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.
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 Gold has the same features as Silver, plus online game playing capabilities.
John Carmack stated at QuakeCon 2005 that the Xbox 360 has "the best development environment I've seen on a console".
Backward compatibility is achieved through software emulation of the original Xbox.