Microsoft XBOX 360
The Xbox 360 is the successor to Microsoft's Xbox video game console, developed in cooperation with IBM, ATI, Samsung and SiS. Information on the console first came through viral marketing campaigns and it was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The Xbox 360 is the first console to have a near-simultaneous launch across the three major regions, and the first to provide wireless controller support at launch. The console sold out completely at release and has since sold 6 million consoles worldwide. The Xbox 360 was the first console to be released in the seventh generation of game consoles and competes against Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. Its Xbox Live service allows gamers to compete online, download games and additional content.
Backward compatibility is achieved through software emulation of the original Xbox. Emulated games offer graphical enhancements because they are rendered in 720p, 1080i, or 1080p resolution with anti-aliasing enabled rather than the Xbox standard of 480p.Some games also benefit from an improvement in the rendered draw distance, possibly due to the system's greater memory bandwidth. However there are also games that do not perform well in emulation; these often exhibit a lower framerate on the Xbox 360. A hard drive and the downloading of an emulation profile is needed in order to play original Xbox games. Updated emulation profiles can be obtained through Xbox Live, by burning a CD with profiles downloaded from Xbox.com, or by ordering an update disc from Microsoft.[36] The full list of backward-compatible games is maintained at Xbox.com. Although the current U.S. list includes 267 games (about 30% of the total Xbox game library, as of the August 28 update); fewer titles are backward compatible in European and Japanese markets, with 194 and 64 titles respectively.[37] Microsoft has stated that they intend to release more emulation profiles as they become available, with a goal of making the entire Xbox library playable on the Xbox 360. They have since made multiple statements indicating that this may never be complete, and the rate of updates to the backwards compatibility list is in line with this stated attitude.