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Microsoft Announces Xbox 360 Price for Europe and North America: Starts at $299.99 U.S./299.99/£209.99

Feature-packed system brings high-definition gaming to the masses this holiday season.

LEIPZIG, Germany -- Aug. 17, 2005 -- Ending weeks of speculation about which upcoming video game platform will give gamers the most bang for their buck, today at the German Games Convention, Microsoft Corp. revealed that consumers can get their hands on Xbox 360(TM) -- the most powerful and feature-packed next-generation video game and entertainment system -- for as little as $299.99 U.S./299.99/£209.99 starting this holiday season. For gamers who want to experience the ultimate digital entertainment thrill ride, Microsoft also announced a model with hundreds of dollars worth of accessories for $399.99 U.S./399.99/£279.99, giving consumers the definitive entertainment experience at an unbelievable value right out of the box.

The Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Core System -- along with an impressive lineup of high-definition game titles from the world's best publishers and developers -- will make their debut in North America, Europe and Japan in time for this Christmas holiday, several months ahead of the competition. Although details for the Japan launch will be addressed at the Tokyo Game Show in September, the unprecedented three-region launch signifies an industry first. The Xbox 360 platform will deliver the most powerful console, the best games, the next generation of the Xbox Live® service, and amazing digital entertainment experiences never seen in console entertainment. "The sheer entertainment value of Xbox 360 cannot be overstated," said Robbie Bach, chief Xbox officer for Microsoft. "While the system has the muscle to power awe-inspiring graphics, audio and online play, it's also got the intelligence to serve as a one-of-a-kind entertainment device that plays CDs, DVDs, MP3s and digital content from an array of devices, including portable music players and digital cameras."

With its built-in Ethernet port and free Silver level of service right out of the box, Xbox 360 also connects players to Xbox Live, the premier global online console games and entertainment network. With Xbox Live, gamers can chat with friends online, build and share gamer profiles, send and receive text and voice messages, and access Xbox Live Marketplace for new content such as game demos, trailers and casual games from Xbox Live Arcade. Subscribers to the Gold level of service will also enjoy access to online multiplayer gaming in their favorite games, as well as great promotional programs such as worldwide tournaments, the chance to play online with their favorite celebrities, and opportunities to win big prizes.

For gamers who want the ultimate experience (and the best value) right out of the box, Microsoft will offer the $399.99 U.S./399.99/£279.99 Xbox 360 console. This premium edition -- distinguished by signature metallic detailing on the console itself -- comes fully loaded for the ultimate gaming experience, with components and accessories that would cost more than $200 if sold separately:

• Xbox 360 console. Sexy styling that packs a punch -- three powerful core processors are poised to pump out 720p/1080i output, 16x9 cinematic aspect ratio, anti-aliasing for smooth textures, full surround sound and DVD playback right out of the box.
• Xbox 360 Hard Drive (20 GB). 20 GB and detachable, the hard drive allows gamers to store their games, music, downloaded trailers, levels, demos and community-created content from Xbox Live Marketplace.
• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller. Hassle-free high-performance precision wireless gaming features the Xbox® Guide Button for q

I don't know where you read that they would have 1 gig memory cards. The Xbox 360 peripherials paga says that they will be 64 megs.

If Apple dumped IBM earlier, perhaps Sony would have gotten a clue. Heh, heh...

One problem with that statement.... the 360 is the console running off of the powerPC cores...

what I want to know is how the games will support HD without a HD-dvd drive...

Xbox 360 will come with a hard drive (XBOX 360 Fact Sheet), the hard drive is detachable and upgradble, but there will be a 20 gig hard drive when you buy it.

It also appears that it will be high def out of the box as well. Shipping with an High Def cable and Component Adapter.

Games like Battlefield 2 can easily be done on consoles

It is being done on a console.

Read http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm. The version they are shipping in November comes with a 20gb detachable drive.

There is a rumor that they will ship a budget version of the console without a drive at some point in the future, but it is just rumor at this point. Personally, I don't see that happening -- the hard drive is too much of an essential component of the next generation live service they're touting.

Yeah, well, so do Intel and AMD. Why does IBM think they have the inside track all of a sudden?

Probably because they are supplying the processors for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3?

I solved that problem

And it's still cheaper than keeping a gaming rig up to date, and less worrying than having some inane copy protection toast any of my non-game data.

Check out the games - arcade classics and games developed on the Torque engine for $10.

Admittedly you need to be on X-Box live to get this, but nonetheless MS are using their online service to enter the low priced market.

It's inevitable. Paying full price for a AAA that has graphics better than anything you've seen before is kinda worth it, but most games are merely slight improvements over previous incarnations. The back catalogue will catch up with the games market. And as graphics improvements become less noticable, as is looking to be the case when comparing the next generation of consoles with the previous generation, it will become increasingly difficult to sell games that are 3-4 times the price of games that are almost the same.

For some reason the last part of the post was removed, which is important for context since it contradicts the article and shows that Microsoft is ahead of the curve on this vs. its competitors. The last part originally read:

... The article says that this type of game '... is not found on the shelves of video game or consumer electronic stores. Nor is it sold on the DVD's that deliver interactive 3-D fantasies to millions of PlayStation 2 and Xbox game consoles,' but Microsoft already has its Xbox Live Arcade.

Yes, Xbox 360 will include a casual games component, no doubt because of research Microsoft obtained from the Arcade product.

Microsoft already has Xbox Live! Arcade, which allows you to download and purchase a lot of these games right on your Xbox. The Xbox 360 will additionally have Arcade built in. As far as them having the advantage over other consoles, I disagree. The Nintendo Revolution's main selling point is the downloading of additional games and content. In addition to this, there have been numerous talks from Nintendo to several independent developers about creating content more focused on gameplay than technology. And at the price point that I think we all know Nintendo's aiming for, the Revolution will be a much more viable solution for such "casual" gamers.

Um.. you'll be wanting an Xbox then, which can be had for $129 refurbished or $149 new, a subscription to Xbox Live - and a copy of the free Xbox Live Arcade disk.

Once you install Live Arcade, Bejeweled is available as an online purchase for $14.99.

They also have games like Zuma ($14.99), Mutant Storm ($9.99) - and Ms. Pac-Man is bundled free on the Live Arcade installation disk. Demos of most games are also available to download and try for free before you buy the full version.

Um.. you'll be wanting an Xbox then, which can be had for $129 refurbished or $149 new, a subscription to Xbox Live - and a copy of the free Xbox Live Arcade disk.

Once you install Live Arcade, Bejeweled is available as an online purchase for $14.99.

They also have games like Zuma ($14.99), Mutant Storm ($9.99) - and Ms. Pac-Man is bundled free on the Live Arcade installation disk. Demos of most games are also available to download and try for free before you buy the full version.

Um.. you'll be wanting an Xbox then, which can be had for $129 refurbished or $149 new, a subscription to Xbox Live - and a copy of the free Xbox Live Arcade disk.

Once you install Live Arcade, Bejeweled is available as an online purchase for $14.99.

They also have games like Zuma ($14.99), Mutant Storm ($9.99) - and Ms. Pac-Man is bundled free on the Live Arcade installation disk. Demos of most games are also available to download and try for free before you buy the full version.

Well, at least Lindsay Lohan isn't reading this. It's bad enough she went to the Halo 2 release party with her ex (warning: Windows Media video)...but rumors of Halo 3?!? She'd get a heart attack just thinking of that...

What is MS going to do? Buy a processor maker, motherboard company, and so on and be like Apple?

Um, no but something quite like it.

A Day in the Life of an International Halo 2 Tournament - Cabel vs. the World!!!

An insiders view of Australias Halo 2 representative - Cabel's progress to the finals.

The scene was set - it was the day of the World Halo 2 Xbox Live Championship Finals. The 24 Xbox Live Region champions had been decided and it was game on for the final series.

This was the worlds first global Xbox Live Halo 2 tournament and the final series was being decided by a playoff on Xbox Live. The global championship rounds were played on Friday June 10th in double elimination rounds. The 24 regional winners were sectioned into four pools of six players each. The top three moved on to the next round, while the bottom three from each group moved into an elimination bracket. Once a regional champion lost twice, they were eliminated. Each round lasted 10 minutes with unlimited kills. All the final matches were played on the new Halo 2 map, Warlock as a Free For All Slayer with standard SMG spawn (what! no BR you say ).

More info at: http://www.xbox.com/halo2/tournament.htm

Earlier in April; Cabel had beaten out a very strong field (including his brother who almost snaked the win ) in a close fought FFA at the BigPond Halo 2 Tournament to be crowned the Australian champ and our representative on the world stage.

I arrived at Microsoft Australia's Headquarters at about 6:45PM with the trusty 'XboxZone Com AU' server in hand. We had thought that given our location in the world that we needed every advantage we could get to overcome the tyranny of distance (or network latency LAG for you simple folks ). Cabel may be playing on the 10Mbit link at MS HQ but nothing compensates for the 200ms delay to most other countries. I offered my server Xbox for Cabel to play on for the night - it was hoped that since this Xbox has been hosting Halo 2 games pretty much non stop 24x7 since early January on a 100Mbit link that its awesome Halo 2 host record/rating (300+ clan matches, 1500+ Big Team Battles, 2000+ large custom games, etc) could steal it host in some important games. Alas it wasn't to be so - each of the finals matches was hosted by a Referee (XboxLiveCommish the guy in white hiding in the corner ) at MS HQ in the states - I suspect Bungie rigged things up so he'd always be host for every round - which is fair I guess with no player getting direct host advantage.

Cabel and his brother Senyo were already there with Pidge and Kumar from Microsoft and after a bit of networking jiggery pokery it was practice time before the first game at 9PM.

It was then Pizza ordering time and since we had to plan ahead for a long night (if we made it to the finals they wouldn't be played till 5AM - so think positive and plan to be needing food for the long haul ). Senyo got to order a crapload of pizzas for the four of us on Microsoft's account - nice

In the first round Cabel's pool included:

ii CaBeL ii - Australia
l Kobegod l - Taiwan
Otcho Boy - Switzerland
ZpiKeY - Norway
Billykater - Austria
GermanFreak - Denmark

Pregame chat in the lobby was pretty friendly and discovering that GermanFreak was in fact NOT from Germany but from Denmark was a bit of a head spin - but hey - whatever makes you happy

Cabel had a slow start but picked up the pace as he went along to eventually catch the leader just at the end equaling on Kills but taking the win on Assists and lower deaths.

Full game stats at: http://www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStats.aspx?gameID= 201030311

Our next round wasn't till midnight so it was going to be a long 3 hour wait - time for some practice, customs and a bit of matchmaking.

Cabel and his brother Senyo also whittled away the hours with some head to head and double teams on the fast link at Microsoft - I couldn't believe how many people quit the games against them or worse tho

Plus, Microsoft already has the small downloadable game thing rolling with Xbox Live Arcade.

I concur. I had to download Microsoft's Xbox 360 E3 videos a day after they were released using a torrent on a different site. The official site could barely spit out 15k/s. And this is Microsoft we're talking about. If they can't keep up demand, who can? There plenty of practical BitTorrent uses.

http://www.xbox.com/en-us/yourselffitness/default. htm?level1=enusgames&level2=catalog&level3=yoursel ffitness

20 GB removable drive as a standard - larger drives are speculated but haven't been announced.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

Wikipedia's PS3 Tech Specs

Official Xbox 360 Fact Sheet

Formula for Dot Product Operations Per Second to GFlops

Can someone who actually has a clue speculate on what it means to compare the

PS3: PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE * 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy

to the xbox360:
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

Also, what is XDR RAM? I've never heard of it, but the PS3 has 256MB of it running at 3.2GHz. It also has 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM at 700MHz.

The xbox360 has 512MB GDDR3 RAM at 700MHz unified, for the ATI video chip and CPU to share. How will these compare? Unified vs 256MB of blazing fast? Is it too late and or costly for Microsoft to switch to XDR?

I'm alarmed by the prospect of the Revolution using DVD discs. Why this fear? I'm afraid that its limited storage space will limit game designers.
Right now you might be thinking, "Are you insane? DVD-9 discs can store 9 gigs of data! What do you mean, limited?" Well, here's what I mean.
As most people probably know, both the Xbox and the PS2 use DVD discs. They both support DVD-5 and DVD-9. The support for DVD-9 indicates something; some games are too big to fit on one DVD-5 disc. This can be conclusively proven by looking at some recent games, like Xenosaga Episode II (see the bottom of the page, "Lasting Appeal"), which use multiple discs. At smallest size, these games are unable to fit on a single DVD-5 disc. At largest, they're too big to fit on a single DVD-9.
That's a lot of data.

I recently read in an article (probably in Game Informer, though I can't find it at the moment) that many recent games, including Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, only barely miss filling a DVD-9.
That this is on the PS2. A current-gen system.
I think that says something.

What I'm getting at here is that games are getting bigger and bigger. There's no way around it. As our technology improves and our systems become capable of bigger and better graphics, we must supply more and more data in order to make said graphics.
If a PS2, whose capabilities are far eclipsed by the next-gen systems, almost requires multiple discs, how will those next-gen systems fit all their data in the same space? Better graphics require more data: bigger textures, more polygons, more custom shaders, etc. So how will it all fit?
And bear in mind that this isn't even taking into account the data needed for the actual game. A lot of code and other data is needed for the actual game. Furthermore, the Revolution is supposed to be, as Nintendo says, "revolutionary". How much extra code will it take to do cool things with these "revolutionary" features? A lot, I imagine.

This poses a problem. Where will all that data go? It has to go somewhere. Sure, wonders can be worked with compression, and yes, Nintendo has somehow managed to shove DVD-5 games from other systems into the 1.8 gigs offered by its proprietary format, but there is a limit to how small things can get. Furthermore, too much compression will result in decreased performance, which is a bad thing.

This is definitely a big problem. Sony got around it by flinging enormous Blu-Ray discs into its next-gen system, aided somewhat by the fact that it partially owns that standard. For Nintendo or Microsoft to use Blu-Ray would require licensing the technology, and you can be sure Sony would charge them up the wazoo for both the drives and the discs.
That's a problem.

The way I see it, both Microsoft and Nintendo are in trouble if they use normal DVD drives on their next-gen systems. Nintendo possibly more so, depending on the "revolutionary" aspects of their device, but this doesn't change the fact that they're both rather screwed.
For Microsoft, it looks like it's already too late; the Xbox 360 specs declare that it has a "12x dual-layer DVD-ROM". There is still some hope left for Nintendo, though, as they've only announced support for "12cm optical disks", which could be nearly anything.

Here's to hoping that Nintendo chooses something better than DVD-9.

Microsoft has it written on their official Xbox site. I don't know.

This is a top list of super computers. Speed there is in GFlops, so divide by 1000 to convert to TFlops.

Going down to the first super-computer that has about 1TFlop of THEORETICAL maximum speed, I see this:

SGI Altix 1.3 GHz
208 processors (!)
Year: 2003

That's not shabby for the Xbox 360 to match up to. Or, put another way, it's only 1/70th the power of the fastest super-computer in the world.

You've got trailing slashes on your urls that the xbox site doesn't like. Try:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/peripheralsfacts heet.htm
and
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

You've got trailing slashes on your urls that the xbox site doesn't like. Try:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/peripheralsfacts heet.htm
and
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

No update here:
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/

so I do not care!

Lot of black clothing.
http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/73264CD0-D646-439 2-880C-CF5F4239F8FF/0/ilmmtvshoot003.jpg

Micro$oft Windozs Media Player Required.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xboxtv/default.htm?t=528 4&v=94031&bw=hi&

No update here:
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/

so I do not care!

Lot of black clothing.
http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/73264CD0-D646-439 2-880C-CF5F4239F8FF/0/ilmmtvshoot003.jpg

Micro$oft Windozs Media Player Required.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xboxtv/default.htm?t=528 4&v=94031&bw=hi&

Hate to sound like a troll...but, eh

The xbox360 is going to dominate the living room, sorry to say to all you pro-linux folks. With specs like this the Linux home system has some BIG shoes to fill.

The XBox Homepage doesn't work correctly with Mozilla (1.04) and looks darn ugly even with Internet Explorer...

The official detailed info and specs for the xbox 360 can be found at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm/ and http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/peripheralsfacts heet.htm/

The official detailed info and specs for the xbox 360 can be found at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm/ and http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/peripheralsfacts heet.htm/

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm If this thing comes in at console prices, why even get a PC. It will be hacked. I wonder what the price will be. That is a nice piece of hardware!!!

Duh, why am I asking you guys, when google knows all.

This circulates the "I made something, so pay me every time somebody makes something to add to it" attitude that fails. Do you pay M$ every time you make a PC game

Yes, as the Xbox is in essence a PC with a closed bootloader. And if the local telephone company has chosen to offer its Internet access "with MSN", yes. And if your game runs on Windows, yes. Or are most Windows games made with MinGW rather than Microsoft Visual C++?

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/xboxwirelessada pter.htm

Specs, whatever. On the Xbox site today they released some screenshots of the upcoming interface for the Next-Generation Xbox Guide.

Highlights include:

• Gamer Cards Gamer Cards provide gamers with a quick look at key Xbox Live(TM) information. They let players instantly connect with people who have similar skills, interests and lifestyles.
• Marketplace Browseable by game, by genre, and in a number of other ways, the Marketplace will provide a one-stop shop for consumers to acquire episodic content, new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, skins and new community-created content.
• Micro-transactions Breaking down barriers of small-ticket online commerce, micro-transactions will allow developers and the gaming community to charge as little as they like for content they create and publish on Marketplace. Imagine players slapping down $.99 to buy a one-of-a-kind, fully tricked-out racing car to be the envy of their buddies.
• Custom playlists This feature eliminates the need for developers to support custom music in games. The guide instantly connects players to their music so they can listen to their own tracks while playing all their favorite next-generation Xbox games.

My guess is that this kind of circumvents the whole hard drive issue, and also explains why they want all titles to be Live-enabled, so that players can acces music and game saves from their pcs, and possibly Xbox Live. On top of that, some of it looks pretty cool. Liked playing with a certain person? Check their profile, see what other games they play, how good they are, and how often. Check their slogan, and maybe they've got a link to their site/blog/whathaveyou. Personalizes the experience a lot more, letting you know better who you're playing with, instead of just looking at them as random cannon fodder.

But wasn't ...Halo 2 received with a collossal "meh"?
It really wasn't. It also still remains the most popular Xbox Live game even now, so it obviously has some longevity.

I would agree that it was hardly a perfect game, but it's crazy to suggest that most players were unhappy with it.

Windows Media Center Extender

Yes there is. It's called debt.

Maybe some of us don't like killing and shooting and being killed and shooting and getting shot at ad nauseum. Some of us are so much spending time driving cars around in circles and smashing into things, that we have no game time left for Halo....and the expense of HALO is too much for me credit card to bear.

Actually Microsoft sold the USB convertors themselves so that people could use USB Keyboards with Phantasy Star Online...

The Xbox controllers connect through a "modified" (read proprietary) version of USB too ;)

I just posted this exact same thing that got rejected.

Here is the link to get it repaired.

DVD playing was free on the launch PS2s in Japan, too. In fact, that's really the reason it did so well initially (being the cheapest DVD player around - though you definitely got what you paid for). For the first few months of its existence the PS2 actually had more consoles sold than games - Japanese people were using them as DVD players. So what extra built-in features are you referring to exactly?

I'm referring to the fact that to unlock the DVD player in the first shipped version of the PS2 in japan you had to pay about 30 U.S. dollars to get a disc which saved a special file on your memory card that unlocked DVD playback.

This is all ignoring that the hard drive (no memory cards!) and built-in ethernet on the Xbox

Fan boy.

This is one of the reasons I will never buy a console. Console games are geared to be throw-away games. i.e. You spend $50 on a FPS, and you are stuck with whatever maps the publisher sees fit to let you have. Even those games on the Xbox that have downloadable mods. Mods on Xbox live see: here are limited to publisher produced material. This means that you will never see a candyland map for Uneal Championship, or the gigantic burger joint map for that matter.

I have a few hundred megs of Maps for games like Unreal Tournament, Doom 3, Red Faction, Starcraft, etc, etc, etc. that were created by fans. I have a friend who is really into Morrowind, which is over 3 years old, and mods that offer nudity, god mode, extra locations, extra equipment, skins, and anything else some fan has the imagination and inclination to produce. He has been playing this game off and on for 3 years... I'm still playing Neverwinter Nights.

And for the game companies: attack your customers at your peril... We don't care about IP, we don't care whether you are too puritanical for nude skins, or whatever. A new game is a toy to us that will be used as we see fit. If you want to clamp down, many people simply won't buy from you. I sure as hell won't. And furthermore this makes me feel like I have made the right decision in avoiding the console market altogether.

Only for a limited time. Patents are temporary.

If the Supreme Court has given Congress carte blanche to "harmonize" the copyright term with that of other countries (Eldred v. Ashcroft), what's to keep Congress from "harmonizing" the patent term (currently 20 years from filing) with the copyright term (currently 70 years from the end of the year in which the last surviving author dies)? Even if not, do you find it just that the Free world should have to stay 20 years behind the state of the art?

I think what you mean to say is that [a BIOS that requires every compiled program to have been signed by the hardware vendor] would prevent such tasks, if it existed. At present it does not.

Wanna bet?

But if somebody creates one, should he not be allowed to sell it on the open market?

Should companies be allowed to sell computers that are incompatible by design with publicly available development tools to the exclusion of affordable computers that do work with publicly available development tools? No. Otherwise, what you will likely get is a de facto SSSCA/CBDTPA, where the entertainment industry is permitted to dictate what software gets published.

Don't give me that "I released it under a license" bullshit. Just release the work into the public domain.

The only practical differences between permissive licensing of a work and dedication to the public domain are that the author gets credited and more importantly that the author is able to disclaim implied warranties.

You can also find USB to Xbox adapters on the net.

Microsoft will send you one for free if you pay for shipping and handling: linky.

The X-Box has no keyboard, so unless you want to roleplay via voice chatter (in which case, "broadcast" and "shout" type messages will be more annoying than ever), this large part of the game is missing.

I bought Halo II, but it's just too simple -- shoot, shoot, shoot. Then shoot some more. And the aliens are dumb as can be. Yawn. It sure is pretty, though. For your $50, you get hours and hours of watching an extrodinarily well rendered... pair of arms with a weapon or two. Y-a-w-n. No wonder Mechassault is more fun. At least you can see who and what you are, as well as what is happening to you and what you are doing.

Anyway... nothing wrong with a sequel per se, just so long as it is done well. Hollywood doesn't do them well very often. But when they do, I go. Then I buy the DVD, too. Even so, I spend almost double on a single video game. $50 as compared to maybe $15 for a DVD plus about $10.00 to see the film in the theatre.

Things go wrong with videogame sequels too -- I bought Maximo II because Maximo was just awesomely cute, great gameplay. I love that game. Whoops. They took the cute pretty much right out. Now Maximo is a "tough guy." B-o-r-i-n-g. Sigh. Well, on the bright side, it's been so long since I played Maximo (I) that I could pick it up and play it like it was new -- skills gone, details foggy. Sometimes being old certainly has its advantages!