Xbox is multi facet gaming project designed and developed by Microsoft. It is highly innovative and also considered the sixth generation gaming console. The first Xbox game console was launched in November 2001 in USA and then it followed and released in Japan, Australia and Europe. It is Microsoft’s first step to capture the gaming market which is currently owned by Sony and Nintendo.
Microsoft has always been keen on developing new technologies or updating its own products. It also understands the importance of rebranding and they discontinued the Xbox in 2006 and launched Xbox 360. Microsoft also discontinued the support of Xbox in 2008 and started replacing the faulty Xbox with latest Xbox 360. This console is a multi support console which can be connected the LCD TV, computer and any other display can be played over the network and stand alone as well. Microsoft provides various games online for the console which can be downloaded or played over the Internet.
Xbox 360 has been a pioneer in many ways for the gaming consoles. It was launched with the built-in hard disk which is used to store the data gathered from Xbox Live. This function eliminated the need for having a separate memory card for gaming console and it also makes it a bit economic because hard disk storage is cheaper and safer that the memory card.
Microsoft also provide an arena where an Xbox user can play all the major games online, this service is called Xbox Live where any Xbox user can register and subscribe for online multiplayer option. The services were launched in 2002 and it is also available for all the Xbox 360 users.
Theses online digital media and game distribution service is available through free and paid services. The paid service is known as Xbox Live Gold and free distribution is functioned with brand name of Xbox Live Silver however Microsoft has recently changed the Xbox Live Silver names into Xbox Live free. This is another step taken by company to garb the user attraction; because the more user comes to play the free service the more chances are there that they convert to Gold subscription to get maximum benefits.
The transformation of Xbox Live Silver took place to clearly differentiate between paid and free membership. Although, there has been to complaints in the past but Microsoft wanted to show clear picture in their online game distribution subsections.
There are also some other news that Microsoft is set to redesigned the online gaming concept including the streaming music and Zune services. So this step can also be considered the first and very small step for a bigger change. Users can only hope and wait for the best as it has been Microsoft’s key policies to create a great hue before launching any new idea or a product in the market.
