33 Interesting Xbox 360 Facts You Will Enjoy Reading!
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Xbox 360 gives a whole new appeal to the existing Xbox, starting from the features to the hardware; it is more powerful than its predecessor.
The new Xbox 360 is more than just a video console. This new Microsoft product is a media-centric console allowing users to stream, rip, download, play, and network all types of music, media, high-definition movies, and game content.
After selling about 20 million units worldwide of the first original Xbox, Microsoft's first-ever video gaming console since its release in 2001, a new version, Xbox 360, was developed by Microsoft in 2005. The entire Xbox experience was enjoyed so much by people that new versions and updates of Xbox keep coming.
There's so much that happened before and after the launch of Xbox 360 that you should know as you can still use it! So keep reading this article to find more about the different features of Xbox 360, its uses, its history, and where it stands with respect to its other competitors.
Features And Uses Of Xbox 360
If you are an avid game enthusiast, we are sure you must have come across the famous Xbox. It's Microsoft's video console for gaming which was created to compete with the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3.
Xbox 360 has been an enhancement to the previous version of Xbox. Microsoft intended to launch promising visuals and high-definition video game consoles to make the gaming experience as real as possible. Let's have a look at an overview of some more features of the original Xbox 360.
The standard Xbox 360, when lying on its side, is about 12.15 in (30.86 cm) long, and these consoles were custom colored for the Xbox 360 models.
The Xbox console features a 'ring of light' that has four illuminated quadrants in green or red color. If the console has a faulty condition, then the lights turn red and depending on how many sectors are illuminated, the error category is determined making it easy for the user to identify how to fix it.
The Xbox 360 has wireless controllers and other accessories, unlike the original Xbox.
An interesting feature of Xbox 360 is a way to control games without using a controller, and this feature is known as Kinect, which is a kind of accessory provided by Microsoft. Kinect was developed and came into stores in 2010 and is a recipient of several awards due to its innovation and wireless controllers.
Did you know that the Xbox 360 had a 23.7% failure rate when it was launched in the market?
The leading gaming consoles in the industry before were Nintendo and Sony.
When the white Arcade console breaks down, a red ring of death (RRoD) occurs where three lights around the power button on the gaming console flash in red.
The dashboard on Xbox 360 has many features to offer its users, such as voice chat, customizing soundtracks, messaging friends, and downloading content, and this is all applicable even while you play a game. There Xbox dashboard also has a guide button that helps the user to know if he or she has received a message from another gamer.
A feature called the Xbox Live had feedback systems and matchmaking that had options for video conferencing and voice chat. The lucid and seamless interface makes communication in online gaming more interactive.
'Kinect Adventures' is one of a best-selling game that sold 16.7 million units worldwide! Other such games include 'Call of Duty: Black Ops' (13.4 million copies sold worldwide), 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2' (12.8 million copies sold worldwide), 'Halo', 'Call of Duty' (13.4 million units sold worldwide).
There are many different configurations of the Xbox 360 like the Xbox 360n Arcade, Xbox 360 Elite, Xbox 360 core, Xbox 360 Premium, Xbox 360 E, and Xbox 360 Slim. The Xbox 360 has interesting features to put custom faceplates on the console, thereby letting the users change the faceplate easily.
One of the most exciting features for people keen on playing Xbox is that the players could play games online, stream media like films, music, and download new games. This feature was in heavy demand, but the supply was quite short when it first launched.
Users were also allowed an update to Xbox 360 to input a USB memory device for storing data as game saves and avatar items. The USB drives with a memory of 1GB were allowed to store data up to 16GB data.
Did you know that after three million presses, an Xbox controller wears out?
Some of the accessories of Xbox 260 are a wireless controller, one month Xbox Live trial, HD video cable, ethernet cable, a headset (for 120/250 GB consoles), 250 or 120 GB HDD, 4 GB SSD, HDMI, Xbox 360 slim-Piano Black Matte Black for the 4GB console.
The slim model Xbox was redesigned in 2010.
The first fundamental and basic package of Xbox 360 was the model Xbox 360 core that had a wired controller and a console. The Arcade later replaced this core and became the cheapest model.
Arcade or Xbox 360 Arcade as it is called was the second fundamental package that had several additional features such as 256 MB memory cards, five Xbox Live Arcade games, HDMI output capabilities, close and a wireless controller.
Controller S was a slightly enhanced version of the Japanese controller released by Microsoft. This controller S has now become the basic Xbox controller for all the Xbox consoles.
You can even build your own Xbox 360 with some custom kits that are available online.
With an old Xbox 360 console, you can do cool things like turn it into a delicate Arcade machine, set it as a streaming device for other media, or at the very least sell it!
The 165-million transistor-powered Xbox 360 is very fast and efficient and makes it one of the most powerful video gaming consoles.
Xbox 360 is made from IBM's triple-core Xenon processor, graphics are handled by ATI Xenos, and the main memory is manufactured to be 512 MB.
Who invented the Xbox 360?
The gaming world is indeed a very competitive place, with numerous games and gaming platforms making their way into the market swiftly. Xbox was one of the platforms that rose onto the gaming podium quickly, and the credit for that goes to a very famous multi-national organization.
Microsoft invented the Xbox and Xbox 360, the home video game console. The Xbox 360 was a befitting successor to the original Xbox.
It stood up to the heavy competition of the event generation game consoles, Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo's Wii. On May 12, 2005, the Xbox 360 was unveiled on MTV at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The launch covered all the details and gaming information.
The Xbox was launched done simultaneously in Canada and United States. On Dec 2, 2005, it was launched in Europe, and it was launched in Japan on Dec10, 2005.
Later, the Xbox 360 launched worldwide in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand, India, Australia, Russia, and South Africa. The Xbox 360 had the record of launching a console in more countries than any other in a single year. The game console launched in 36 countries in its first year.
The launch program was done throughout the duration of 2005-2006. Initially, the Xbox 360 was in high demand but short in supply, especially in Europe and North America. In fact, early on, the Red Ring of Death indicated a high failure rate, following which the company increased the warranty period of the device.
In 2010 Microsoft launched a redesigned version of the Xbox called Xbox 360 S, and in 2013 Xbox 360 E. Xbox 360 holds the record of being the highest-selling console invented by any American company and the sixth highest selling home gaming console in history.
Tech Radar named the Xbox 360 to be the highly influential console of the generation owing to multiplayer gaming options and good digital media distribution
The Xbox One is Xbox 360's successor and was released on Nov 12, 2013. Microsoft now no longer produces the Xbox 360 hardware such as the wireless controller that comes with the Xbox as announced on April 20, 2016, but it still continues to back the platform.
The Modern Age Of Gaming
For a long time, technology has become an inevitable part of our lives. The one field that it has affected the most is gaming, which has now become one of the most lucrative businesses in the world.
This has been the trend since the 1950s, especially in science fairs conducted. Let's learn how the modern age of gaming has become such an entertaining part of our lives.
The start of the 21st century saw the boom of many internet capabilities, such as the tremendous growth in process technology to include many different graphics, consoles, and games. With three billion people worldwide having access to the internet at lightning speeds because of the drop-in cost of servers and technology, modern gaming has become easier than ever before.
In 2015, the ESA computer and video games industry report claimed that about one and a half billion people play video games all over the world.
Modern gaming has opened doors to gaming companies like Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Marketplace to skyrocket their position in the marketplace. The concept of wireless controllers steered many people towards video gaming.
These companies have changed the perspective of gaming in terms of communicating with other players, having greater interaction, and many other features. The networking aspect has largely grown in modern gaming when compared to gaming from previous years. Sony's PSN has enhanced multiplayer gaming by leaps and bounds.
Online multiplayer gaming has become a common feature to make the entire experience of gaming more real and fun. This worked well, especially for games like 'Call of Duty Modern Warfare' that had deathmatches played by millions of peers worldwide.
Many new gamers started their journey into gaming with mobile technology. This has revolutionized the way gaming is perceived.
It's amusing to see just how much gaming has integrated into families and modern pop culture. For instance, nowadays even grandparents are aware of the famous game 'Angry Birds'! About 42% of people living in America are gamers, and four out of five families have a game console in their homes.
Dr. Edward Uhler Condone in 1940 revealed an example of a game machine at the New York World's fair. Fifty thousand people played this game in six months during the launch. The game was related to Nim, an ancient mathematical game. Although funnily enough, 90% of the games were won by the computer itself.
Brown Box was the first commercial home game design that was designed by Ralph Baer and his team in 1967. The design was a prototype. This game design came in nearly three decades later.
During 1966 and 1967, Taito and Sega piqued the public interest in a new form of gaming called arcade gaming when they released 'Crown Special Soccer' and 'Periscope', an electro-mechanical type of game. But the first company to really pioneer a large-scale gaming community was Atari in 1972.
The founder, Nolan Bushnell, is also known as the godfather of gaming.
Online Gaming
Games before were linked with playing outside and were definitely not virtual. Electronic gaming is the reason for the generation of billions of dollars with millions of players. Games such as 'World of Warcraft' have a massive online multiplayer environment that has driven customers to increase their sales rapidly. So how does online gaming really work? Let's find out.
Online gaming is defined as playing over any computer network such as the internet. What's different about online gaming is that the usual gaming is the concept of playing with people from all over the world, and the only prerequisite is the internet.
Dozens of servers to accommodate so many players are created, so you can see the technological overhead for gaming online.
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