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.
The promotional campaign for Xbox 360 began on March 14, 2005, with the opening of an alternate reality game called OurColony.
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.
Due to its early launch, the Xbox 360 has a one-year lead on both of its competitors, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii.
Microsoft's retail strategy involves two different configurations of the Xbox 360: the Xbox 360 SKU, frequently referred to as the Xbox 360 Premium Package and an Xbox 360 Core System SKU.
Xbox Live Silver is free of charge and allows users to create a user profile, join on message boards, access Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade and Marketplace and talk to other members.
Only six games were initially offered in Japan, and eagerly anticipated titles like Dead or Alive 4 were not released until several weeks after launch.
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.
The Xbox 360 controller is significantly different from the original Xbox controllers, the Duke and the S models. The black and white buttons have been replaced by bumper buttons, which are on the shoulder of the controller, right before the triggers. It is noticeably smoother, has a white-gray theme, and is very small and ergonomically built.
