The Xbox 360 is the second video game console developed by and produced for Microsoft, and is the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.
As of December 2012, over 75 million Xbox 360 consoles have been shipped worldwide, and over 700 million units of software have been sold.
The Xbox 360 was first officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information being divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan.
Several major features of the Xbox 360 are its integrated Xbox Live service that allows players to compete online, download arcade games, game demos, trailers, TV shows, music and movies and its Windows Media Center multimedia capabilities. Xbox Live also offers region specific access to third-party media streaming application such as Netflix and ESPN in the US or Sky Go in the UK.
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 a special AUX port. 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.
With the announcement of the Xbox 360 S, Microsoft have said that they believe that the console is only mid-way through its life-cycle and will continue through 2015.
Development of the next system has since been implied by updates Microsoft employees have made to their resumes, which state that they were working on the next Xbox console.
