The Xbox 360 is a powerful next-gen videogame system from Microsoft that was released on November 22nd, 2005. Currently, the Xbox 360 comes in several different configurations and prices ranging from $280 to $450.
The Xbox 360 can play both Xbox 360 games as well as DVD movies right out of the box. The system can also play certain titles that were released on the original Xbox. For a complete list of backward compatable titles, please check the official list at Xbox.com.
A major feature of the Xbox 360 is that it is the first true high definition videogame system. An HDTV is not required to enjoy everything that the Xbox 360 has to offer, but if you do have an HDTV the graphics are greatly enhanced over what we saw in the PS3/Xbox/GameCube era.
Another major feature is the Xbox Live online services. There are two different versions of Live - Gold which lets you play games online against other people, and Silver which lets you download demos, trailers, Xbox Live Arcade games, and chat with friends. A key feature of Xbox Live is that it is a central service that lets you use just one nickname (called a Gamertag) across each and every game and it also lets you keep a list of friends and preferred people you like to play with. Xbox Live isn't required to enjoy what the Xbox 360 has to offer, but the experience is greatly enhanced when you take the system online.
Here is the Xbox 360 in all of its glory. The rumored design details that the system would use wireless controllers as well as the concave design are present. There is also an extra button beside the memory card slots as well as a covered port on the right side of the system whose functions are not yet known at this time.
Hardware Specs:
Custom IBM Power-PC Based CPU
Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance
9 billion dot product operations per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
500MHz processor
10 MB of embedded DRAM
48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
Unified shader architecture
Polygon Performance
500 million triangles per second
Pixel Fill Rate
16 gigasamples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA
Shader Performance
48 billion shader operations per second
Memory
512 MB of GDDR3 RAM
700 MHz of DDR
Unified memory architecture
Memory Bandwidth
22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
21.6 GB/s front-side bus
Overall System Floating Point Performance
1 teraflop
Storage
Detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive
12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
Memory Unit support starting at 64 MB
I/O
Support for up to four wireless game controllers
Three USB 2.0 ports
Two memory unit slots
Optimized for Online
Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features with broadband service, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, gamer profile for digital identity, and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies, or listening to music
Built-in Ethernet port
Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g
Video camera ready
Digital Media Support
Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
Ability to stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras and Windows XP-based PCs
Ability to rip music to the Xbox 360 hard drive
Custom playlists in every game
Built-in Media Center Extender for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers
High-Definition Game Support
All games supported at 16:9, 720p, and 1080i, anti-aliasing
Standard-definition and high-definition video output supported
Audio
Multi-channel surround sound output
Supports 48KHz 16-bit audio
320 independent decompression channels
32-bit audio processing
Over 256 audio channels
System Orientation
Stands vertically or horizontally
Customizable Face Plates
Interchangeable to personalize the console