Xbox

The Xbox was initially developed at Microsoft by a small team that included game developer Seamus Blackley. Microsoft delayed the console, which was revealed in 1999 following interviews of Microsoft boss Bill Gates. Bill Gates stated that a gaming device was essential for multimedia convergence in the future.

Xbox was the first console to incorporate a hard disk, used mainly for storing games compressed into archives and content downloads from Xbox Live. This reduced the need for separate memory cards. Most of the games also use the hard drive as a cache, for faster loading times. Some games support "custom soundtracks", another unusual feature allowed by the hard drive. An Xbox owner can rip music from a standard CDs to the hard drive and play their own soundtrack, in addition to the soundtrack of Xbox game itself.

The Xbox itself is larger and heavier than other models of game console. This is due to a bulky tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the 3.5 inch hard drive. The Xbox pioneered some safety features, such as breakaway cables for the controllers.

Xbox 360

The main unit of the Xbox 360 itself has slight double concavity in matte white or black. It features a port on the top to which a custom-housed hard drive unit can be attached in sizes of either 20 or 120 GB. Inside, the Xbox 360 uses the triple-core IBM designed Xenon as its CPU. Graphics processing is handled by the ATI Xenos which has 10MB of embedded RAM. Its main memory pool is 512MB in size.

The Xbox 360 has had a number of technical issues. Since the console's release in 2005, the product earned note in the press questioning its reliability and failure rate of the early consoles.

To aid customers with defective consoles, Microsoft has extended the Xbox 360's manufacturer's warranty to three years for general failure errors. "General Hardware Failure" is recognized by three adjacent quadrants of the ring flashing red. This error is often known as the "Red Ring of Death".

Since these problems surfaced, attempts have been made to the console to improve reliability. Modifications include a reduction in the number, size and placement of components, and the addition of dabs of epoxy on the corners and edges of the CPU and GPU, as glue to prevent movement relative to the board during heat expansion, and a second GPU heatsink to dissipate more heat, however todate, these modifications have not fully cured the Xbox 360 relability issues.

Xbox 540

The Xbox 540 is due for launch in the autumn of 2009.

It will feature the new Valhalla chip combining processor and graphics, enabling Microsoft to skinny its console down, PS2 style. It's also claimed to be faster and quieter, though there's no mention of the a Blu-ray drive to bring it in line with the PS3 after the HD DVD debacle.

Also in the rumours, from the good folk at Kotako, is a "potentially legitimate" list of new functions for the annual 360 spring update.

Way too long to divulge in full here, tantalising highlights include more confirmation of the Newton motion controller as well as bizarre hints of a news and weather service, extra hard drive game data and four-person video conferencing.

Microsoft has gone all out with a full denial saying it doesn't comment on rumours or speculation, and it's never seen the list before. Thwarted.

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