Xbox is the predecessor to Microsoft's Xbox 360 console.
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.
The Xbox 360 sold out completely at release and by the end of September 2006 had sold 6 million worldwide.
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.
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.
Microsoft is predicting that with the Xbox 360, a greater market share, yearly revenue through their Xbox Live service, and falling hardware costs will eventually make system sales profitable.
An Xbox Live Silver account does not generally support multiplayer gaming; however, some games that feature their own subscription service can be played with a Silver account.
Xbox Live supports voice communication along with video communication, a feature possible with the Xbox Live Vision.
John Carmack stated at QuakeCon 2005 that the Xbox 360 has "the best development environment I've seen on a console".
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.
