The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
On November 6, 2006, Microsoft announced Xbox Live Video, an exclusive video store accessible through the console. Launched on November 22, 2006, the first anniversary of the Xbox 360 launch, the service allows users to download high-definition and standard-definition television shows and movies through Xbox Live onto an Xbox 360 console for viewing.
Xbox Live Arcade is an online service operated by Microsoft that is used to distribute arcade video games to Xbox and Xbox 360 owners. In addition to classic arcade games, the service offers some new original games as well as games from other consoles.
Dashboard version 2.0.4532.0 allows the Xbox 360 to output video at 1080p and installs support for Zune and the external HD DVD drive attachment.
While the first Xbox's graphics processing unit was produced by NVIDIA, the Xbox 360 uses a chip designed by ATI called Xenos.
Xenos contains 48 unified shader units, which are capable of both vertex and pixel shading operations. This is in contrast to older graphics processor designs which utilize separate specialized units for these tasks.
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.
