Xbox

This article is about the original Xbox console from Microsoft. For its successor, see Xbox 360. For its second successor, see Xbox One.


Xbox.

The Xbox is a game console produced by Microsoft released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Europe. It directly rivaled Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's Gamecube. Unlike many game consoles, the Xbox's architecture closely resembles mainstream PCs of its time, and was the most powerful among the sixth generation consoles. Designed for online gaming, the Xbox came standard with a 8 or 10GB hard drive and an onboard ethernet adapter. In 2002, Microsoft launched its unified online service, Xbox Live; the PlayStation 2's online services were supported by the individual game publishers or developers while the Gamecube had almost no support for online gaming. The original Xbox was notorious for its original controller, nicknamed "The Duke", for its large size; a smaller controller called the "Controller S" was released for the Japanese market for its initial launch in 2002, and the "S" controller subsequently replaced the "Duke" controller in American and European markets by 2003.

Due to Rockstar Games producing Grand Theft Auto games for PlayStation 2 first, all ports to the Xbox came a few years after the original release the game; with the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, ports of GTA were released concurrently with their PlayStation counterparts. Grand Theft Auto games on the Xbox, especially GTA III and GTA Vice City, often featured enhanced graphics, which included higher quality textures, more detailed hands, high definition cars and superior sound quality. However, these games, especially GTA San Andreas, tended to sometimes suffer from slight lag and have longer loading times.

The original Xbox was succeeded by the Xbox 360 on November 22, 2005. The original Xbox was discontinued in Japan on June 4, 2006, Europe on March 11, 2007, and North America on March 2, 2009. Support for Xbox Live ended on April 15, 2010.

Grand Theft Auto games released on the Xbox

Wikipedia has an article on: