In February of 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsoft VP J Allard.
At launch, the Xbox 360 was priced at US$399 and the Core System was priced at US$299.
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 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.
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 Gold has the same features as Silver, plus online game playing capabilities.
The console's graphical user interface is the Xbox 360 Dashboard; a tabbed interface that features four "Blades".
John Carmack stated at QuakeCon 2005 that the Xbox 360 has "the best development environment I've seen on a console".
Updated emulation profiles can be obtained through Xbox Live, by burning a CD with profiles downloaded from Xbox.com, or by ordering an update disc from Microsoft.
While the first Xbox's graphics processing unit was produced by NVIDIA, the Xbox 360 uses a chip designed by ATI called Xenos.
