The
Xbox (name derived from "
DirectX box") is a
video game console produced by
Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray
into the gaming console market, and competed with
Sony's
PlayStation 2,
Sega's
Dreamcast, and
Nintendo's
GameCube. The integrated
Xbox
Live service allows players to
compete
online.
The Xbox was released on November 15, 2001 in North America,
February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and
Europe. It is the predecessor to Microsoft's
Xbox 360 console. It was discontinued in late 2006,
although the
final Xbox game (
Madden NFL 09) was released in August 2008.
Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was discontinued on March
2, 2009; any in-warranty repair now needed will not be undertaken
and faulty consoles will replaced with an XBOX360 instead.
History
The console was
Microsoft's first product
that ventured into the video game console market, after having
collaborated with
Sega in porting
Windows CE to the
Dreamcast console. The Xbox first edition was
initially developed by a small Microsoft team that included game
developer
Seamus Blackley. Microsoft
repeatedly delayed the console, which was first mentioned in late
1999 during interviews with then-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Gates
stated that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia
convergence in the new times, confirmed by Microsoft with a
press release. When Bill Gates unveiled
the Xbox at the Game Developers Conference in 2000, audiences were
dazzled by the console's technology. At the time of Gates'
announcement, Sega's Dreamcast was diminishing and Sony's
PlayStation 2 was just hitting the streets in Japan.
Concentrating on making a big splash in Japan, Microsoft delayed
its European launch, though Europe later proved to be the more
receptive market. Two of the original members of the Xbox team,
Seamus Blackley and Kevin Bachus,
left the company early on. The other founding members, Otto Berkes
and Ted Hase, are still with Microsoft, but no longer working on
the Xbox project.
Some of Microsoft's plans proved effective. In preparation for its
launch, Microsoft acquired Bungie and used
Halo: Combat Evolved as its launch
title. At the time, Goldeneye 007, for Nintendo 64, had been one of
the few hit
FPS games to appear
on a console, some of other ones being Perfect Dark and Medal of
Honor. The Bungie acquisition proved itself, giving Microsoft a
good application to drive its sales. In 2002, Microsoft overtook
Nintendo to capture the second place slot
in consoles sold in North America.
Popular
launch games for the console
included
Dead or Alive 3,
Amped: Freestyle
Snowboarding,
Halo:
Combat Evolved,
Fuzion
Frenzy and
Project
Gotham Racing.
The name for the Xbox was originally the DirectX box as it came
from a group of Microsoft DirectX developers, but later changed to
Xbox after focus testing. The marketing team apparently "created
this whole, long list of better names for the machine", former
Microsoft VP of game publishing Ed Fries said in a interview with
Gamasutra.
Xbox 360
Nvidia
ceased
production of the Xbox's GPU in August 2005, which marked the end
of Xbox production and the quick release of the Xbox 360 on November 22, 2005. The Xbox 360
had superior storage, audio and video capabilities compared to the
original Xbox.
When equipped with a removable hard drive add-on, the Xbox 360
supports
a
limited number of the Xbox's game library through emulation.
Emulation adds support for
anti-aliasing as well as upscaling of the
still standard definition image. These emulators are periodically
updated to add compatibility for older games and are available free
through Xbox Live or as a file download to be burned to a DVD-R
from the Xbox web site. These updates are also available monthly as
part of the demo disc that comes with each issue of
Official Xbox Magazine. As the
architectures are different between Xbox and Xbox 360, software
emulation is the only way to have compatibility without including
processors from the original Xbox.
Hardware

Xbox drives
Technical specifications
-
- Shared memory subsystem
- 64 MB DDR
SDRAM at 200 MHz; in dual-channel 128-bit configuration
giving 6400 MB/s
- Supplied by Hynix or Samsung depending on manufacture date and
location
- GPU and system chipset: 233 MHz "NV2A"
ASIC.
Co-developed by Microsoft and Nvidia
.
- Geometry engine: 115 million vertices/second, 125 million particle/second (peak)
- 4 pixel pipelines with 2 texture units each
- 932 megapixel/second (233 MHz x 4
pipelines), 1,864 megatexels/second
(932 MP×2 texture units) (peak)
- Peak triangle performance (32pixel divided from filrate):
29,125,000 32-pixel triangles/s raw or w. 2 textures and lit.
- 485,416 triangles per frame at 60 frame/s
- 970,833 triangles per frame at 30 frame/s
- 8 textures per pass, texture
compression, full scene
anti-aliasing (NV Quincunx, supersampling, multisampling)
- Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic texture filtering
- Similar to the GeForce 3 and
GeForce 4 PC GPUs
- Storage media
- Audio processor: NVIDIA "MCPX" (a.k.a. SoundStorm "NVAPU")
- Integrated 10/100BASE-TX wired ethernet
- DVD movie playback (Add-on required)
- A/V outputs: composite video,
S-Video, component video, SCART,
Digital Optical TOSLINK, and stereo RCA analog audio
- Resolutions: 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i
- Controller ports: 4 proprietary USB 1.1 ports
- Weight: 3.86 kg (8.5 lb)
- Dimensions: 320×100×260 mm (12.5×4×10.5 in)
Components
The Xbox was the first to wield a
hard
disk drive, used primarily for storing game saves and content
downloaded from Xbox Live. This eliminated the need for separate
memory cards (although some older
consoles, such as the
TurboGrafx-CD,
Sega CD and
Sega Saturn
had featured built-in battery backup memory prior to 2001). An Xbox
user could
rip music from
standard audio CDs to the hard
drive, and these songs were used for the custom soundtracks in some
games.
The Xbox was the first gaming product to feature Dolby Interactive
Content-Encoding Technology, which allows real-time Dolby Digital
encoding in game consoles. Previous game consoles could only use
Dolby Digital 5.1 during non-interactive "cut scene"
playback.
The Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and is much larger and
heavier than its contemporaries. This is largely due to a bulky
tray-loading
DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size
3.5 inch hard drive. The Xbox has also pioneered safety features,
such as breakaway cables for the controllers to prevent the console
from being pulled from the surface it rests on.
Several internal hardware revisions have been made in an ongoing
battle to discourage
modding (hackers
continually updated
modchip designs in an
attempt to defeat them), to cut manufacturing costs, and to make
the DVD-ROM drive more reliable (some of the early units' drives
gave Disc Reading Errors due to the unreliable Thomson DVD-ROM
drives used). Later generation units that used the Thomson TGM-600
DVD-ROM drives and the Philips VAD6011 DVD-ROM drives were still
vulnerable to failure that rendered the consoles either unable to
read newer discs or caused them to halt the console with an error
code usually indicating a
PIO/
DMA identification failure,
respectively. These units were not covered under the extended
warranty.
In 2002
Microsoft and Nvidia
entered
arbitration over a dispute on the pricing of Nvidia's chips for the
Xbox. Nvidia's filing with the
SEC indicated that
Microsoft was seeking a US$13 million discount on shipments for
NVIDIA's fiscal year 2002. Microsoft alleged violations of the
agreement the two companies entered, sought reduced chipset
pricing, and sought to ensure that Nvidia fulfill Microsoft's
chipset orders without limits on quantity. The matter was privately
settled on February 6, 2003.
Launch-era
Xbox gaming units were made in Hungary
and the
controllers made mostly in Indonesia
.
Accessories
The Xbox controller features two
analog
sticks, a pressure sensitive directional pad, two analog
triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots and
six 8-bit analog action buttons (A/Green, B/Red, X/Blue, Y/Yellow,
and Black and White buttons.) The standard Xbox controller (also
known as the "Duke" controller) was originally the Xbox controller
for all territories except Japan. The Duke controller has been
criticized for being bulky compared to other video game controllers
(it was awarded "Blunder of the Year" by
Game Informer in 2001 and a Guinness
World Record for the biggest controller in
Guinness World Records
Gamer's Edition 2008, as well as being ranked the second worst
video game controller ever by
IGN editor
Craig Harris.). The
Controller S, a smaller, lighter Xbox controller, was originally
the standard Xbox controller only in Japan (codenamed "Akebono"),
designed for users with smaller hands.
The Controller S was released in other territories by popular
demand, and eventually replaced the standard controller in the
Xbox's retail package, with the larger original controller
available as an accessory. An 8 MB removable
solid state memory
card can be plugged into the controllers, onto which game saves
can either be copied from the hard drive when in the Xbox
dashboard's memory manager or saved during a game. Most Xbox games
can be copied to the memory unit and to another console but some
Xbox saves are digitally signed, each console has a unique signing
key, and some games (e.g.,
Ninja Gaiden and
Dead or Alive
Xtreme Beach Volleyball) will not load saved games signed
by a different Xbox, limiting the utility of the memory card. Some
game saves can be tagged as uncopyable or simply padded to over 8
MB (
Star
Wars: Knights of the Old Republic). The signing mechanism
has been reverse-engineered by the Xbox hacking community, who have
developed tools to modify savegames to work in a different console,
though the signing key of the recipient Xbox (the "HDkey"), and the
ramped-up title key of the game (the "authkey"),must be known. It
is also possible to save an Xbox Live account on a memory unit, to
simplify its use on more than one Xbox. The Xbox includes a
standard AV cable which provides
composite video and
monaural or
stereo
audio to TVs equipped with
RCA
inputs. European Xbox's also included an RCA jack to
SCART converter block as well as the standard AV
cable.
Emulation
See also: cxbx
Operating System
The Xbox runs a custom
operating
system which was once believed to be a modified version of the
Windows 2000 kernel. It exposes
API similar to APIs found
in
Microsoft Windows, such as
DirectX 8.1.
Sandy Duncan, former VP of Xbox in Europe, however states that "the
[Xbox] Kernel was based on Windows NT...but that was about 150K of
code....". The system software may have been based on the
Windows NT architecture that powered
Windows 2000; it is not a modified version of
either.
The
user interface for the Xbox is
called the Xbox Dashboard. It features a
media player that can be
used to play music CDs, rip CDs to the Xbox's built-in
hard drive and play music that has been ripped to
the hard drive; let users manage game saves, music and downloaded
content from Xbox LIVE; and lets Xbox LIVE users sign in and manage
their account. the dashboard is only available when the user is not
watching a movie or playing a game. It uses many shades of green
and black for the user interface, to be consistent with the
physical Xbox color scheme. When the Xbox was released in 2001 the
LIVE service was not online yet, so the dashboard's LIVE feature
was unusable.
Xbox LIVE was released in 2002, but in order to access it users had
to buy the Xbox LIVE starter kit containing a
headset, a subscription, and
supplemental. While the Xbox was still being supported by
Microsoft, the Xbox Dashboard was updated via Xbox LIVE several
times to reduce cheating and add features.
Xbox Live

Xbox Live logo
On November 15, 2002, Microsoft launched its Xbox Live online
gaming service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with
other subscribers around the world and download new content
directly to the system's
hard drive. The
online service works only with a
broadband
Internet connection. Approximately 250,000 subscribers signed up
within two months of Xbox Live's launch. In July, 2004, Microsoft
announced that Xbox Live had reached one million subscribers; in
July, 2005, membership reached two million, and by July 2007 there
were more than 3 million subscribers. By May, 2009, the number had
ballooned to 20 million current subscribers.
Games
The Xbox launched in North America on November 15, 2001. Its most
successful
launch game was
Halo: Combat Evolved which was
praised by critics. Its sequel,
Halo
2, is the
best-selling
first-generation Xbox game worldwide. Although there were
several more popular second-party launch titles. including
NFL Fever 2002,
Project Gotham Racing, and
Dead or Alive 3, the early
public reputation of the Xbox was damaged by the failure of
Azurik: Rise of
Perathia and other games designed and marketed by
Microsoft.
Although the console gained strong third party support from its
inception, many early Xbox games did not fully use its powerful
hardware, with few additional features or graphical improvements to
distinguish them from the PS2 version, thus negating one of the
Xbox's main selling points. Sony countered the Xbox for a short
time by temporarily securing PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly
anticipated games such as the
Grand Theft Auto series
and
Metal Gear
Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
In 2002 and 2003, several releases helped the Xbox gain momentum
and distinguish itself from the PS2. The
Xbox
Live online service was launched in late 2002 alongside pilot
titles
MotoGP,
MechAssault and
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon.
Several best-selling and critically praised titles for the Xbox
were published, such as
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell,
Ninja Gaiden
and
LucasArts'
Star Wars: Knights of the
Old Republic.
Take-Two
Interactive's exclusivity deal with
Sony was amended to allow
Grand Theft Auto III
and its
sequels to be
published for the Xbox. Many other publishers got into the trend of
releasing the Xbox version alongside the PS2 version, instead of
delaying it for months.
In 2004
Halo 2 became the
highest-grossing release in entertainment history, making over $125
million in its first day and becoming Xbox Live's first
killer app. That year Microsoft made a
deal to put
Electronic Arts's
popular titles on
Xbox Live.
The last game released on the Xbox was
Madden NFL 09, on August 12, 2008.
Marketing
Sales
Region |
Units
sold
(as of May 10, 2006) |
First available |
North America |
16 million |
November 15, 2001 |
Europe |
6 million |
March 14, 2002 |
Asia |
2 million |
February 22, 2002 |
Worldwide |
24 million |
On
November 15 2001, Xbox launched in
North America and quickly sold out. Its competitor, the
Nintendo GameCube launched in
September.
The Xbox has sold 24 million units worldwide as of May 10, 2006,
according to Microsoft. This is divided out to 16 million units
sold in North America, six million units in Europe, and two million
units sold in Asia.
UK advertising controversy
In 2002
the Independent
Television Commission (ITC) banned a television advertisement
for the Xbox in the United Kingdom
after complaints that it was highly distasteful,
violent, scary and upsetting. It depicted a mother giving
birth to a small boy who was fired like a projectile through a
hospital window and who aged rapidly as he flew through the air
yelling. As he soared across a large area, he passed quickly
through stages of his life as though time was passing him by. After
aging into an old man, he crash-landed into his own grave. Dust and
smoke poured from the grave. The advertisement ended with the
slogan
Life is short. Play more.
Modding
The popularity of the Xbox, as well as (in the United States) its
comparatively short 90-day warranty, inspired efforts to circumvent
the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms, a practice
informally known as
modding. Within a few
months of its release the Xbox BIOS was dumped and hacked by MIT
student
Andrew Huang so that it would
skip digital signature checks and media flags, allowing unsigned
code, Xbox game backups, etc., to be run. This was possible due to
flaws in the Xbox's security. Modding an Xbox in any manner will
void its warranty, as it may require disassembly of the console.
Having a modified Xbox may also disallow it from accessing Xbox
Live if detected by Microsoft, as it contravenes the Xbox Live
Terms of Use, But most modchips can be
disabled, allowing the Xbox to boot in a "stock" configuration.
Softmods can be disabled by "coldbooting" a game (having the game
in the DVD drive before turning the console on, so the softmod is
not loaded) or by using a multiboot configuration.
There are four main methods of modding the Xbox:
- Modchip: installing a modchip inside the
Xbox that bypasses the original BIOS, with a hacked BIOS to
circumvent the security mechanisms.
- TSOP flashing:
reflashing the onboard BIOS chip with a hacked BIOS to circumvent
the security mechanisms. The Xbox BIOS is contained on a commodity
EEPROM (the 'TSOP'), which can be made
writable by the Xbox by bridging points on the motherboard.
Flashing is usually carried out by using a specially crafted
gamesave (see 'Game save exploit', below) to flash the onboard
TSOP, but the TSOP can also be de-soldered and re-written in a
standard EEPROM programmer. This method only works on 1.0 to 1.5
Xboxes, as later versions replace the commodity TSOP with an LPC
ROM contained within a proprietary chip.
- Softmods: installing additional software
files to the Xbox hard drive, which exploit programming errors in
the Dashboard to gain control of the system, and overwrite the
in-memory copy of the BIOS. Soft modification is known to be safe
for Xbox Live if the user enables multibooting with the Microsoft
dashboard and an original game disc is used.
- Game save exploit: using select official game releases to load
game saves that exploit buffer overflows in the save game handling.
When these special game saves are loaded, they access an interface
with scripts for installing the necessary softmod files.
Disassembly of the Xbox is not required when installing most game
save exploits.
- Hot swapping: using a computer to
change the data on the hard drive. This requires having the Xbox
unlock the hard drive when it is turned on, then swapping the
powered hard drive into a running computer. By using a Linux-based
Live CD, data on the hard drive can be read, altered, and deleted.
In most cases, an automated script will automatically install the
softmod files directly to the Xbox hard drive. This technique has
been used extensively to harbor cheating on many online games.
Disassembly of the console is required to perform a hot swap.
Features
Although technologically many aspects of the Xbox are out of date
there is still a large following who continually build upon the
capabilities of the original. No matter the method of an Xbox the
features and results are relatively the same. Here is a list of
features.
- Dashboards - A hacked dashboard can also resort back to the
original "MS" dashboard. A hacked dashboard is able to backup
information, install and uninstall programs.
Alternative operating systems
Beyond gaming, a modded Xbox can be used as a media center with
XBMC.
There are also distributions of Linux developed specifically for
the Xbox, including those based on
Gentoo,
Debian (see also
Xebian),
Damn Small Linux, and
Dyne:bolic.
List of alternative operating systems:
One advantage over a regular, unmodded Xbox, is the ability to use
a
trainer.
References
External links