Robbie Williams

The highest position in the US charts was #41 for "Angels". [1] (http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/05/12/afx2024549.html). Coincidental or not, much of what is written is utterly made up and probably attributable to a phalanx of publicity agents hired to get Williams's name in the papers when he is trying to market something to the public. NVidia have announced that they will cease production of the Xbox's GPU in August of that year, which will almost certainly mark the end of that console's production. Bearing in mind the persistent rumours about his sexuality and the appearance of so many column inches devoted to Williams's real or imagined romantic conquests, whether gay or straight, it is interesting to note that these accounts typically coincide with the release of a latest album, single, or live performance. Microsoft is expected to release a new generation of Xbox hardware, the Xbox 360, in 2005. A regular feature of his live performances is full-on french kisses with female fans plucked from the audience. To avoid frustrating early adopters, they offered a bundle containing two games and one controller for free to any purchaser who could provide a sales receipt showing the original higher price.

Williams seems to encourage an image as a womanizer and there are numerous widely-circulated Internet accounts,http://www.robbiewilliams.nu/ allegedly written by Williams's female sexual partners, extolling his considerable prowess as a lover. Microsoft countered with a £100 price drop (and its equivalent in the rest of Europe) some scant months after launch. Speculation about his sexuality and romantic life is rampant in the British media. With a price-dropped PlayStation 2 and a comparatively inexpensive GameCube as competition, many users were naturally reluctant to invest in the console (interestingly, the PS2 had faced similar attacks during the UK tabloids' preoccupation with "Ripoff Britain"). Williams is single and lives in Los Angeles, California. Obviously, ignoring the GBP-USD exchange rate in the way gives the impression of a 100% mark-up for Europe. And in February 2005, Williams received the British music industry's award for the best song of the past quarter century, "Angels," the song William credits with giving him a career. As with many games consoles (for example, the PlayStation series), the Xbox was launched with a price in GBP equal to its US price in USD (in this case, $/£299), and this price then converted for the rest of Europe.

The "Greatest Hits" album, released on 18th October, 2004, became one of the UK's biggest selling albums of all times. Of note is the high European launch price. Another Duffy-Williams collaboration, "Misunderstood" appeared on the soundtrack of the "Bridget Jones Diary" sequel, "The Edge of Reason." and hit the charts at number eight. Oceania. Armed with a new songwriting partner, Steven Duffy, Williams penned several new songs, including "Radio." In its first week of release, selling just over 40,000 copies, the single "Radio" went straight to number one. Europe. But Williams proved the naysayers wrong. North America.

The end of that partnership led to much speculation that Williams career was finished without Chambers. Currently, it is believed that Microsoft compares each Xbox's serial number and hard drive serial number upon connecting to Live, and that any "unpairing" of the two will result in a ban for the user associated with the console. The Chris Heath biography, an instant bestseller, reveals why Williams severed all professional ties with with his long-time songwriter partner, Guy Chambers. One theory is that there is a "marriage" of one's hard drive serial number and one's Xbox's serial number, and banning if one of those two change due to part replacement. Another is that it might check for modified files, and another suggesting that Microsoft is detecting if the unique hard drive key of every Xbox has changed. Leading up to Knebworth, in December 2003, Williams toured Australia and New Zealand with Duran Duran. There has been several theories on how banning in this new method is done. An official biography by Chris Heath "Feel", published in 2004, chronicled events that led up to to the Live Summer Tour 2003, during which Williams performed live to more than a million people over three days in August at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire; while 3.5 million more watched live on television and on the Internet. But as of November 2004, Microsoft has been taking new actions for banning Xboxes with hard drive modifications from the Xbox Live service.

in 2002, the UK public voted Williams to be on the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons. Also, most internal hardware modifications will render an Xbox unable to participate in Xbox Live which is why many modders use a switch to turn on and off their modifications to the Xbox. The video also showed unsettling images of insects and reptiles. Modding an Xbox may require opening the Xbox case, and would certainly void the Xbox's warranty. The video for the next "Escapology" single, "Come Undone," was censored by MTV Networks Europe for depicting a debauched (but fully-clothed) Williams having a three-way with two women sex. A modded Xbox can even be configured into a computer running Linux or Microsoft Windows CE operating systems. The first single from it, "Feel," was a huge European hit. Beyond gaming, a modded Xbox can be used as a media center with the Xbox Media Center (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/) software (XBMC) allowing the playing of DVDs without the $30 DVD dongle/remote and streaming of music and video files from the hard drive or from another computer over a network.

However, they reunited six months later to work on the next album, Escapology, which was released in late 2002. This requires a modded Xbox using one of the alternative dashboards, and is used by scrupulous users to eliminate load times or leave their games in storage, and by unscrupulous users to play illegally copied games. In 2002 he stopped working with his long-term writing partner Guy Chambers. Then Xbox games can be copied from the DVD to the hard disk and then played directly from the hard drive. Williams' cover of the Bobby Darin classic "Beyond the Sea" was included in the Finding Nemo soundtrack. The original hard drive can be replaced with a larger one. In 2002 he released an album called Swing When You're Winning in which his image was tamed down and he sang jazz, blues and pop standards from the fifties. This is especially attractive as the Xbox is designed to output to TVs, and high-quality controllers and arcade sticks are available for it.

His global success was cemented after a duet cover version of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra song "Somethin' Stupid" with Australian actress Nicole Kidman, who was fresh off of her Oscar-nomnated performance in Moulin Rouge. This allows running an alternate dashboard such as Avalaunch, Evolution-X or UnleashX and in turn makes playing original (free) homebrew games such as Star Wars or various older games through arcade and games console emulators possible. Williams has built quite a reputation for appearing nude (or nearly nude) in photographs, videos and live performances. Software modding is much less intrusive, and only involves running software exploits to trick the Xbox into running unsigned program code. The video's ending was cut by many TV stations around the world and the whole video was forbidden in some countries (VH1 Europe even made their own video out of recording studio footage). However, there are many reputable sites in the UK (where overall, it is still technically legal) selling pre-loaded modchipped Xboxes. It is said that the frontal nudity was edited out in the US while the gore was left in, whereas the opposite was true for the UK. Hardware modding can involve anything from simply replacing the console's green decorative "jewel" with a custom-designed one to opening up the case and installing a modchip.

The video featured Williams in a roller disco as he stripped nude and then proceeded to strip off his own flesh, muscle tissue and organs until he was a dancing skeleton. The recent popularity of the Xbox has inspired efforts to circumvent the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms (sometimes in order to use the Xbox as a low cost web server), as well as to add customized design touches to the console's case (similar to PC case modding). He broke the United States in 2000 with his hit song "Rock DJ". The Xbox API is similar to DirectX version 8.1, but is non-updateable just like other console technologies. In 1999 he collaberated with singer Tom Jones for a track on the album Reload. The API was developed jointly between Microsoft and NVIDIA, whose chips power the Xbox graphics. Williams quickly became a major celebrity in the UK with numerous top ten singles. Microsoft's set of low-level APIs for game development and multimedia purposes, DirectX, was used as a basis for the Xbox's hardware programming (as well as its name, which implies "DirectX Box").

The song was built around a sample from the theme to the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice", and the accompanying video featured numerous 007 references. This output selectivity is made possible by the Xbox's SCART-like AVIP port. Although it reached number one in many countries, it only managed to get to number four in the official UK singles chart in December 1997 – he would have to wait until September 19, 1998 for his first number one with "Millennium", which also charted in the USA. Numerous unofficial third-party cables and breakout boxes exist that provide combinations of outputs not found in these official video packages; however, with the exception of a few component-to-VGA transcoders and custom-built VGA boxes, the four official video packages represent all of the Xbox's possible outputs. Though this was a success it was not until the release of the single "Angels" that his solo career took off in Europe. Currently, all Xbox consoles come with a "Controller S", and the original version of the controller (also known as 'The Duke') is no longer sold. In 1996 he released his first solo single "Freedom", a cover of the 1990 George Michael hit. Another common complaint about the system was that the original game controller design was seen as too large for some people. For the Japanese Xbox launch, a new and smaller controller was introduced, a design which was subsequently released in other markets as the "Controller S", which eventually replaced the original design.

After few months with cocaine-fueled parties, the loud-mouthed brothers showed him the door. While some elements of the Xbox's design, like break-away cables for the controllers to prevent the console from being yanked from the shelf, take the size into account, it has undoubtedly hurt the system's sales to the space-conscious Japanese. Robbie expected to get some Noel-written songs so he could start a career. Despite managing to be smaller and lighter than similar commodity PCs, the Xbox has found itself a target of mild derision, as gamers poke fun at it for things like a (overly cautious) warning in the Xbox manual that a falling Xbox "could cause serious injury" to a small child or pet. Before his rising as a superstar, Robbie used to hang in 1996 with the Gallagher brothers - Noel and Liam of then-famous Britpop stars Oasis. This is largely due to the large, tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size 3.5" hard drive. Originally a member of boy band Take That, he split from the group in 1995 and launched a solo career, following a highly publicized battle with drug and alcohol addiction during which he put on nearly 40 pounds (18 kg) and was often seen in public poorly dressed, dirty and unshaven. The Xbox is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries, and shipped with an unusually large controller.

Robert Peter Williams (born February 13, 1974 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) is a British pop singer. The Xbox does not use Windows CE due to Microsoft internal politics at the time, as well as limited support in Windows CE for DirectX. Dec 2004 "Misunderstood" #8. Although the Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and runs a stripped-down version of the Windows 2000 kernel using APIs based largely on DirectX, it incorporates restrictions designed to prevent uses not approved by Microsoft. Oct 2004 "Radio" #1. racing/driving games) where the music is inconsequential to what is happening in the game. Nov 2003 "Sexed Up" #10. Custom Soundtracks are often supported in non-cinematic games (e.g.

Aug 2003 "Something Beautiful" #3. The inclusion of the hard disk not only serves as a disk cache for faster game loading times compared to the PS2 and repository for saved game information (eliminating the need for sold-separately memory cards), it also allows users to download and save new content for their games from Xbox Live and copy music from standard Audio CDs so players can partially or completely replace the soundtrack of Xbox games that support Custom Soundtracks, all firsts in console history. Apr 2003 "Come Undone" #4. However, it still uses standard console architecture. Dec 2002 "Feel" #4. Microsoft built the Xbox around industry-standard PC hardware, unlike the traditionally proprietary design of nearly all other gaming consoles. Maxi Jazz & Robbie Williams) #9. Several internal hardware revisions have been made to discourage modding, cut manufacturing costs, and to provide a more reliable DVD-ROM drive (the early units' drives were prone to failure).

Apr 2002 "My Culture" (1 Giant Leap feat. The milestone of 1 million subscribers was announced in July 2004. Dec 2001 "Somethin' Stupid" (with Nicole Kidman) #1. This online service only works with broadband. Jul 2001 "Eternity/Road to Mandalay" #1. In November 2002, Microsoft released the successful Xbox Live online gaming service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with (or against) other subscribers all around the world and download new content for their games to the hard drive. Apr 2001 "Let Love Be Your Energy" #10. Microsoft predicted that it would not make a profit on the Xbox for at least three years and that turned out to be correct; the division had its first profitable quarter in 2005.

Dec 2000 "Supreme" #4. In much of Europe, the Xbox is currently slightly ahead of the GameCube, but is still far behind the PlayStation 2. Oct 2000 "Kids" (with Kylie Minogue) #2. The Xbox has not sold well in Japan, due to the Japanese people's poor acceptance of non-Japanese consoles, limited Japanese developer support, few game choices and the large size of the hardware itself. Aug 2000 "Rock DJ" #1. While some critics were initially concerned that the Xbox would allow Microsoft to extend its dominance of the PC software market to consoles, as of February 2005 estimates show the Xbox's share of the worldwide console market is only comparable to the Nintendo GameCube and far behind the PlayStation 2. Nov 1999 "She's The One/It's Only Us" #1. The Xbox was initially developed within Microsoft by a small crew including Seamus Blackley, a game developer and high energy physicist.

Mar 1999 "Strong" #4. Notable launch titles for the console include Amped, Dead or Alive 3, Halo: Combat Evolved, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, and Project Gotham Racing. Dec 1998 "No Regrets/Antmusic" #4. The price is currently 149 USD, 149 EUR, 99 GBP, 200 CAD, 249 AUD, 290 NZD and 1200 NOK. Sep 1998 "Millennium" #1. It is Microsoft's first independent venture into the console arena, after having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to the Sega Dreamcast console. Mar 1998 "Let Me Entertain You" #3. The Xbox is Microsoft's game console, released on November 15, 2001.

Dec 1997 "Angels" #4. NZ$249 (2004 Q4,2005). Sep 1997 "South of the Border" #14. NZ$299 (2004 Q2). Jul 1997 "Lazy Days" #8. AU$249 (2004,2005). Apr 1997 "Old Before I Die" #2. NZ$349 (2004).

Aug 1996 "Freedom" #2. AU$299 (2004). Greatest Hits (2004); #1 UK. NZ$399 (2003). Robbie Williams – Live At Knebworth (2003); #2 UK. AU$349 (2003). Escapology (2003); #1 UK, #43 US. NZ$499 NZD (3 October, 2002, Launch Price).

Swing When You're Winning (2001); #1 UK. AU$399 AUD. Sing When You're Winning (2000); #1 UK, #110 US. AU$699 AUD (26 April 2002, Launch Price) (Quickly dropped to $399 to compete with launch of Nintendo Gamecube). The Ego Has Landed (1999); #63 US (North America only release). £99 (August 27, 2004). I've Been Expecting You (1998 (UK) / 2002 (US)); #1 UK. €149 (August 27, 2004).

Life Thru a Lens (1997); #1 UK. £130 (2003). €199 (2003). €249 (August 30, 2002). €299 (Launch Price (Rest of Europe) and Ireland April 26, 2002).

£299 GBP (Launch Price March 14, 2002),. €479 (Launch Price (Ireland) 14 March, 2002),. CAD$199 (March 29, 2004). US$149 (March 29, 2004).

US$179 (2003). US$199 (2002). US$299 (November 15, 2001, Launch Price). Approved by Microsoft for wireless gameplay with Xbox.

Logitech 2.4 Ghz wireless controller. Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball) do not support this accessory as a cheat prevention measure. Note that some recent games (e.g. Memory Unit: An 8 MB removable solid-state memory card onto which game saves can either be copied from the hard drive when in the Xbox Dashboard's memory manager or saved during a game.

The white and black buttons are located below the ABXY buttons, and the Back/Select buttons are similarly placed below the left thumbstick. Once the standard Xbox controller in Japan, it was released in other territories by popular demand, and eventually replaced the standard controller in the retail pack for the Xbox console. Controller S: A smaller, lighter Xbox controller. The black and white buttons are located above the ABXY buttons, and the Back/Start buttons are located between and below the d-pad and right thumbstick.

It is considered to be bulky. Standard Xbox Controller (AKA "Controller O"): The normal Xbox controller for all territories except Japan, this has since been replaced in Xbox packs by the Controller S, and due to its increasing rarity, is believed to have been discontinued. It also allows users to upload pictures in JPG format (to create slide shows) as well as audio in WMA and MP3 format (for karaoke or a game's Custom Soundtracks feature) from a Windows XP machine running the Xbox Music Mixer PC Tool (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/musicmixer/pctool-overview/). Provides a music player with 2D/3D visualizations as well as basic karaoke functions.

Xbox Music Mixer: A utility software bundled with a microphone that connects to an adapter that plugs into the top expansion slot of a controller. Although there is nothing to prevent the Xbox from acting as a progressive-scan DVD player, Microsoft chose not to enable this feature in the Xbox DVD kit in order to avoid royalty payments to the patent-holder of progressive scan DVD playback. By selling a DVD remote separately, Microsoft was able to bundle the cost of the DVD licensing fee with it. DVD playback was not included as a standard feature of the Xbox due to licensing issues with the DVD format that would have added extra cost to the console's base price.

DVD Playback Kit: Required in order to play DVD movies, the kit includes an infrared remote control and receiver. It can also be used for DVD playback. Xbox Media Center Extender: A kit that allows Xbox to act as a Media Center Extender to stream content from a Windows XP Media Center Edition PC. This functionality is similar to Sega's DirectLink for Sega Saturn.

System Link Cable: A Cat 5 crossover cable for connecting together two to four consoles, for up to 16 total players. The headset can in fact be replaced with most standard earpiece-and-microphone headsets; headset specialist Plantronics produce various officially-licenced headsets, including a special-edition headset for Halo 2. Xbox Live Starter Kit: A subscription and installation pack for the Xbox Live service, as well as a headset (with monaural earpiece and microphone) that connects to a control box that plugs into the top expansion slot of a controller. While the official Wireless Adapter guarantees compatbility with the Xbox, almost any wireless bridge can be used.

Xbox Wireless Adapter: a wireless bridge which converts data running through an ethernet cable to a wireless (802.11b or 802.11g) signal to connect to a wireless LAN. Ethernet (Xbox Live) Cable: A Cat 5 cable for connecting the Xbox to a broadband modem or router (note that there is no "official" Xbox Live cable; any PC ethernet cable can be used). As Europe has no HDTV standard, no High Definition cable is currently provided in those markets. Advanced SCART Cable: The European equivalent to the Advanced AV Pack, providing a full RGB video SCART connection in place of S-Video, RCA composite and stereo audio connections (composite video and stereo are still provided by the cable, through the SCART connector, in addition to the RGB signal), while retaining the TOSLINK audio connector.

Also provides analog RCA and digital TOSLINK audio outputs. High Definition AV Pack: A breakout box, intended for HDTVs, that provides a YPrPb component video signal over three RCA connectors. Advanced AV Pack: A breakout box that provides S-Video and TOSLINK audio in addition to the RCA composite video and stereo audio of the Standard AV Cable. RF Adapter: Provides a combined audio and video signal on an RF connector.

European systems come with a RCA jack to SCART converter block in addition to the cable. Comes with the system. Standard AV Cable: Provides composite video and monaural or stereo audio to TVs equipped with RCA inputs. Dimensions: 324 × 265 × 90 mm (12.8 × 10.4 × 3.5 inches).

Weight: 3.86 kg. Controller Ports: 4 proprietary USB-based ports. HDTV Support: Yes, 480p/720p/1080i (see game boxes for supported resolutions). PAL TV's have less than 600 horizontal lines.

Note: NTSC (Non-HD) TV's have less than 500 horizontal lines. Maximum Resolution (2x32bpp frame buffers +Z): 1920(vert.)x1080(horiz)