The Xbox 360 was the first home console to be released in the seventh generation of game consoles and competes against Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii.
Its Xbox Live service allows players to compete online as well as download games and additional content.
In February of 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsoft VP J Allard.
The Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005, in the United States and Canada; December 2, 2005, in Europe and December 10, 2005, in Japan.
At launch, the Xbox 360 was priced at US$399 and the Core System was priced at US$299.
Xbox Live supports voice communication along with video communication, a feature possible with the Xbox Live Vision.
The full list of backward-compatible games is maintained at Xbox.com.
The Xbox CPU also contains ROM storing Microsoft private encrypted keys, used to decrypt game data.
The console features 512 MB of 700 megahertz GDDR3 RAM on a 128-bit bus.
Up to four controllers are supported by the Xbox 360, in the wireless form. However, there is a maximum of three wired controllers, as the Xbox 360 only has 3 USB slots.