On March 10, 2000, Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft Corporation, announced the company's plans to manufacture a new

video game console during the Game Developers Conference. The Xbox console was said to be three times more powerful than the leading video game console of the day. A few month later, Microsoft demonstrated what the Xbox console could do at the E3 entertainment conference to a crowd. At this point, Microsoft only had tech demos and needed a game to fully show how the Xbox would function. So, at the E3 conference, Microsoft and the developers of an obscure but impressive game called Halo first get together for mutual benefit. Microsoft needed a game to fill an empty spot in the Xbox demo lineup, and the Halo developers needed a big name to jumpstart an advertisement program for their game. Before the Xbox was officially released, Microsoft had gained the support of over 150 game developers, including two of the biggest: EA and Sega. Due to remarkable teamwork between Microsoft and EA, several Xbox games, including the NASCAR franchise, would be ready to be released before the Xbox itself was released. Gaining the support of Sega gave gamers in Japan a reason to be interested in the Xbox.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS PIONEER

The original Xbox was released in North America on November 14, 2001. Despite Nintendo releasing the GameCube only three days later, Microsoft sold over 1 million units in the first three weeks after the release date. This is a huge accomplishment, especially considering the critics who said that the console was too expensive and too ugly and that the controllers were too big. Because of the teamwork between Microsoft and game-developing companies, several big label games such as "Halo" and "Dead or Alive 3" are released at the same time, so many consumers not only bought the Xbox console, but also several games.

The game console was not as well received in Japan. After the Japan release date of February 22, 2002, only 123,000 units sold in the first week, and many stores began discounting the Xbox during the first month. In Europe, the Xbox had more success. Though slow to start selling after the release date of March 14, 2002, Xbox sales rapidly increased, helped by the popularity of the "Halo" game. Xbox console sales were further helped by a dramatic price cut just a month after the original release. Microsoft dropped the price of the Xbox from $299 to $199, which brought the price to a level that many households could afford. In November 2002, a year after the original release of the Xbox console, Microsoft began an online gaming service called Xbox Live. This service allows gamers to play with others from around the world, as well as

allowing consumers to download games to their Xbox console straight from the Internet. This service proved popular, as Microsoft announced in July 2005 that 2 million gamers used the Xbox Live service.

THE SECOND PART OF THE HISTORY

The official launch of the Xbox 360 was on May 12, 2005 on MTV and information was then released later at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in regards to the actual machine launch. Once the machine was available for purchase, it was sold out everywhere but in Japan. As of January 2010, there have been 39 million of these console machines sold worldwide. There are two different versions of the 360 - the Arcade and the Elite which each have a different demographic. The launch of the Xbox 360 took place in the desert with thousands of gamers there to celebrate this new machine. Many consoles were setup with high definition displays and surround sound speakers to allow everyone to try out the new machines. Live entertainment was also provided and there was a special gift handed out for all that attended this event. Many of the attendees did not make use of the hotels, preferring to sleep in the bean bags that were provided for them to use if they did choose to sleep. Games were being played at all hours, and it felt like one large LAN party. Due to the fact that Microsoft only started production of the Xbox 360 a few months before the launch, they were not able to provide enough units initially. As a result, there were many disappointed customers at the launch. But by the end of 2005, 1.5 million units had been shipped out to customers. Microsoft had a years jump on the competition, and promised to have 10 million units out by the time the other companies were out on the market. The Xbox 360 was the market leader until 2007 until the Wii was released. With the launch of Halo 3 in October of 2007, Microsoft was able to take back the lead in the home gaming system, selling approximately 30,000 more units than the Wii. The console currently has approximately 1,000 titles for gamers with a variety of titles. The most popular games have several features that appeal to the people that play them such as eye catching graphics, storylines that immerse the player into them, and enough of a challenge to make a gamer want to play them repeatedly. There are a wide variety of games so that everyone can find something that will appeal to them.

The original console was dreamed up of in 2000, and five years later, the Xbox 360 came out to replace it. It was to be a brand new generation of gaming machines. Some people had their doubts about this system, but once it was released and they had a chance to try it out, they were won over. As of February 2010, there are more than 23 million gamers using the Xbox Live gaming service. The year 2010 is predicted to be the best year in Xbox gaming history, due to the release of several high profile games, including "Halo: Reach," which is the prequel to "Halo," the best selling Xbox game franchise.

WILL BE LIMITS?
Kinect has turned out to be a big success for Microsoft, and Monday's news that the company is planning to officially bring the technology to Windows users marks an important step in Kinect's progress as a platform for new types of software and gesture-based user interfaces. That said, if you take a look back, it's not like we didn't see this coming. Even so, Kinect has turned out to be more successful than Microsoft originally imagined, with sales that dramatically beat estimates. It's also helped reform the image of the software giant from a company that's overly protective of its creations to one that's paying attention to what people do with a product once it's been launched--even if those uses fall outside the original intent. Now's as good a time as any to take a look back at how the Kinect journey has played out, from scattered rumors of Microsoft developing a Wii remote competitor, all the way to the motion-controlled camera sensor that's gone on to make an immediate impact on Microsoft's bottom line. Announcement

Microsoft announces "Project Natal" at its annual E3 press conference. The company provides the first demos of the technology in action, including controlling the Xbox 360 dashboard and playing Riccochet--what would eventually become the Rally Ball minigame included in Kinect Adventures. Microsoft also shows off a virtual-painting app. Along with the presentation, Microsoft says it's sending out Project Natal development kits to select developers to get them started on making games that will be ready in time for when the hardware add-on finally ships to customers. In an interview with CNET, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says Natal's gesture-based controls will eventually be able to work with PCs. Microsoft provides more detail on who is actually making games for Natal, saying nearly all of the major game-publishing houses are working on titles. That list includes Activision, Capcom, Disney, EA, Konami, MTV, Namco Bandai, Sega, Square Enix, THQ, and Ubisoft Entertainment. During Microsoft's CES keynote presentation, now retired Microsoft executive Robbie Bach says Natal will arrive in time for the 2010 holiday shopping season, though he stays num on pricing information and the size of the launch lineup. Rumors crop up about a $150 price tag for Natal, as well as about news that the technology will be available as a standalone addon, in addition to being bundled with new systems--all details that later turn out to be true. During a pre-E3 press conference featuring dangling Cirque du Soleil performers, Microsoft announces that

Project Natal now goes by the name of Kinect. The next day the company details a revision of the Xbox 360 hardware that adds a special plug for the Kinect controller. The connection provides power without the need for an AC adapter, like the old units needed, and also enables the sending of information. Microsoft gives Kinect a price and release date. The company says it will launch Kinect on November 4, 2010, with a price of $149.99. The company also says it will bundle the Kinect with a 4GB Xbox 360 console for $299.99. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the president of Microsoft's interactive-entertainment business, Don Mattrick, says the company expects to sell more than 3 million Kinect devices by the end of the year. Microsoft says it will have 17 titles available in time for Kinect's launch. A day ahead of launch, Microsoft bumps up its sales forecast to 5 million Kinect units by the end of the year. Succes Microsoft launches Kinect in North America. Almost immediately, Adafruit Industries offers a $1,000 bounty to the first person who can figure out how to build an open-source driver for it. Microsoft responds, telling CNET it does not condone modification of its products, and that the hardware has built-in hardware and software safeguards to keep such customizations from happening. Microsoft also pledges to "work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant." Kinect hits the 1 million units sold mark less than two weeks after its North American launch. Independent developers and tinkerers continue to have at the system, creating all sorts of applications that make use of its camera system. Microsoft representatives appearing on National Public Radio's "Science Friday" show reverse course from comments made earlier in the month, and say Kinect had been left open by design and that the company found some of the pet projects designed by enthusiasts to be inspiring.

During the company's annual CES keynote address, CEO Steve Ballmer surprises press and analysts, saying Microsoft has sold 8 million Kinect units since launch--3 million more than its original estimates. In an interview with the BBC, Ballmer says the company does indeed plan to bring Kinect support to Windows, but that it will be done "in a formal way, in the right time." Citing sources familiar with the matter, a report on WinRumors suggests Microsoft is preparing drivers and an official SDK for Kinect to work with Windows. At Mobile World Congress, Microsoft says it will be bringing Kinect functionality to its Windows Phone 7 platform at some point in the future. Users will be able to use their phones to control basic movements in Kinect games, alongside user motion. Microsoft tells CNET that the feature is not set to arrive in 2011. Microsoft announces plans to release a software development kit for Kinect on Windows machines sometime in the spring, with a formal commercial release of the SDK to follow.

Speech sounds alone, stripped of their meaning, dont inspire. We dont wake up to alarm clocks blaring German speech. We dont drive to work listening to native spoken Eskimo, and then switch it to the Bushmen Click station during the commercials. Speech sounds dont give us the chills, and they dont make us cry not even French. But music does emanate from our alarm clocks in the morning, and fill our cars, and give us chills, and make us cry. According to a recent paper by Nidhya Logeswaran and Joydeep Bhattacharya from the University of London, music even affects how we see visual images. In the experiment, 30 subjects were presented with a series of happy or sad musical excerpts. After listening to the snippets, the subjects were shown a photograph of a face. Some people were shown a happy face the person was smiling - while others were exposed to a sad or neutral facial expression. The participants were then asked to rate the emotional content of the face on a 7-point scale, where 1 mean extremely sad and 7 extremely happy. The researchers found that music powerfully influenced the emotional ratings of the faces. Happy music made happy faces seem even happier while sad music exaggerated the melancholy of a frown. A similar effect was also observed with neutral faces. The simple moral is that the emotions of music are cross-modal, and can easily spread from sensory system to another. Although it probably seems obvious that music can evoke emotions, it is to this day not clear why. Why doesnt music feel like listening to speech sounds, or animal calls, or garbage disposals? Why is music nice to listen to? Why does music get blessed with a multi-billion dollar industry, where as there is no market for easy listening speech sounds? The lion share of emotionally evocative stimuli in the lives of our ancestors would have been from the faces and bodies of other people, and if one finds human artifacts that are highly evocative, it is a good hunch that it looks or sounds human in some way. As evidence that humans are the principal source of emotionality among human artifacts, consider human visual signs. Visual signshave culturally evolved to look like natural objects, and have the kinds of contour combinations found in a three-dimensional world of opaque objects. Three-dimensional world of opaque objects? Nothing particularly human about that, and thats why most linguistic signs, like the letters and words on this page, are not emotionally evocative to look at.

But visual signs do sometimes have emotional associations. For example, colors are notoriously emotionally evocative, and arguments about what color something should be painted are the source of an alarming number of marital arguments. Which brings us back to music and the Logeswaran paper. Music is exquisitely emotionally evocative, which is why a touch of happy music makes even unrelated pictures seem more pleasant. In light of the above, then, we are led to the conclusion that the artifact of music should contain some distinctly human elements. The question, of course, is what those elements are. One candidate is our expressive speech, perhaps music is just an abstract form of language. However, most of the emotion of language is in the meaning, which is why foreign languages that we dont understand rarely make us swoon with pleasure or get angry. Thats also why emotional speech from an unfamiliar language isnt featured on the radio! But there is a second auditory expressive behavior we humans carry out, our bodily movements themselves. The advantage that we have auditory systems capable of making sense of the sounds of people moving in our midst. Regardless of whether music is emotional intonation from speech or a summary of expressive movements, the new research by Logeswaran and Bhattacharya adds yet more fuel to the expectation that music has been culturally selected to sound like an emotionally expressive human. While it is not easy for us to see the human ingredients in the modulations of pitch, intensity, tempo and rhythm that make music, perhaps it is obvious to our auditory homunculus.

Gained: (gain) adquirir, conseguir, alcanzar. Despite: A pesar de.

Huge: Enorme, inmenso.

Accomplishment: Realizaccion, xito.

cumplimiento,

Capable: Capaz, competente, poderoso. Midst: Medio, sustantivo.

Purchase: Adquirir, comprar, conseguir. Allow: Permitir, dejar, autorizar. Appeal: Apelar, recurrir. Dashboard: Tablero de instrumentos. Dangling: (dangle) colgado. Stripped: (strip) despojado. Snippets: Fragmentos de. Evoke: Evocar. Blessed: Bendito, bienaventurado, feliz. Source: Fuente, origen, procedencia. Ammong: Entre, en medio. Perhaps: Quizas, tal vez, acaso. Feraign: Foraneo. Carry out: Llevar a cabo Advantage: Ventaja, provecho. Regardless: A pesar de todo, pese a quien le pese, a rajatabla.