Description

The original Xbox did not do as well as Microsoft hoped but that didn’t stop them from trying again, the console had a significantly larger hard drive which meant players could download full triple A games and online play in games was drastically improved, the Halo series was more popular than it had ever been with the release of Halo 3 and plenty of new exclusive series started such as Gears of War and Viva Piñata. The launch was helped by the console’s price being lower than the PS3’s with the more expensive version of the 360 costing $100 less than the cheaper version of the PS3. The console was not without its own problems, the most infamous being the red ring of death which was when the console would display three red lights around the power button indicating a failure and in 2009 a warranty provider called SquareTrade estimated that 23.7% of all consoles had experienced it. The Xbox 360 was upgraded throughout its life through hardware upgrades and new accessories, in 2007 an HDMI port was added to the console to compete with the PS3 which had it from the start and in 2010 a new model called the Xbox 360 S was released which featured a hard drive that was harder to remove. One of the console’s most famous accessories was the Kinect which allowed people to play games just by moving and nearly half of all players owned one with its most successful game, Kinect Adventures, being one of the best selling games of all time. In 2006 Microsoft released an external HD DVD drive, this was a colossal flop due to Blu-Ray winning the format wars and was only made worse. by the PS3 having a built in Blu-Ray drive. The Xbox 360 is Microsoft’s best selling console but still failed to outsell the PS3.