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.

When equipped with a removable hard drive add-on, the Xbox 360 supports a limited subset of the Xbox's 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 for free through Xbox Live or as a file download to be burned to a CD/DVD from the Xbox web site. As the architectures are entirely different between Xbox and Xbox 360, software emulation is the only viable option for compatibility without including processors from the original Xbox,.

Multiplayer gaming in XBOX

The Xbox has an online multiplayer gaming service called Xbox Live. Originally, it was planned to use the MSN Gaming Zone for Xbox games that was supposed to support online multiplayer gaming, allowing both users of Windows and Xbox play together; however this never happened because MSN Gaming Zone was not accurate enough for the Xbox. Arcade games similar to those games offered on MSN Games are playable on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade. The ability to connect to Windows computers in a game that uses Xbox Live (which is not possible using Xbox Live) is also being incorporated by the release of Games for Windows - Live.

On November 15, 2002, Microsoft launched its Xbox Live online gaming service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with (or against) other subscribers all around the world and download new content for their games to the system's hard drive. This online service works exclusively with a broadband Internet connection. Approximately 250,000 subscribers had signed up within 2 months of Xbox Live's launch [7]. In July 2004, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had reached 1 million subscribers, and one year later, in July 2005, that membership had reached 2 million. An Xbox Live Gold subscription (which affords the user the most features of any membership) currently costs US$50 a year (roughly US$4 a month). Recently, competitive leagues have been created, namely playing "Halo 2." Leagues include prizes and sponsorships.

Xbox Elite is not so impressive

With more details emerging about the Xbox Elite, we're finding that the provided HDMI isn't quite the Holy Grail—at least according to one AVS forums Microsoft "insider."

While you already know that the new Xbox Elite will feature HDMI like its PS3 counterpart has since launch, the Elite's HDMI will be slightly gimped, running at the 1.2 standard instead of the 1.3. What does this mean for you? Neither of the newest Lossless formats (Dolby Digital+ nor True HD) can be passed through its HDMI (not that you'd notice in most TV audio setups).

This is not to say I wouldn't still trade my 20GB model for the Elite—I'd just be a bit less pleased with the whole experience. On the plus side, a Spring update should bring 1080p IRE-level adjustments to the VGA port on all 360 models.