X-bit labs

Microsoft Xbox 360 Due in November, New Images Hit the Web.

Category: Multimedia

by Anton Shilov

[ 05/09/2005 | 06:30 AM ]

MTV, a launch partner of Microsoft for the Xbox 360 console, unveiled timeframe of availability of new games for the forthcoming Microsoft game machine, which are due in November. Also during the weekend a number of web-sites published photos of the game console itself as well as its controllers.

Ads currently broadcasted by MTV promise that a special feature dedicated to Xbox 360 to be shown on the 12^th of May will include “trailers of the newest games that are due out in November for the new Xbox”, reports Gamespot web-site. The listing seems to bolster suspicions that the next Xbox will launch on the fourth anniversary of the original Xbox’s release in mid-November 2001. Nevertheless, in spite of the apparent phrasing of the MTV citation, Microsoft officials denied to comment on it presently.

“This year…we are going to ship this next Xbox,” Bill Gates is reported to have said during this year’s annual meeting of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in early May, 2005.

 
Photos from Xbox365.com and Engadget.com web-sites

Meanwhile a number of web-sites published pictures of the Xbox 360 console as well as its controllers, including joystick and remote. The photo of the remote is blurry and the functions the device will do are unclear, though, it could be seen that the remote has a set of buttons common for CD or DVD players, “back” “display”, “end memo” as well as “Windows” buttons.

In a research note released to clients in mid-April, 2005, Goldman Sachs projected that Microsoft’s next Xbox console will go on sale in October or November, 2005, and claimed that the software giant may ship 3 million units already this year. In the first two weeks of sales more than a million of Microsoft Xbox consoles were sold in 2001 and the company said it aimed to ship up to 1.5 million of the Xbox machines totally in 2001.

Microsoft Xbox 360 console is based around microprocessor developed by IBM, high-definition visual processing unit designed by ATI Technologies, I/O controller engineered by SiS and some other key components. The gaming machine will feature wireless network connectivity and will provide a broad set of multimedia capabilities, it is projected.