November 19th 2005

The Xbox 360 release is set for this Tuesday November 22^nd and it is highly anticipated.  It is expected to be this holiday’s hottest retail item.  Microsoft expects to sell between 4.5 and 5.5 million units by March.

In fact some stores have already sold out.  According to Punch Jump Wal-Mart “previously sold out of Xbox 360 bundles that ranged from $579.06 to $719.24. “    The retailer has also has sold out of their stand alone units for online sales.  The X-box 360 will be available in their stores at 12 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

The release of the 360 will likely spark a “console war”.  Other console makers including Sony and Nintendo may lower their price trying to pull gamers from other platforms.  Sony lost 25 million in their game division in the last quarter of 2004 as Microsoft’s original X-box finally outsold the Giant from Japan. 

Microsoft has learned from their previous Xbox release debacle.  Game developers were slow to develop competitive games for the console.  It was a new machine and some developers already had investments in other platforms.  X-box has caught up now.

The new Xbox is backwards-compatible so the older games will play on the new box.  212 games playable on the original will also play on the Xbox 360.  According to Gamespot Microsoft confirms that its next-generation console will play many games for its current-console, including Halo, Ninja Gaiden, KOTOR, Fable, GTA, and more.  

Here is a quick list of some of the popular games playable on the new console: Halo and Halo 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic I and II, Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black, and the three Grand Theft Autos: III, Vice City, and San Andreas.

If you want to use the legacy games on the new console the 360 must be hooked up to Xbox live when you insert the game.  The system will check to see whether the console has the latest emulation software.  If the emulation software is not installed, it can be downloaded automatically.  Then just restart the system and go.

You will need the 360 hard drive installed to store the backward-compatibility software.  The new 360 hard drives will come with Halo and Halo2 software preinstalled.  If you do not want to log into Xbox.com to download the emulators you can request a CD containing the drivers from Microsoft for a minor fee.