Xbox 360: Difference between revisions

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▲After four years, Microsoft's contract with NVIDIA on the Original [[X Box]] was up. Their solution: release the [[Xbox Three Sixty|Xbox 360]] a year ahead of Sony and Nintendo's consoles. The 360 featured a continuation of the Xbox Live service with improvements over the original. The system itself continued to be [[Direct X]]-based like its predecessor, thus it was still relatively easy to port games from PC. This was greatly aided by Microsoft's developer tools; said tools have been praised by, among others, John Carmack of Id Software as the best development environment he's ever seen on a console, which helped mitigate the change of CPU architectures from an X86 Out-Of-Order CPU (very much like that in a PC) to a POWER-architecture based In-Order CPU (which requires more careful programming). The 360 continued what the original [[X Box]]'s trend with one difference: it finally began outselling [[Playstation Three|Sony's console]]. As a result, the 360 began getting more exclusive titles as well as securing many of the third-party franchises that were once glued to PlayStation consoles. Microsoft was beating Sony so badly in the [[Console Wars]] early on that, for a while, their primary competition came from Nintendo's unexpectedly successful [[Wii]].

▲As of the end of 2008, the 360 was in second place behind the Wii and still comfortably in the lead over the [[Playstation Three|PS3]] in most regions (apart from Japan, where its more modest sales are blamed on a lack of exclusive content aimed at Japanese games). That lead has narrowed since its initial release, while Microsoft has stopped dropping prices in favor of upgrading hard drive sizes and bundling additional software and features. The 360's business model in general relies on selling consoles at a loss (although, unlike the original Xbox, the 360 console has turned the corner into profitabilty) while [[Revenue Enhancing Devices|making money on]] accessories and [[Useful Notes/Digital Distribution|DLC]]. Online purchases are priced in "Microsoft Points," which allows users to make purchases without a credit card while reducing the credit card transaction fees Microsoft would otherwise have to pay.

▲Microsoft did have to take a few shortcuts to keep their system in a reasonable price range, including a cooling system that proved inadequate and a CPU that's a slightly modified version of the [[Play Station]] 3's Cell Processor PPE architecture, though limited to a 10 MB frame buffer. There were widespread reports of "Red Rings of Death" (i.e. general system failure) errors causing consoles to die abruptly, particularly in earlier hardware revisions of the console where the excess heat would cause the solder to melt and then set incorrectly as it cooled. In the end, Microsoft reported that more than ''half'' (51.4%) of all 360 systems were affected by the defects, and ultimately took the step of extending the 360's warranty to cover all general system failure issues for three years, at the cost of $3 billion.

▲A new hardware redesign, officially dubbed Xbox 360S or [[Product Facelift|Slim]] ("Valhalla" by its internal codename) premiered in the Summer 2010. The motherboard was streamlined further, even compared to the recent "Jasper" version, with the chipset shrinking to the just two chips (CPU, GPU and RAM all-in-one, made possible since they're now made by 45 nm process instead of original 90 nm), which greatly reduced costs and improved cooling. It also allowed the company to make the 250 GB HDD, encountered before only on the expensive ''Super Elite'' series, a standard equipment, and install it inside the case itself rather than the outside cab. WiFi is now standard, inside-the-case equipment as well, while the console's outer dimensions were significantly reduced; it now has a much more aggressive design, reminiscent of a cross between an original [[X Box]] and [[PS 2]].