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Article: The meaning of Xbox; Microsoft.(Xbox 360)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 26, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Does the launch of the Xbox 360 herald Microsoft's reinvention of itself?
WHAT is the meaning of Xbox? Its name has horribly geeky origins: the bit of Microsoft's Windows software that does fancy graphics is called DirectX, so when the company moved into games consoles in 2001, it wanted a "DirectX box" that was optimised for graphical performance. But never mind the term's literal meaning. What does the glitzy launch this week of its successor, the Xbox 360, at a hangar in the Mojave Desert, tell us about the world's biggest software company? The answer comes in three levels.
First, the launch of the Xbox 360 is the most vivid illustration so far of ...