2005

Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 continued the trend set by its predecessor the Xbox and employed an internal hard drive to save games on. Only Microsoft’s second foray into the video game console market, the Xbox 360 was going up against a highly anticipated release in the form of Sony’s PlayStation 3, as well as Nintendo’s Wii.

The Xbox 360 was released on November 22nd in the US & Canada, December 2nd in Europe and December 10th in Japan, launching in 36 countries in a single year; more than any other console. The 360 was met with favorable reception, with Microsoft making a vast improvement on the technology and design of the Xbox. One of the more impressive feats of the console was the way in which it dominated the 7th generation market for a large period of time despite being a relatively new entry in a market dominated by household names. The 360 retained the DVD format for its games, although sided with Toshiba’s HD-DVD format in the ‘format war’ between it and Blu-Ray discs, as championed by Sony. Microsoft released a HD-DVD add-on for its console, but discontinued support for the format after it failed to take off.

The Xbox also saw a prolonged product life period with the well-received release of the Xbox Kinect, in which gameplay is carried out through the use of sensors.