: 125 M/s
- Simultaneous Textures: 4
- Pixel Fill Rate - No Texture: 4.0 G/s (anti-aliased)
- Pixel Fill Rate - 1 Texture: 4.0 G/s anti-aliased
- Compressed Textures: Yes (6:1)
- Full Scene Anti-Alias: Yes
- Micro Polygon Support: Yes
- Storage Medium: 2-5x DVD, 8 gigabyte hard disk,
optional 8MB memory card
- I/O: 2-5x DVD, 8GB/10GB hard disk, 8MB memory card
- Audio Channels: 64 3D channels (up to 256 stereo
voices)
- 3D Audio Support: Yes
- MIDI DLS2 Support: Yes
- AC3 (Dolby Digital) Encoded Game Audio: Yes (via
TOSLINK)
- Broadband Enabled: Yes (10/100base-T ethernet)
- DVD Movie Playback: Yes (separate DVD Playback Kit/Remote
required)
- Maximum Resolution (2x32bpp frame buffers +Z): 1920(vert.)x1080(horiz)
- Note: NTSC (Non-HD) TV's have less than 500
horizontal lines. PAL TV's have less than 600
horizontal lines.
- HDTV Support: Yes, 480p/720p/1080i (see game boxes
for supported resolutions)
- Controller Ports: 4 proprietary USB-based ports
- Weight: 3.86kg
- Dimensions: 324 × 265 × 90mm (12.8 ×
10.4 × 3.5 inches)
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