In February of 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsoft VP J Allard.
Businessweek magazine compiled a report that estimates the total cost of components in the Xbox 360 premium bundle at US$525 at launch,[16] sans manufacturing costs, meaning that Microsoft initially lost money on every Xbox 360 system sold.
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 supports voice communication along with video communication, a feature possible with the Xbox Live Vision.
The Xbox 360 takes a new approach to hardware compared to its predecessor. The CPU, named Xenon-CPU (or XCPU) at Microsoft and "Waternoose" at IBM, is a custom triple-core PowerPC-based design by IBM.