Microsoft Xbox

The Xbox is Microsoft's game console, released on November 15 2001. It is Microsoft's first independent venture into the console arena, after having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to the Sega Dreamcast console. The price is currently 149 USD, 149 EUR, 99 GBP and 249 AUD. Notable Xbox-exclusive titles that debuted with the console include Amped, Dead or Alive 3, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Halo and Project Gotham Racing.

Overview

Microsoft built the Xbox around industry-standard PC hardware, in contrast to the traditionally proprietary design of nearly all other gaming consoles. It has an Intel Pentium III-derived processor clocked at 733 MHz and an nVIDIA graphics processor which in terms of its PC brethren lies somewhere between the GeForce 3 and 4 lines. The processors share 64 MB of system RAM. Storage includes a DVD-ROM drive and an 8 GB hard disk. Although the Xbox is based on PC architecture and runs a stripped down version of the Windows 2000 kernel it incorporates restrictions designed to prevent uses not approved by Microsoft. It did not take long, however, for the hacker community to circumvent these limitations and install a customized distribution of the Linux operating system on the Xbox, thus making it usable as a fully featured PC (without eliminating its gaming and its online capabilities).

While some critics have speculated that the Xbox is Microsoft's attempt to monopolize the console technology market, as of May 2004 estimates show the Xbox's share of the worldwide console market is behind the Nintendo GameCube and far behind the PS2, due to the Xbox having an extremely weak market in its opponents' native Japan. In much of Europe, the Xbox is currently ahead of the GameCube, but far behind the Playstation 2. This is largely due to the fact that in March 2004 Microsoft cut the price of the Xbox in several countries which has substantially increased its sales outside of Japan. The Xbox has yet to return a profit for Microsoft, though this is in line with most other console marketing strategies in which the console is sold almost at cost and profit is made on software licensing fees. Microsoft itself has predicted that it would not make a profit on the Xbox for at least three years after the console's debut.

In November 2002, Microsoft released the successful Xbox Live online gaming service, allowing people to play games with people all around the world. The milestone of 1 million subscribers was announced in July 2004.

As it is essentially a PC, the Xbox has been criticized for its large size and weight compared to other consoles (though it is quite a bit smaller and lighter than most desktop PCs), caused mostly by its inclusion of a hard-drive. Some people found the warning in the Xbox manual that a falling Xbox "could cause serious injury" rather humorous – while the Xbox is certainly sufficiently heavy to hurt a small child if dropped from a large height, all controllers are equipped with break-away cables to help prevent this occurring.

Another common complaint about the system was the original design of the controller released in most markets, which was seen as being too large for some people. For the Japanese launch a new, smaller design was introduced, which was subseqently released in other markets as the "Controller S", later replacing the original design.

Specifications

• CPU: 733 MHz Intel processor (a Celeron/Pentium III hybrid chip)
• Graphics Processor: 250 MHz custom chip named XGPU (Xbox Graphics Processing Unit), developed by Microsoft and nVIDIA (comparable to a low-end GeForce 4 card, but without DirectX 9.0 support)
• Total [Memory]: 64 MB running at 200 MHz DDR, supplied by Micron
• Memory Bandwidth: 6.4 GB/s
• Polygon Performance: 125 M/s*
• Sustained Polygon Performance: 100+ M/s (transformed and lit polygons per second)
• Micropolygons/particles per second: 125 M/s
• Particle Performance: 125 M/s
• Simultaneous Textures: 4
• Pixel Fill Rate - No Texture: 4.0 G/s (anti-aliased)
• Pixel Fill Rate - 1 Texture: 4.0 G/s anti-aliased
• Compressed Textures: Yes (6:1)
• Full Scene Anti-Alias: Yes
• Micro Polygon Support: Yes
• Storage Medium: 2-5x DVD, 8.5GB hard disk, 8MB memory card
• I/0: 2-5x DVD, 8GB/10GB hard disk, 8MB memory card
• Audio Channels: 64 3D channels(up to 256 stereo voices)
• 3D Audio Support: Yes
• MIDI DLS2 Support: Yes
• AC3 (Dolby Digital) Encoded Game Audio: Yes (via TOSLINK)
• Broadband Enabled: Yes (10/100base-T ethernet)
• Modem Enabled: No (XBox Live is a broadband-only service)
• DVD Movie Playback: Yes (separate DVD Playback Kit/Remote required)
• Maximum Resolution: 1920(vertical lines)x1080(horiz.)
• Maximum Resolution (2x32bpp frame buffers +Z): 1920(vert.)x1080(horiz)
• Note: Non-HD TV's have less than 500 horizontal lines
• HDTV Support: Yes
• Controller Ports: 4 proprietary USB ports
• Weight: 3.86kg
• Dimensions: 324 × 265 × 90mm (12.8 × 10.4 × 3.5 inches)

* Microsoft figure. Some criticize the Xbox's polygon-per-second number as being exaggerated due to unrealistic testing conditions.

Devices and addons

• Standard AV Cable: Provides composite video and monoaural or stereo audio to TVs equipped with RCA inputs. Comes with the system. European systems come with a RCA jack to SCART converter block in addition to the cable.
• RF Adapter: Provides a combined audio and video signal on an RF connector.
• Advanced AV Pack: A breakout box that provides S-Video and TOSLINK audio in addition to the RCA composite video and stereo audio of the Standard AV Cable.
• High Definition AV Pack: A breakout box, intended for HDTVs, that provides a YPrPb component video signal over three RCA connectors. Also provides analog RCA and digital TOSLINK audio outputs.
• Advanced SCART Cable: The European equivalent to the Advanced AV Pack, providing a full RGB video SCART connection in place of S-Video, RCA composite and stereo audio connections (composite video and stereo are still provided by the cable, through the SCART connector, in addition to the RGB signal), while retaining the TOSLINK audio connector. As Europe has no HDTV standard, no High Definition cable is currently provided in those markets.

* Numerous third-party cables and breakout boxes exist that provide combinations of outputs not found in these official video packages; however, with the exception of a few component-to-VGA transcoders and custom-built VGA boxes, the four official video packages represent all of the Xbox's possible outputs. This output selectivity is made possible by the Xbox's SCART-like AVIP port.

• Memory Unit: An 8MB removable solid state memory card, onto which gamesaves can either be copied from the hard drive, or saved directly. Note that some recent games have dropped support for this accessory as a piracy prevention measure; I.E: Ninja Gaiden.
• System Link Cable: A Cat 5 crossover cable for connecting together two consoles, for up to 8 total players.
• Ethernet (XBox Live) Cable: A Cat 5 cable for connecting the XBox to a broadband modem or router (note that there is no "official" XBox Live cable; any PC ethernet cable can be used)
• DVD Playback Kit: Required in order to play DVD movies, the kit includes an infrared remote control and receiver. DVD playback was not included as a standard feature of the Xbox due to licensing issues with the DVD format that would have added extra cost to the console's base price. By selling a DVD remote separately Microsoft was able to recover the DVD licensing fee. Although there is nothing to prevent the Xbox from acting as a progressive-scan DVD player, Microsoft chose not to enable this feature in the Xbox DVD kit in order to avoid royalty payments to the patent-holder of progressive scan DVD playback.
• XBox Wireless Adapter: a wireless bridge which converts data running through an ethernet cable to a wireless (802.11b or 802.11g) signal. Adds wireless internet capabilities to the XBox. Note that while there is an official Wireless Adapter, almost any wireless bridge can be used.

Xbox and DirectX

Microsoft's set of low-level APIs for game development and multimedia purposes, DirectX, was used as a basis for the Xbox's hardware programming (as well as its name, which implies "DirectX Box"). The API was developed jointly between Microsoft and NVIDIA (whose chips were used to power the Xbox graphics). The Xbox API is similar to DirectX version 8.1, but is non-updateable just like other console technologies.

Modding the Xbox

Due to the recent popularity of the Xbox, much work has gone into circumventing built in hardware and software security mechanisms as well as adding customized design touches to the console's case (similar to PC case modding). Hardware modding can involve anything from simply replacing the console's green decorative "jewel" with a custom-designed one to opening up the case and installing a modchip. Software modding is much less intrusive and only involves running software exploits to trick the Xbox into running unsigned code. This allows running an alternate dashboard such as Avalaunch or Evolution-X and in turn makes playing various older games through arcade and games console emulators possible. This is especially attractive as the Xbox is designed to output to TVs, and has high quality controllers and arcade sticks available for it. Besides emulation, the other common reasons for modding an Xbox include the ability to save entire Xbox games directly to the built-in hard drive, playing DVDs without the $30 DVD dongle/remote, and turning the Xbox into a computer running Linux or even Microsoft Windows OS's.

Price history

• US$149, Canada-$199 (March 29, 2004), Europe-149 Euros, UK-99 Pounds (August 27, 2004)
• US$179, Europe-199 Euros, UK-130 Pounds (2003)
• US$199 (2002), Europe-479 Euros (Launch Price March 14, 2002), 299 Euros (April 26, 2002), 249 Euros (August 30, 2002)
• US$299 (November 15, 2001, launch price)

See also

• List of Xbox games