The promotional campaign for Xbox 360 began on March 14, 2005, with the opening of an alternate reality game called OurColony.
At launch, the Xbox 360 was priced at US$399 and the Core System was priced at US$299.
With the launch of the Xbox 360, Microsoft's online gaming service, Xbox Live went through a major upgrade, adding a basic non-subscription service, Silver, to its already established premium subscription-based service, Gold.
Xbox Live Gold has the same features as Silver, plus online game playing capabilities.
Microsoft XNA is a set of tools and technologies that includes XNA Studio, which provides versions of key production tools such as asset management, defect tracking, project automation and work lists.
John Carmack stated at QuakeCon 2005 that the Xbox 360 has "the best development environment I've seen on a console".
E3 2006 was the first large-scale show after the console's launch and there, the first trailer for Halo 3, the third game in the flagship Xbox series of shooters, was premiered. Fable 2, a sequel to the Xbox's best-selling RPG, was also shown, along with Alan Wake, Mass Effect and Too Human. Bill Gates spoke of plans to integrate several Microsoft services into one entity with Live Anywhere.
