Xbox Successor Unveiled

Xbox 360, the second generation of Microsoft’s game console, is meant to usurp Sony’s leadership position with a combination of high-definition games, new digital media functions, and opportunities to expand and customize the console. By releasing the console worldwide in 2005-at least six months before the successors to Sony’s PlayStation 2 (PS2) and Nintendo’s GameCube-Microsoft could establish a market advantage and garner wide support from game developers and publishers. But unless the company can do a better job of keeping hardware costs under control in this generation, the price of any success will be steep.

Key Features: Expandability, Digital Media

Microsoft unveiled the Xbox 360 on May 12, 2005, in a special broadcast on MTV, then followed up with demonstrations and briefings at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) the following week. The console, which will be released in North America in fall 2005 and in Europe and Japan by the end of the year, boasts many improvements over the current Xbox. The console itself is smaller, lighter, and sleeker; is designed to be used in either a horizontal or standing position; and will be customizable with detachable faceplates. Unlike the first Xbox, which incorporated off-the-shelf components found in many typical PCs available at the same time, Xbox 360 will be more powerful than contemporary top-of-the-line PCs and will be built around a three-core 3.2GHz PowerPC-based processor designed by Microsoft and IBM. (For more details about the console’s hardware specifications, see the illustration “Xbox 360“.)