April Fool's DayApril Fool's Day or All Fools' Day, though not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends and neighbours, or sending them on fools' errands, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. OriginThe origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many theories have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April. What seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st of April. This view gains support from the fact that the exact counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an immemorial custom in India. The festival of the spring equinox is there termed the feast of Huli, the last day of which is the 31st of March, upon which the chief amusement is the befooling of people by sending them on fruitless errands. It has been plausibly suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French [1]. They were the first nation to adopt the reformed Gregorian calendar, Charles IX in 1564 decreeing that the year should begin with the 1st of January. Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair butts for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April. However, it is unlikely that this explanation of April Fool's Day’s origin is correct. Well before 1582 when King Charles IX of France brought in the new Gregorian calendar, French and Dutch references from respectively 1508 and 1539 describe April Fool's Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April. Though the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools was a common custom. In Scotland the custom was known as "hunting the gowk," i.e. the cuckoo, and April-fools were "April-gowks," the cuckoo being there, as it is in most lands, a term of contempt. In France the person befooled is known as poisson d'avril. This has been explained from the association of ideas arising from the fact that in April the sun quits the zodiacal sign of the fish. A far more natural explanation would seem to be that the April fish would be a young fish and therefore easily caught. SuperstitionsTraditionally, pranks are to be performed before noon. Those done afterwards are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator. This stipulation may have been contrived by annoyed parents and school teachers wanting a respite from a full day of pranks. Anyone who fails to respond with a sense of humor to the tricks played on them is also said to be liable to suffer bad luck. It is said that one fooled by a pretty girl will later marry, or at least become friends, with her. It is believed that marriage on April Fools' Day is inadvisable for a man, for he will be permanently ruled by his wife. Children born on this day will experience good luck in most matters, except when it comes to gambling. HoaxesMany media organizations have either unwittingly or deliberately propagated hoaxes on April Fools' Day. Even normally serious news media consider April Fools' Day hoaxes fair game, and spotting them has become an annual pastime. The advent of the Internet as a worldwide communications medium has also assisted the pranksters in their work. Well-known hoaxes
By radio stations
By television stations
They told the truth on the following week's show, where outtakes of Redknapp messing up his lines were also shown. Lists of April Fool hoaxes
Other prank days in the worldThe April 1 tradition in France includes poisson d'avril (literally "April's fish"), attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed. In Spanish-speaking countries, similar pranks are practiced on December 28, the Day of the Holy Innocents. This custom also exists in certain areas of Belgium, including the province of Antwerp. The Flemish tradition is for children to lock out their parents or teachers, only letting them in if they promise to bring treats the same evening or the next day. In Iran, people play jokes on each other on April 3, the 13th day of the Persian calendar new year (Norooz). This day is called "Sizdah bedar" (Out-door thirteen). It is believed that people should go out on this date in order to escape the bad luck of number 13. In Judaism, the traditional day of pranks, hoaxes and mockery is Purim. However, modern Jews prefer to play pranks on April Fools' day. Quotes about April Fool's DayNuisance caused to third parties by April Fool's Day
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However, modern Jews prefer to play pranks on April Fools' day. All four lights periodically flash green on the controller: The controller is not initialised by a device. In Judaism, the traditional day of pranks, hoaxes and mockery is Purim. 1 Red Light: Will usually come with the 'Contact Microsoft Support' error message, but either way it means a hardware failure. It is believed that people should go out on this date in order to escape the bad luck of number 13. 2 Left Red Lights: The Xbox 360 system is overheating. This day is called "Sizdah bedar" (Out-door thirteen). 3 Red Lights: The Xbox 360 system is experiencing a hardware failure. In Iran, people play jokes on each other on April 3, the 13th day of the Persian calendar new year (Norooz). [43]. The Flemish tradition is for children to lock out their parents or teachers, only letting them in if they promise to bring treats the same evening or the next day. 4 Red Lights: The A/V cable is either not properly connected to the Xbox 360 system, or is not being detected. This custom also exists in certain areas of Belgium, including the province of Antwerp. The patterns are as follows:. In Spanish-speaking countries, similar pranks are practiced on December 28, the Day of the Holy Innocents. For some errors the Xbox 360 system will display patterns of red lights to occur in place of the standard green Ring of Light to indicate what error is occouring. The April 1 tradition in France includes poisson d'avril (literally "April's fish"), attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed. [42]. They told the truth on the following week's show, where outtakes of Redknapp messing up his lines were also shown. Microsoft is unable to replace the scratched discs, however they are offering a free copy of Perfect Dark Zero (a Microsoft published game) as a replacement. Even normally serious news media consider April Fools' Day hoaxes fair game, and spotting them has become an annual pastime. Since its initial release date, some Xbox 360 customers have complained that the 360 occasionally freezes, apparently due to overheating because of high environment temperatures or a limited airflow around the Xbox 360 (and as such the problem can be lessened by allowing a better airflow or cooler environment). Many media organizations have either unwittingly or deliberately propagated hoaxes on April Fools' Day. Contact Xbox Customer Support." in a variety of languages and the error code at the bottom. Children born on this day will experience good luck in most matters, except when it comes to gambling. The screen contains the text "System error. It is believed that marriage on April Fools' Day is inadvisable for a man, for he will be permanently ruled by his wife. The error stops the console and requests that the player contact technical support. It is said that one fooled by a pretty girl will later marry, or at least become friends, with her. Microsoft placed kiosks for demonstration in some stores and the error began appearing. Anyone who fails to respond with a sense of humor to the tricks played on them is also said to be liable to suffer bad luck. It was discovered in Wal-Mart stores days before the official console launch. This stipulation may have been contrived by annoyed parents and school teachers wanting a respite from a full day of pranks. The Xbox 360 screen of death is an error screen displayed by the Xbox 360 game console. Those done afterwards are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator. [41]. Traditionally, pranks are to be performed before noon. On January 26, 2006, Microsoft released Q2 2006 earning report, stating the Xbox 360 has reached 1.5 million units in 2005, 0.9 million units in North America, 0.5 million units in Europe, and 0.1 million units in Japan. A far more natural explanation would seem to be that the April fish would be a young fish and therefore easily caught. Purchased separately, the price of the items would be AU$209.95. This has been explained from the association of ideas arising from the fact that in April the sun quits the zodiacal sign of the fish. To compensate for the Late Xbox 360 release to Australia and New Zealand, Microsoft released a VIP pack priced AU$149.95, containing the items below. In France the person befooled is known as poisson d'avril. The Xbox 360 is scheduled to be released in Australia and New Zealand on March 23, 2006, delayed for 3 weeks from the original March 2 launch date. In Scotland the custom was known as "hunting the gowk," i.e. the cuckoo, and April-fools were "April-gowks," the cuckoo being there, as it is in most lands, a term of contempt. In Hong Kong, there are promotions include: free PGR3 faceplate with purchase of selected titles, DOA4 collectibles with purchase of a extra game, and reduced price when purchased with cross-promotional items. Though the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools was a common custom. The launch date for Hong Kong and Singapore is March 16, 2006, delayed from original March 2 launch date. Well before 1582 when King Charles IX of France brought in the new Gregorian calendar, French and Dutch references from respectively 1508 and 1539 describe April Fool's Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April. Promotions include one free limited edition PGR3 faceplate bundled for the initial shipment, and a gamepad-game combo pack containing Kameo and a wireless gamepad. However, it is unlikely that this explanation of April Fool's Day’s origin is correct. It will be released in Taiwan on March 2, 2006. Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair butts for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April. The Xbox 360 is scheduled to be released in South Korea on February 24, 2006. They were the first nation to adopt the reformed Gregorian calendar, Charles IX in 1564 decreeing that the year should begin with the 1st of January. In Mexico retailers such as the Liverpool, CompuDabo, Game Planet, gdGames, Cyberbox, and Camelot Games have started selling the console, games, and accessories. It has been plausibly suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French [1]. The Xbox 360 was released in Mexico and Colombia on February 2, 2006. The festival of the spring equinox is there termed the feast of Huli, the last day of which is the 31st of March, upon which the chief amusement is the befooling of people by sending them on fruitless errands. Sony has a substantial amount of Japanese third party developers. This view gains support from the fact that the exact counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an immemorial custom in India. Recent surveys in Japan have confirmed that the majority of Japanese 'gamers' are strong supporters of Sony. What seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st of April. On the day of the launch, Capcom unveiled their Xbox 360-exclusive sci-fi game Lost Planet, which features South Korean actor Lee Byung Hun in the lead role. The origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many theories have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April. On December 17, Rakuten's website announced a special five-day sale starting on December 22 selling 10 Xbox 360s at 24,900 yen.[40]. . To entice people into buying the Xbox 360 some retailers are offering discounts on the system if they sign up for a 2 year broadband contract, similar to cell phone deals in the US. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends and neighbours, or sending them on fools' errands, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. Maruyama is widely credited for attracting support from Japanese game developers. April Fool's Day or All Fools' Day, though not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. Microsoft Japan executive Yoshihiro Maruyama stated that he expects sales of Xbox 360 in Japan to hit one million units sometime next year. There have been cases when a hoax in a newspaper caused many readers to send mail to a nonexistent address, causing problems at postal sorting offices. It should be noted that this number is roughly equal to the number of Xbox units sold in Japan by November of 2005. That prank, repeated across many people, causes serious problems for zoos' telephone exchanges. Namco expects to sell 500,000 copies of Ridge Racer 6 in Japan. Fant (or various others) at a number that turns out to be a zoo. Initial predictions were highly optimistic as the highest rating launch game reviewed by Famitsu, Namco's Ridge Racer 6, scored 35 out of 40 stars. E. Matsui predicts however that the Xbox 360 will likely gain momentum coming into January 2006 when new titles come out which includes Ninety-Nine Nights. L. The 2-day 62,135 sales figure of the Xbox 360 is a little past half of the 123,334 units of the old Xbox that Microsoft sold in the first 3 days in Japan in February 2002. Lion or Mr. He even added information that over 60% of his readers had planned to buy the much anticipated Tecmo fighting game which is set for a December 29 release. C. For his part, Famitsu Xbox 360 editor-in-chief Munetatsu Matsui pointed to DOA4's absence as the main factor behind the slow start. One type of April Fool's Day hoax is to leave a message telling someone to telephone Mr. Others have also attributed this slow start to titles such as Dead or Alive 4 and Enchant Arm missing the launch date while others point to the marketing strategy that focused on selling the Xbox 360 as a fashionable item when customers were looking for an affordable or a high performance gaming console. 1 April, 2005. Some believe this is mainly due to the other popular and prospective video game handheld consoles like the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable, all of which have sold far more than the Xbox 360. 1 April, 2004. [38][39]. 1 April, 2002. While other regions such as the United States or Europe enjoyed successful launches, sales in Japan have trailed the other regions, totalling 100,000 by the end of 2005. Redknapp was being 'interviewed' on the training ground where his goalkeepers were getting to grips with bigger goals. [37]. Using West Ham United manager, Harry Redknapp, the report claimed that the size of the goals would increase by two feet in height and four feet in length. Three North American titles (Ridge Racer 6, NBA 2K6, and NHL 2K6) were not available for the Europe launch. The BBC's Saturday lunchtime show 'Football Focus' broadcast a piece centred on the upcoming change of the size of goals. [36]. Seattle area TV program Almost Live! set up a phony broadcast room and dressed actors as TV anchors to pull an April Fool's joke of legendary proportions. A total of 15 games were available for launch, including critical hits Call of Duty 2, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero. The Space Needle collapsed in a windstorm on April 1st, 1985. [34][35]. It was later announced at the Sea FM dance party that it was a hoax. [33] By the end of 2005, Microsoft sold 500,000 consoles in the region. This left a huge number of under 21s angry and frustrated, and incited protests. [32] In turn, some retailers blamed Microsoft for failing to provide enough consoles in the Christmas period. Change of drinking age: On the Gold Coast, Australia's biggest tourist destination (particularly amongst school leavers), radio station Sea FM announced the drinking age would be changed from 18 to 21. [31] The shortages led to some consumers criticising retailers, and others attacking Microsoft itself for failing to fill demand. The station played pop songs until 7:00 am, when Stern came back on. [30] As in North America, thousands of Xbox 360 appeared on auction websites like eBay, selling for more than twice their retail price. Cancellation of the Howard Stern Show: The April 1st, 2004 show started off with an announcement by the station manager stating that due to increased pressure from the FCC, Viacom had cancelled the Howard Stern Show. Microsoft confirmed that 300,000 units were available for the European launch. Shuttle landing: In 1993, a San Diego radio station fooled many listeners into believing that the space shuttle had been diverted from Edwards Air Force Base and was about to make an emergency landing at a small local airport. [27], and Microsoft has revised their initial 90 day estimate down to 2.5 million units, though their 6 month sales estimate remains unchanged at 4.5 to 5.5 million consoles.[28][29]. He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange floating sensation." Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked. Analysts believe Microsoft will not meet the original worldwide target of 2.75-3 million units sold in the first 90 days after launch. that day. [25][26]. Defy Gravity: In 1976 British astronomer Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC2 that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m. By the end of 2005, Microsoft sold roughly 900,000 units. Mainstream media (including Channel 9's Today Show) picked up the story. [24] In Canada, all 32,100 units available for launch were sold. New South Wales Premier Bob Carr was also in on the joke. According to the NDP Group, North American sales totaled 326,000 units in November. Sydney Olympics: Australian radio station Triple J breakfast show co-host Adam Spencer announced in 1999 that he had a journalist on the line at the site of a secret IOC meeting and that Sydney had lost the 2000 Summer Olympics. As of January 26, 2006 at 4:59 EST, major online retailers are sold-out of both Xbox 360 packages (including Amazon.com, circuitcity.com and buy.com). This hoax can also be considered a parody of late 1990s media consolidations.). It was reported [23] that 40,000 units appeared on eBay during the initial month of release, which would mean that 10% of the total supply was resold. New Format: Radio station KFOG in San Francisco, claiming new corporate ownership, switched to a new format - the best 15 seconds of every song! All morning they mixed in bogus calls from perky listeners calling with compliments. 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. Both DJs were later jailed for creating a public nuisance. The high demand for the Xbox 360 led to some owners almost immediately re-selling their console for vastly inflated prices. Several police were needed to deal with traffic gridlock and enraged listeners who threatened to harm the DJs responsible. Microsoft has stated that they will look into the reports and have offered assistance reachable by phone. Free Concert: Radio station 98.1 KISS in Chattanooga, Tennessee falsely announced in 2003 that rapper Eminem would be doing a free show in a discount store parking lot. Microsoft claims that these problems are to be expected on a large scale release for a console and the number of reports versus the number of consoles released was very minimal. The pair were fired shortly thereafter. [22] The manual contains warnings about not placing the Xbox 360 on soft surfaces or in enclosed spaces to avoid heating problems. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. Some reported the Xbox 360 crashing with errors, some reported the hard drive does not respond in certain situations while others report error messages during various games or unusually fast overheating. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending truth to the prank as he could not be reached. Immediately after the launch, reports about the new machine's technical glitches started coming out. Death of a Mayor: In 1998, local shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. [21]. Google's hoaxes. Peter Moore, Microsoft corporate vice president, predicts that shipments will reach 10 million units worldwide by the end of 2006. April 1st RFC. This allowed them to launch several months earlier than would otherwise be possible, but also led to shortages. "Uninventing the wheel" to counter the "EU ban" on right-hand drive cars. They did not, however, build up a sufficient supply of consoles to satisfy the entire demand at launch. Marque-Wiper - mini-wipers for each exterior "BMW" logo coming as standard on all future models ,. they did not withhold produced consoles). SHEF ("Satellite Hypersensitive Electromagnetic Foodration") Technology, which sees the car's GPS systems synchronise with home appliances to perfectly cook a meal for the instant you return home ,. Evidence indicates that Microsoft launched with all consoles available at the time, and operating at maximum production capability (i.e. IDS ("Insect Deflector Screen") Technology - using elastic solutions to bounce insects off the windscreen as you drive. Prelaunch reports assume that Microsoft intentionally restricted supply [18], although there is no evidence to support this and Microsoft has said they are releasing all units into supply chains as quickly as possible [19] [20]. MINI cars being used in upcoming space missions to Mars,. contest that offered participants a chance to win one of three hundred and sixty Xbox 360 console bundles six days before the official launch.[17]. The "Toot and Calm Horn", which calms rather than aggravates other drivers, so reducing the risk of road rage,. The campaign was later revealed to be a U.S. Annual BMW Innovations see a new "cutting-edge invention" by BMW advertised across British newspapers every year , examples including:
China Decapitates Taiwan: In 2005, an undergraduate nicknamed SkyMirage, who was well-known in Taiwan for his humor, fabricated a series of news that China's airforce was bombarding Office of President, Taiwan. On October 13, 2005, members of the TeamXbox forums were directed to the Hex168.com website through mysterious messages posted by someone called "Lutz". He was charged for this incident. October 2005 saw the launch of "Hex168", another viral marketing campaign commissioned by Microsoft and executed by the Marden-Kane advertising agency. The rumor, which was intended as an April Fool's prank, was started by a student by imitating the design of Ming Pao newspaper website. 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. The Hong Kong government held a press conference to deny the rumor. New contests include a Halo 2 tournament and a competition to design a "Gamertile" (an avatar icon). Hong Kong supermarkets were immediately overwhelmed by panicked shoppers. 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. SARS Infects Hong Kong: In 2003 it was rumored that many people in Hong Kong had become infected with SARS, that all immigration ports would be closed to quarantine the region, and that Tung Chee Hwa, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong at that time, had resigned. Unveiled on September 27, 2005 the website, hosted by talking rabbits Boss and Didier offers visitors an opportunity to enter in various contests. The Canadian news site bourque.org announced in 2002 that Finance Minister Paul Martin had resigned "in order to breed prize Charolais cattle and handsome Fawn Runner ducks." The Canadian dollar dropped to its lowest level in a month before Martin's office debunked the hoax. OrigenXbox360.com was the next viral marketing campaign from Microsoft. It should be noted that in Norway alcohol is relatively expensive and has limited availability due to government legislation. Allard. That morning staff were met by about 200 men & women with bottles, buckets, and other suitable vessels for carrying the prized goods. On May 12 the ARG section of OurColony closed, visitors were instead greeted with a promotional video hosted by J. The inhabitants of Bergen were invited to the main store in town to receive their share of the goods, rather than spill good wine down the drain. Throughout March and April OurColony.net offered challenges to its community, rewarding solutions with cropped pictures of the console and game screenshots. Free wine for all:The Norwegian newspaper "Bergens Tidende" announced in 1987 that the state alcohol monopoly had 10,000 litres of confiscated smuggler-wine. The promotional campaign for Xbox 360 began on March 14, 2005 with the opening of an alternate reality game called OurColony. VeryCD: This P2Pweb site, one of the largest in China, announced in 2005 that it had ceased operation without specifing a cause. EB Games locations received the Xbox 360 kiosks in their stores just over a week prior to its release. Another year, TVM announced that Malta would adopt the European continent convention of driving on the right-hand side of the road. In the first week of November, the Xbox 360 screen of death was reported. National Television Station (TVM) in Malta: In 1995, TVM announced the discovery of a new underground prehistoric temple with a mummy. In October/November 2005, North American Target and Wal-Mart stores received kiosks to demonstrate games like Call of Duty 2 and Kameo: Elements of Power. Several media outlets fell for the hoax. Microsoft claims that most of the games were running at 25-30% of full capacity because they were not running on actual systems. The original series is widely considered to be one of the worst sitcoms ever produced. 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. The Trouble with Tracy: In 2003, The Comedy Network in Canada announced that it would be producing and airing a remake of the 1970s Canadian sitcom The Trouble with Tracy. The system, along with some playable games, were shown off at E3 2005. The 1997 switch was particularly widespread. In the article he says "It's perfect...The day Sony launches [the new PlayStation], and they walk right into Halo 3." [13] 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."[14] Gates himself later clarified that "Halo 3 will ship when Bungie is ready." [15]. Cartoonists have done this sort of "switcheroo" in several years. The Xbox 360 was also featured on the cover of Time magazine's May 23, 2005 issue with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates holding up one of the units. In some cases, the artist draws characters in the other strip's milieu, while in others, the artist draws in characters from other visiting characters from his own. The official unveiling of the system occurred on Thursday, May 12, 2005 on MTV in a program called MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed hosted by actor Elijah Wood with a musical performance by the band The Killers. Comic strip switcheroo: Cartoonists of popularly syndicated comic strips draw each others' strips. See Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace, and Microsoft Points. White's position was filled by Sajak's wife Leslie. Points can be purchased directly through Live or via game cards sold at retails shops such as Target. In addition to Sajak hosting Jeopardy!, he and co-host Vanna White appeared as contestants on the episode of Wheel hosted by Trebek. While game demos and trailers are free, full versions of games must be purchased using a system called Microsoft Points. Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy! Double Switch: In 1997, Pat Sajak, the host of Wheel of Fortune, traded hosting duties with Jeopardy!'s Alex Trebek for one show. By far one of the most interesting features of the Xbox 360 Live is the capability to download arcade-style games through Xbox Live Arcade, as well as game demos and other content through Xbox Live Marketplace. Write Only Memory: Signetics advertised Write Only Memory IC databooks in 1972 through the late 1970s. It offers the following selections:. Assassination of Bill Gates: Many Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was assassinated. The Xbox Game Guide is a tabbed user interface that can be accessed instantly by pressing the Guide Button on any Xbox 360 controller. This kid, known as "Barefoot" Sidd[hartha] Finch, reportedly learned to pitch in a Buddhist monastery. An Xbox Live Gold account costs $49.99 USD, £39.99 Pounds Sterling, €59.99 per year (or, in the UK, a 3-month Gold membership is available for £11.99). Sidd Finch: George Plimpton wrote a 1985 article in Sports Illustrated about a New York Mets prospect who could throw a 168 mph fastball with pinpoint accuracy. Then when the user goes to add a Xbox Live enabled profile to their console, the user just needs to provide the console with their passport account information. Within a few hours, aluminium foil was sold out throughout the country. To transition an Xbox Live account to the new system the user needs to link a Microsoft Passport account to their gamer tag on Xbox.com. Wrapping Televisions in Foil: In another year, the Dutch television news reported that the government had new technology to detect unlicensed televisions (in many European countries, television licence fees fund public broadcasting), but that wrapping a television in aluminium foil could prevent its detection. Microsoft has allowed for previous Xbox Live subscribers to maintain their profile information, buddy lists, and games history when they make the transition to Xbox Live Gold. Many shocked and even mourning people contacted the station. However, video conferencing was not available when the console was first released. Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported once in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen. Xbox Live Gold has the same features as Silver plus online game playing capabilities and video conferencing. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success. Microsoft has also announced there will be trial weekends for Silver members to access the full features of Gold service temporarily. Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Silver members are not allowed to play any games online. Metric time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves claiming that the time system will be changed to a one where units of time vary by powers of 10. Xbox Live Silver is free of charge and allows users to create a profile, join on message boards, access to Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade, and talk to other members. FBI Crackdowns on On-line File Sharing of Music: Such announcements on April Fools Day have become common. With the launch of the Xbox 360, Microsoft's online gaming service, Xbox Live went through a major upgrade adding a basic non-subscription service (Silver) to its already established premium subscription-based service (Gold). Intrigued readers were later disappointed to learn that sans serif did not exist except as references to typeface terminology. Microsoft has changed the content of several Xbox games when running under the 360's emulator, such as when they blocked the Halo 2 trailers from running off of later copies of Halo: Combat Evolved discs, presumably because the advertisements promoted a very different game than what ended up being released. San Serriffe: The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising this fictional resort, its two main islands (Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse), its capital (Bodoni), and its leader (General Pica). [12]. Kremvax: In 1984, in one of the earliest on-line hoaxes, a message was circulated that Usenet had been opened to users in the Soviet Union. Microsoft states that they will be adding more emulation profiles as they become available, with the intended goal of making the entire Xbox library playable on the Xbox 360. Weekly printed an entire page of fake things to do on April Fools day, which hundreds of people were suckered in by. As of January 10, 2006, the Japanese Xbox site shows only 30 [11]. Lies to Get You Out of the House In 1985, the L.A. list includes over 200 games, fewer games are listed as backward compatible in the European markets. Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell." When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied with tongue in cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial. Although the U.S. Left Handed Whoppers: In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out the right side. market was released on November 11, 2005 and is maintained at Xbox.com. A lot of people wanted spaghetti trees of their own. The list of backward-compatible games for the U.S. Spaghetti trees: The BBC television program Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. [10]. Alabama Changes the Value of Pi: The April 1998 newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi to the "Biblical value" of 3.0. Updated emulation profiles can be obtained through Xbox Live, by burning a CD with content downloaded from Xbox.com, or by ordering an update disc from Microsoft at a small charge for shipping. Hard drives purchased separately or as part of the console package will include a certain number of "emulation profiles" for games, including Halo and Halo 2. A hard drive is required to enable backward compatibility. Software emulation is far from perfect, as significant drops in framerate are observable in some titles.[9]. Some games have slightly improved draw distance, possibly due to the system's greater memory bandwidth. Games have minor graphical enhancements due to being rendered in 720p resolutions with Anti-Aliasing enabled. The Xbox 360 achieves backward compatibility through software emulation of the original Xbox hardware. The Playstation 3 also has impressive procedural synthesis capabilities, but the technical implementation differs significantly. Other interesting examples of procedural synthesis are shown in various demoscene demos. Procedural synthesis is also found outside of the Xbox 360 in the advanced freeware FPS game .kkrieger, where such techniques have reduced the size of the visually stunning game to a mere 96 kilobytes. The downside to this approach is that when part of the L2 cache is locked, there is even less data immediately available to keep the 3 symmetric cores in the Xenon CPU running at full efficiency (1 MB of shared L2 is already a rather small amount of cache for 3 symmetric cores to share, especially considering that the Xenon CPU does not support out-of-order execution to more efficiently use available clock cycles). The rationale behind this design is that procedurally generated game content can be streamed directly from CPU to GPU, without incurring additional latency by being stored in system RAM as an intermediary step. The Xenos GPU can then read directly from this locked cache space and render the procedurally generated objects. When locked, a segment of cache no longer contains any prefetched instructions or data for the CPU, but is instead used as output space for the procedural synthesis thread. The Xbox 360's architecture was designed with this approach in mind.[8] When running procedural synthesis algorithms, one of the Xenon CPU's cores may "lock" a portion of the 1 MB shared L2 cache. Instead, a general recursive algorithm will generate the tree's model and textures, so that each tree looks different from the next, and do so with high efficiency. A game with only one model for a tree will appear odd, as nature is far more random; the game loses some of its immersion as a result. For example, trees are one of the most complicated objects to render in a game, due to their organic complexity. Procedural synthesis is an approach to generating game content via algorithms. A newer approach to generating content is utilised for Xbox 360 titles, a method referred to by Microsoft as procedural synthesis. As complexity in each rises, the demand for storage rises as well. In traditional games, all content is statically stored and generally immutable; that is, textures, meshes, and other game content is stored on a storage medium. For the Xbox 360, Microsoft has drawn on recent research in computer graphics to enable a new method for game programming. For example, John Carmack stated at QuakeCon 2005 that the Xbox 360 had "the best development environment" he has seen for a console. To date, some developers have endorsed XNA Studio. Microsoft believes that this will give developers more time to generate unique content and reduce time running the content process. XNA Studio will allow team members to collaborate using familiar techniques and tools, even when elements of the team are distributed geographically, an increasing trend in game development. These tools are designed to work together to automate common development tasks and present interfaces tailored to the different functions within the team. XNA Studio will provide versions of key production tools such as asset management, defect tracking, project automation and work lists. Based on Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the XNA Studio is the Visual Studio for game development; an integrated, team-based development environment tailored for game production. XNA Studio will enable collaboration between content creators, programmers, management and QA staff to speed the game production process. XNA Studio covers three areas: Content Creation, Production Processes and Game Technologies. The Xbox 360 game development will be centered around the XNA Studio game development platform. In March 2004, Microsoft announced a new game development software strategy dubbed "XNA", which Microsoft claims would enable game studios to cut development times by up to a third if developing across multiple Microsoft platforms, by means of tools created with the increasing difficulty of programming for a machine with three processor cores in mind. During early development the Xbox 360 was referred to as "Xenon", "Xbox 2", and "Xbox Next". [7]. By using a program "mceDivX360" on the PC, the Xbox 360 is able to receive streamed films which are converted to WMV format from DivX by Windows Media Encoder. The Xbox 360 is able to stream movies from a PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition, although it is unable to stream movies in DivX format. Windows Media Connect allows users to stream their favorite music collection through the Xbox 360 Dashboard, and allows users to play their music via the Xbox 360 Guide in place of the game's original soundtrack. After installation the computer and the and Xbox 360 will automatically detect one other. To connect the Xbox 360 to a computer the user will need to download Windows Media Connect. The Xbox 360 has the ability to connect to Windows XP based computers over a home network to stream music and pictures right to a TV. The main dashboard is divided into 4 main sections:. From there, the full Dashboard can be run, exiting the current game. The Dashboard can also be accessed via the Xbox Guide button on the controller at any time to open a player specific blade. The Dashboard will launch automaticially at boot if no game disc is inserted into the console. The Dashboard is the main interface to the Xbox 360, governed by a series of "blades" to subdivide categories. Due to the limited space of standard DVDs, some games made for the system may span multiple discs, although procedural generation of textures and models (as seen in the PC game .kkrieger) may reduce the need for multiple discs. Xbox 360 games are set to the standard 7.95GB of storage available on a dual-layer DVD. Bill Gates has confirmed during his keynote speech at CES 2006 that an external HD-DVD drive will be released for the 360 this year.[5] However, Peter Moore has stated that if HD-DVD loses the format war, Microsoft may release an external Blu-Ray drive.[6]. [4]. It has been confirmed by Yoshihiro Maruyama, Japan's chief of Xbox operations, that Microsoft will never release games for Xbox 360 in a format other than DVD. The other supported formats are: CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R/RW, WMACD, MP3CD, and JPEG Photo CD. A 12X DVD-ROM SATA drive, capable of reading DVD+R/RW discs and DVD-R/RW, is part of the console, with game titles shipping on single or dual-layer DVDs. The system bandwidth comprises:. The graphics processing unit (GPU) is a custom ATI R500-based "Xenos". [3]. The central processing unit (CPU), named Xenon (Microsoft) or Waternoose (IBM) is a custom IBM triple-core PowerPC-based design. Specifications are also available at the official Xbox website. The price of these custom designs are around $20 with more to be released by third party manufacturers. Microsoft has also distributed two promotional faceplates, one for those present at the E3 2005 unveiling and one for VIP X05 attendees. The default faceplate (Xbox 360's Chrome or Core System's Chill) can be replaced with a range of custom designs, each to be sold separately. According to J Allard, the chief of Microsoft's Xbox division, Microsoft may sell larger capacity detachable hard drives for the Xbox 360 in the future, and territories outside of North America may have a differently sized hard drive in the retail unit. This drive will not be included in the Core System bundle at launch, and also will not be sold separately in Japan. This content will be included on both the bundled hard drive and the stand alone product. The individual drives will come pre-loaded with a promotional video about the making of the Xbox 360, the "XBOX 360 Custom Mix" (A collection of music), additional Dashboard skins, songs, additional Xbox Live Gamertag images, and Hexic HD, an Xbox Live Arcade game from Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov. A hard drive is also required for the user to be able to play backward compatible Xbox games. Only 13 GB of this hard drive are available to the user; the rest is reserved for the system and games. A detachable SATA 20 GB hard drive is used for the storage of games, music, downloaded trailers, levels, demos, player preferences, and community-created content from Xbox Live Marketplace; it may also be used to transfer such content between Xbox 360 units. This port replaces the two proprietary USB connectors on the front of the Xbox controller. The rear of the controller includes a port where the player can connect a headset. The black and white buttons have been redesigned as shoulder buttons, now referred to as bumper buttons, located above the left and right triggers. The ring of light lights up the quadrant (on the controller as well as the console) that represents the player number assigned to that controller (starting with the top left quadrant as player one, and proceeding clockwise to player 4 in the bottom left). Pressing the Xbox guide button will bring the Xbox 360 out of sleep mode, turn the console on or off, and bring up the "Xbox Guide" for access to digital movies, music and games libraries. The Xbox 360 controller adds an Xbox guide button, which has the appearance of the Xbox 360 emblem and is surrounded by a ring of green LEDs. The controller for the Xbox 360 is a similar version of the Type-S gamepad for the original Xbox. The wireless controller has a battery life of up to 25 hours on the NiMH rechargeable battery pack (optional and recommended) and a recommended range of up to 30 feet (9.14 m). The controllers have two digital Touch-sensitive trigger buttons.The rest of the buttons are not Touch-sensitive. The wired controller has a nine foot (2.74 m) long cord with a break-away feature. Since the controller has a USB cable, it is also usable in Windows PCs. Alternately it can support two wired controllers through the use of its USB ports at the front, the USB port on the back will support a third controller. The Xbox 360 has the ability to support up to four wireless controllers. This discrepancy is partially accounted for by the time needed to localize the games. Japanese customers, however, only had six titles to choose from by the time the Xbox 360 was released on December 10, 2005. The European countries had fifteen titles available for the launch date of December 2, 2005. Eighteen launch titles were available for customers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico on November 22, 2005. For full details see Console Launch. Without it the Xbox 360 numbers sold were less than originally anticipated. The main reason for this may have been the delaying of Dead Or Alive 4 which remains an extremely popular Xbox 360 Japanese game. In Japan, it was received far less enthusiastically, despite the low price and bonus features. Many stores sold out on the first day, and as of mid-January consumers had to hunt across many stores to find one in stock. The Xbox 360 has been released in North America, Puerto Rico, Europe and Japan. They have also stated that they may release a similar Blu-ray attachment, depending on which format (HD-DVD or Blu-ray) becomes standard, though there is currently no plan except the support for HD-DVD. Microsoft plans to release an external HD-DVD attachment to play high-definition movies. Xbox 360 is compatible with DVD movies, but not HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray. Microsoft hopes to avoid such a predicament with its new console, the company is predicting that a greater market share and falling hardware costs will make the Xbox 360 a profitable item. Microsoft's home entertainment division posted a loss through nearly every quarter of the console's lifecycle as a result. Because of these chips and the added expense of a hard drive component, Microsoft was never able to reduce the cost of manufacturing an Xbox below the break-even point. Both of these were very similar to "off the shelf" PC hardware and were therefore sold to Microsoft at inflated market prices. This flexibility stands in contrast to the situation faced by the original Xbox, which contained a processor from Intel (a slightly modified Pentium III) and a GPU from NVidia (a modified GeForce 3). Also, since Microsoft owns the patents or licenses thereunder for all custom hardware used in the Xbox 360, they can easily switch to new fabrication processes or change suppliers in the future in order to reduce manufacturing costs. The strategy of selling a console at a loss or near-loss is common in the console games industry, as console makers can usually expect to make up the investment with revenue from game licensing. BusinessWeek magazine compiled a report which estimates that the total cost of all of the components in the "premium" bundle is $525 USD, aside from additional manufacturing costs, meaning that Microsoft is losing at least $126 on every Xbox 360 system sold in the US, and at least as much in Japan. However because of the existence of a Core System edition, many games do not require a hard drive. Microsoft's decision has also allowed Japanese developers to fully utilize the hard drive to optimize game performance, since it is part of the default system configuration in their market. Japanese pricing of the console has drawn some criticism, as customers there will be able to purchase the Xbox 360 full package, albeit one region-coded for Japan, for a lower price than in other countries. The Xbox 360 Premium Edition is being sold in America for $399.99. The Core System is not available in Japan, instead Microsoft offers a package identical to the Xbox 360 SKU for ¥37,900 ($323.90 as of 21 December 05 8:09 UTC, [1]). In United Kingdom and Europe, the console is available in two versions: an Xbox 360 SKU, frequently referred to as the "Xbox 360 Premium Package"; and an Xbox 360 Core System SKU. Microsoft's current retail strategy involves two different configurations of the Xbox 360 in most countries. . Australia and New Zealand, after being delayed, have been set-back from March 2 to March 23. It will be released February 24 in South Korea, March 16, 2006 in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan (Delayed from original March 2 launch date). The Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005 in United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, December 2 in Europe, December 10 in Japan, February 2, 2006 in Mexico and Colombia. It is equipped with 512 MB of RAM and uses the DVD-ROM storage medium for Xbox 360 game software. The console hardware is based on a custom IBM PowerPC-based "Xenon" central processing unit (CPU) and a custom ATI R500-based "Xenos" graphics processing unit (GPU). The Xbox 360 configuration, often referred to as the "Premium Edition", includes a hard drive (required for backwards compatibility with original Xbox games), a wireless controller, a headset, an Ethernet cable, an Xbox Live silver subscription, and a component HD AV cable (which can also be used on non-HD TVs). In all countries except Japan the console is sold in two different configurations: the "Xbox 360" and the "Xbox 360 Core System". The Xbox 360 will compete amongst the upcoming generation of consoles, including the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Revolution, and was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, a week before the E3 trade show. The Xbox 360 is Microsoft's second video game console, the successor to their original Xbox. Membership to the Xbox 360 VIP website. One Xbox 360 Preview DVD. One Wireless Controller. Perfect Dark Zero. Xbox 360 Faceplate. Friends Lists. Custom Playlists. Favorites List. Marketplace. Xbox Live. Initial Setup - Runs the system setup that executes the first time the Xbox 360 is used. Computers - Manage connections to other computers over network. Network Settings - Create and manage internet connections, set up wireless connections. Memory - Manage things on the harddrive such as game saves, profiles, and downloaded content. Family Settings - Toggle parental controls, adjust profile levels. Console Settings - Edit Xbox 360 settings such as display, audio, and language. Media Center - Activate Media Center extender. Video - Watch videos stored on the HD. Pictures - View pictures stored on a camera, a computer or other portable devices. Music - Listen to music from the hard drive, computer or other USB-connected devices. Trailers - Watch downloaded movie/game trailers. Demos - Play downloaded game demos. Xbox Live Arcade - Allows the user to play games they have downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Played Games - Displays a list of all the games the user has played. Achievements - Allows the user to view all of their unlocked achievements from games they have played. Xbox Live Marketplace - Download a wide variety of content such as avatars, trailers, even game demos. Friends - Displays the user's Xbox Live friend list. Messages - View messages, friend requests or game invites sent by other Xbox Live members. Connect to Xbox Live - If offline, allows the user to connect to Xbox Live. There are several ways to utilize the custom soundtrack option: by ripping music from audio CD's, by streaming music directly from a PC, plugging in a USB Flash Drive, or by plugging in a USB-capable portable music player. Microsoft claims all games will support custom music. 3 USB 2.0 ports. Some games will optionally support native 1080i and 480p video resolutions as well. The GPU can downsample 720p to lower display resolutions (including 480i SDTV and 480p) and dynamically crop or scale 16:9 to fit 4:3 screens. All games must support a 16:9 aspect ratio, and a minimum of 720p HD resolution with 2x full-scene anti-aliasing enabled. DVD playback on the console has similar lockouts. Games bought for the console in a specific region can only be played in a console from the same region, though some games are region-free. The console makes use of regional lockout. Media Center Extender capability. Support for WMV HD and progressive or interlaced DVD video playback. 45.9 cm (L) x 35.8 cm (W) x 18.3 cm (H) (22.15 x 20.15 x 13.27 in). Weight 3.5 kg (7.7 lb). additional MPEG2 decoder for DVD video playback. Bink Video is licensed for games like Project Gotham Racing 3. VC-1 supports DVD quality and high definition quality video. VC-1 or WMV will be used for streaming video. VC-1 at non-HD NTSC and PAL resolutions. Uses XMA codec (advanced audio technology from Microsoft). Voice communication except during games or applications that do not support voice. No voice echo to game players on the same Xbox console; voice goes only to remote consoles. 256+ audio channels. 32 bit processing. 320 independent decompression channels. Supports 48 kHz 16-bit audio. All games support at least six channel (5.1) Dolby Digital surround sound. 1 TFLOPS theoretical peak performance of CPU and GPU combined. 115 GFLOPS theoretical peak performance for CPU. 1 GB/s southbridge bandwidth (aggregated 500 MB/s upstream and downstream). 21.6 GB/s front side bus (aggregated 10.8 GB/s upstream and downstream). 32 GB/s GPU to eDRAM bandwidth (2 GHz × 2 accesses per clock cycle on a 64 bit DDR bus). 256 GB/s eDRAM internal logic to eDRAM internal memory bandwidth. 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth (700 MHz × 2 accesses per clock cycle (one per edge) on a 128 bit bus). 512 MB 700 MHz GDDR3 (1400MHz effective) RAM (Total system memory is shared with the GPU via the unified memory architecture.). Dot product operations: 24 billion per second or 33.6 billion per second theoretical maximum when summed with CPU operations. Pixel fillrate: 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X multisample anti aliasing (MSAA) or 4 gigapixel per second without multisample anti aliasing (8 ROPs x 500MHz). Texel fillrate: 8 gigatexel per second fillrate (16 textures x 500MHz). Maximum polygon performance: 500 million triangles per second. 16 Filtered & 16 unfiltered texture samples per clock. 8 ROPs in daughter die. Shader performance: 48 billion (48,000 million) shader operations per second (96 shader operations x 500MHz). 96 Shader operations per cycle across the entire shader array. 2 Shader operations per pipe per cycle. Support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0, limited support for future DirectX 10 shader models. Unified shader architecture (This means that each pipeline is capable of running either pixel or vertex shaders.). 1 ALU per fragmentpipe for vertex or pixel shader processing. 3 groups of 16 arithmetic logic units. 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines
500 MHz 10 MB daughter embedded DRAM framebuffer (90 nm process, 90 million transistors)
DOT products performance: 9,6 billion per second. 512 megabytes of L-2 memory bandwidth (256bit x 1600MHz). 1 MB L-2 cache (lockable by the GPU) running at half-speed (1.6 Ghz) with a 256bit bus. 128×128 register file for each VMX unit. One VMX-128 (IBM's branding for AltiVec) SIMD unit per core. Three symmetrical cores, each one SMT-capable and clocked at 3.2 GHz. 90 nm process, 165 million transistors. The remote controls interface with the Xbox 360 via infra-red. Both remotes allow basic control of games, along with being able to navigate the dashboard. The universal media remote is a bigger version of the media remote that was initially shipped with the premium version of the console. Universal Media Remote: assists in the playing of DVD movies and music (although the console can play such media without the remote) , and offers controls for a TV or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005-based PC. Headset: allows gamers to talk to each other when plugged into the controller and connected to Xbox Live, and has an in-line volume control and a mute switch. Using an official or third-party wireless bridge the console will automatically detect and link up with other Xbox 360 consoles that are within range and form a mesh network. Wireless Networking Adapter: The Wi-Fi (802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g) adapter is sold separately and will be sold for $100/€80/£60/C$130/¥8,925. Memory Unit: a portable 64MB device which allows the transfer of saved games, in-game achievements and unique gamer profiles to other Xbox 360 consoles. Also includes the rechargeable battery pack. Play and Charge kit: allows the controller to be recharged while playing. It also ships as part of the Play & Charge Kit. It is recommended in place of disposable AA batteries (which differ slightly in voltage). Rechargeable battery pack: This nickel metal hydride battery pack provides up to 30 hours of continuous gaming for the wireless controller. Composite video cable with SCART adapter. VGA HD AV Cable. Xbox 360 D-Terminal AV Cable (Japan only) This cable is included in the Japanese Xbox 360 System. S-Video AV Cable (U.S., Japan, and Canada only) or Xbox 360 SCART AV Cable (Europe only). Xbox 360 Component HD-AV Cable. |