XBOX CONSOLE GENERATION

 Main article: Xbox (console)

 Xbox console with "Controller S"

The original Xbox was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe. 

It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market. As part of the sixth-generation of gaming, the Xbox competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast (which stopped American sales before the Xbox went on sale), and Nintendo's GameCube. 

The Xbox was the first console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. The name Xbox was derived from a contraction of DirectX Box, a reference to Microsoft's graphics API, DirectX.

The integrated Xbox Live service launched in November 2002 allowed players to play games online with a broadband connection. It first competed with Dreamcast's online service but later primarily competed with PlayStation 2's online service. 

Although these two are free while Xbox Live required a subscription, as well as broadband-only connection which was not completely adopted yet, Xbox Live was a success due to better servers, features such as a buddy list, and milestone titles like Halo 2 released in November 2004, which is the best-selling Xbox video game and was by far the most popular online game for years.

Main article: Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 was released as the successor of the original Xbox in November 2005, competing with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. As of June 30, 2013, 78.2 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan.

The Xbox 360 introduced an expanded Xbox Live service (which now included a limited "Free" tier), the ability to stream multimedia content from PCs, while later updates added the ability to purchase and stream music, television programs, and films through the Xbox Music and Xbox Video services, along with access to third-party content services through third-party media streaming applications. Microsoft also released Kinect, a motion control system for the Xbox 360 which uses an advanced sensor system.

At their E3 presentation on June 14, 2010, Microsoft announced a redesigned Xbox 360 that would ship on the same day. The redesigned console is slimmer than the previous Xbox 360 model and features integrated 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, TOSLINK S/PDIF optical audio output, five USB 2.0 ports (compared to the three from older versions) and special port designed for the Kinect peripheral. Older models of the Xbox 360 have since been discontinued. The first new console to be released features a 250 GB hard drive, while a later less expensive SKU features 4 GB internal storage.

Main article: Xbox One

The Xbox One with the redesigned Kinect and controller.

The Xbox One will be released on November 22, 2013 in North America, as the successor of the Xbox 360. The Xbox One will compete with Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U as part of the eighth generation of video game consoles.

Announced on May 21, 2013, the Xbox One will place a large emphasis on internet-based features; including the ability to record and stream gameplay, and the ability to integrate with a set-top box to watch cable or satellite TV through the console with an enhanced guide interface and Kinect-based voice control.

Following its unveiling, the Xbox One proved controversial for its original digital rights management and privacy practices; while Microsoft touted the ability for users to access their library of games (regardless of whether they were purchased physically or digitally) on any Xbox One console without needing their discs, and the ability to share their entire library with 10 designated "family" members, all games would have to be tied to the user's Xbox Live account and their Xbox One console, and the console would be required to connect to the Internet on a periodic basis (at least once every 24 hours) in order to synchronize the library, or else the console would be unable to play any games at all. After an overwhelmingly negative response from critics and consumers (who also showed concerns that the system could prevent or hinder the resale of used games), Microsoft abandoned this system entirely. Microsoft was also criticized for requiring the Xbox One to have its updated Kinect peripheral plugged in to function, which critics and privacy advocates believed could be used as a surveillance device. Despite showing a commitment to user privacy, Microsoft still ultimately decided to allow the console to function without Kinect.

WIKI 

This article is about the "Xbox" brand. For the 2001 console, see Xbox (console). For other uses, see Xbox (disambiguation).

Xbox

Xbox.svg

Product type

Video gaming

Owner

Microsoft Corporation

Country

Microsoft Redmond Campus, Redmond, Washington, United States

Introduced

2001

Markets

Worldwide

Registered as a trademark in

Worldwide

The Xbox is a video gaming brand created by Microsoft. It includes a series of video game consoles developed by Microsoft, with consoles in the sixth to eighth generations, as well as applications, streaming services, and an online service, Xbox Live. The brand was first introduced on November 15, 2001 in the United States, with the launch of the original Xbox console.

The first console in the series, the Xbox, was the first console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. It reached over 24 million units sold as of May 10, 2006. Microsoft's most recently released console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005 and has sold over 77.2 million consoles worldwide as of April 18, 2013. The successor to the Xbox 360, the Xbox One, was revealed on May 21, 2013. It was announced on September 4, 2013 that the Xbox One would be released in 21 markets around the world on November 22, 2013.