Xbox 360 launch

The Xbox 360 launch marked the release of the first high-profile seventh generation video game console. It was Microsoft's second foray in console development succeeding their 2001 launch of the original Xbox.

Viral advertising and alternate reality games

The promotional campaign for the Xbox 360 began on March 30, 2005, with the opening of an alternate reality game called OurColony. Throughout March and April OurColony.net offered challenges to its community, rewarding solutions with cropped pictures of the console and game screenshots. On May 12, 2005, the ARG section of OurColony closed, visitors were instead greeted with a promotional video hosted by J. Allard. OurColony participants were allowed special access to insider info and previews before release to the general public.
was the next viral marketing campaign from Microsoft. Unveiled on September 27, 2005, the website, hosted by talking rabbits Boss and Didier, offers visitors an opportunity to enter in various contests. The initial contest was a raffle that required participants to answer three trivia questions regarding the Xbox 360 for a chance to attend a promotional pre-launch event. New contests include a Halo 2 tournament and a competition to design a "Gamertile". The design for the website employs flash animation of a Bonsai tree and bland elevator music to create a serene environment that is punctuated by visually intense psychedelic episodes involving the host rabbits.
October 2005 saw the launch of "Hex168", another viral marketing campaign commissioned by Microsoft and executed by the Marden-Kane advertising agency. On October 13, 2005, members of the TeamXbox forums were directed to the website through mysterious messages posted by someone called "Lutz". This website hosted a number of images that appeared to perpetuate obscure conspiracy theories, but sometimes contained oblique references to Xbox 360. The campaign was later revealed to be a U.S. contest that offered participants a chance to win one of three hundred sixty Xbox 360 console bundles six days before the official launch. Winners from Hex168 were invited to attend the Xbox 360 launch party in Palmdale, CA, and given VIP access to games, food, and special areas.

Announcement

The official unveiling of the Xbox 360 occurred on May 12, 2005, on MTV in a program called MTV Presents Xbox: The Next Generation Revealed. The special was hosted by the actor Elijah Wood and featured a musical performance by the band The Killers as well as a preview of Perfect Dark Zero, and appearances by Tony Hawk, Ryan Cabrera, and the crew of West Coast Customs who pimped an original Xbox. The Xbox 360 was also featured on the cover of TIME Magazine's May 23, 2005, issue with an article written by Lev Grossman. The cover shows Microsoft CEO Bill Gates holding up one of the units. In the article he says "It's perfect... The day Sony launches, and they walk right into Halo 3." Read more at wikiquote. Microsoft executive Robbie Bach later clarified this statement, saying "Philosophically the point Bill was trying to make is that we're not just going to ship and not have great stuff coming up." Gates himself later clarified that "Halo 3 will ship when Bungie is ready." Microsoft chose a November 2005 release date not because they wanted to be first to market but because they thought Sony would ship their PlayStation 3 at that point.
The system, along with some playable games, was shown off at E3 2005. The demos were running on "Xbox 360 Alpha Development Kits" which were Apple PowerMac G5s, chosen due to the PowerPC processor architecture that the machine shares with the Xbox 360. Microsoft claims that most of the games were running at 25–30% of full capacity because they were not running on actual systems.

Release dates and pricing

Microsoft first publicized the initial prices and configurations for the Xbox 360 on August 18, 2005, at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.

Date	Location	Xbox 360 System Price	Xbox 360 Core System Price
November 22, 2005	Canada United States	CD$499.99 US$399.99	CD$399.99 US$299.99
December 2, 2005	Eurozone Norway Sweden United Kingdom Switzerland	€399.99 NOK3,395,- SEK3,995:- £279.99 CHf370.99	€299.99 NOK2,595,- SEK2,995:- £209.99 CHf350.99
December 10, 2005	Japan	JP¥39,795	JP¥29,000
February 2, 2006	Colombia Mexico	COP$1,200,000 MXN$4999	COP$900,000 MXN$3999
February 24, 2006	South Korea	₩419,000	₩339,000
March 16, 2006	Hong Kong Singapore Taiwan China	HK$?? SG$660.00 NT$13888	HK$2,340.00 SG$535.00 NT$10888
March 23, 2006	Australia New Zealand	A$649.95 NZ$799.99	A$499.95 NZ$499.95
July 7, 2006	Chile	CLP.329.990	CLP.259.990
September 25, 2006	India	Rs.23,990	Rs.19,990
September 29, 2006	South Africa	R3699	R2699
November 3, 2006	Czech Republic Poland	CZK11900.00 1699.00zł	CZK8999.00 1299.00zł
December 1, 2006	Brazil	R$1,799	not released
February 10, 2007	Russia	RUB15,699	RUB10,999
April 27, 2007	United Arab Emirates	AED1,799	not released
February 26, 2008	Peru	S/.2249.00	not released

Titles

Eighteen launch titles were available for customers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico on November 22, 2005. The European countries had fifteen titles available for the launch date of December 2, 2005. Japanese customers, however, only had seven titles to choose from by the time the Xbox 360 was released on December 10, 2005. This discrepancy is partially accounted for by the time needed to localize the games.
In North America, the best-selling title was Call of Duty 2, which had an attach rate of 77%, followed by Madden NFL 06 and Need for Speed Most Wanted. The most successful first-party title was Perfect Dark Zero. In Japan, the most successful titles were Ridge Racer 6, Perfect Dark Zero, and Need for Speed Most Wanted.

Sales by region

North America

Prelaunch reports assumed that Microsoft would intentionally restrict supply although there is nothing to support this and Microsoft has said they released all units into supply chains as quickly as possible. Evidence indicates that Microsoft launched with all consoles available at the time, and was operating at maximum production capability. They did not, however, build up a sufficient supply of consoles to satisfy the entire demand at launch. This allowed them to launch several months earlier than would otherwise be possible but also led to shortages.
Immediately after the launch, reports about the new machine's technical glitches started coming out. Some reported the Xbox 360 crashing with errors, some reported the hard drive does not respond in certain situations while others reported error messages during various games or unusually fast overheating. Due to the issues caused by overheating of the first consoles, Microsoft extended the Xbox 360 warranty by 3 years, which cost more than 1 billion US dollars. The manual contained warnings about not placing the Xbox 360 on soft surfaces or in enclosed spaces to avoid heating problems. Microsoft claims that these problems were to be expected on a large scale release for a console and the number of reports versus the number of consoles released was minimal. Microsoft stated that they would look into the reports and offered assistance reachable by phone.
The console's initial thermal solution was insufficient for many users - long hours and/ or tightly enclosed spaces caused overheating, and over time, damage to the chips. This was clarified later on by the engineers, that it was an issue not related to peak temperature, but a repeated on/off temperature/load shift, degrading the thermal solution. The console's warranty would often send you a refurbished unit, which tended to compound the issues due to the imperfect nature of cpu/gpu chip repairs., and repeated failures were common. Third party cooling solutions became a popular offering, with some connected directly to the power cable. Eventually the heat-pads/paste were redesigned from the poorly chosen industrial solution and the red ring became a problem only on the refurbished units - many report this was after 2007/2008.
The high demand for the Xbox 360 led to some owners almost immediately re-selling their console for vastly increased prices. eBay in particular was a popular location for such offers with thousands of consoles going up for auction, some selling for many times the original retail price. It was reported that 40,000 units appeared on eBay during the initial month of release, which would mean that 10% of the total supply was resold.
According to the NDP Group, North American sales totaled 326,000 units in November 2005. In Canada, all 32,100 units available for launch were sold. By the end of 2005, Microsoft stated it sold roughly 23,000 units. Furthermore, by the beginning of 2008, the Xbox 360 had sold 9.15 million units in the US.
Analysts believe Microsoft did not meet the original worldwide target of 2.75–3 million units sold in the first 90 days after launch, and Microsoft revised their initial 90-day estimate down to 2.5 million units, though their 6-month sales estimate remained unchanged at 4.5 to 5.5 million consoles.
The Xbox 360 was released in Mexico on February 2, 2006. Retailers such as Liverpool, Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, Sam's Club, CompuDabo, Game Planet, gdGames, and Cyberbox started to sell consoles, games, and accessories. Some department stores were selling the console at 6,000 Mexican pesos.