Xbox 360

Xbox 360
Developer: Microsoft Publisher: Microsoft Released in JP: December 10, 2005 Released in US: November 22, 2005 Released in EU: December 2, 2005 Released in AU: March 23, 2006 Released in KR: February 24, 2006 Released in AS: March 2, 2006 This console has hidden development-related text. This console has unused graphics. This console has unused text. This console has debugging material. This console has revisional differences. This console has a prototype article This console has a prerelease article

This game/console's online features are no longer supported. While this game/console's online features were once accessible, they are (as of July 29, 2024) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: Document the menu differences if a Xbox 360 game is played on newer Xbox Console. The Xbox One doesn't capture the Xbox 360 Guide pop-up at all, so capture card images are required. The achievements list, shows the player's Xbox One achievements. The Storage Manager mentions about the Xbox One.

The Xbox 360 is Microsoft's second console, and the successor to the Xbox. It featured much tighter integration with its online service, Xbox Live, as well as more robust multimedia features.

Despite widespread hardware failure during the first few years of its lifespan, it performed very well on the market, even managing to outsell the PlayStation 3 for a while, in part due to Sony infamously fumbling the bag with their system's launch.

On July 29, 2024, nearly 19 years after the system's launch, the console's marketplace was shutdown. Due to this, players can no longer buy any digital games, DLC, demos, and Xbox 360 avatar items, resulting in players having to buy physical copies of their games. Players who had purchased any content before the shutdown can still re-download them.

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Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Unused Image

Found in the "neon" resource in dash.xex is this image. "Yak" is the old nickname of Jeff Minter, known for the running theme of ruminants in his games, and whose light synthesizer known as "Neon" was used for this console.

NXE Leftovers in Kinect Dashboard

While the Kinect dashboard was a full-on rework of the NXE dashboard, some remnants from it are still there...

The old avatar silhouette is still there, although not used at all.

The same also applies to the Create Account and Recover Gamertag images.

Unused Text

<Insert display string text>

Placeholder text for the achievements.

This text can be seen if a player were to modify their gamer profile via USB to add achievements.

Hidden System Settings Reset

On the System Info screen in System Settings, press the following button sequence LT, RT, X, Y, LB, RB, followed by a four button sequence that's unique to each system. The unique ending is stored as a 4 character ASCII string, and can be retrieved by inspecting the 4th block of the SMC configuration at offset 0x238, dumped from the system's NAND.

This method is primarily used by Xbox Support to remove parental controls when the PIN is lost.

Developer Text

To do: Add hex offsets

Present in multiple system XEXs are these devkit related messages:

D3D: GPU initialization (HSIO training) has failed so no graphics will render.

ERR[D3D]: Unanticipated CPU_INTERRUPT.  Sign of a corrupt command buffer?

The PIX capture is now saved to xe:\pix\crashdump.pix2.  Please power cycle your
devkit and use the 'Open Crash Dump' option from the PIX File menu to load the file
for postmortem debugging.

 CPU Synchronization ,   The GPU appears to be hung!  Specifically:  
   %s 0x%02x:  %08x    %s
    %25s: 0x%08x
        The GPU state doesn't match any known hangs.  Please send a repro
scenario to xboxds@xbox.com so that we can fix the hardware or
supply a work-around.

    
D3D version is %i, frame is %i.

  Breaking into the debugger.  The GPU is hung and can't be recovered
without doing a cold boot.
 ERR[D3D]: Try reproducing the hang with the debug or instrumented
          versions of D3D (D3D9D.LIB or D3D9I.LIB) to capture a
          crash-dump PIX file that can be sent to Xbox developer
          support.

Hidden Debug Info

By turning on preview mode, debug info on the dashboard (such as the frames per second and memory usage) can be seen. This feature was introduced in the NXE dashboard.

Revisional Differences

The Xbox 360 Dashboard underwent several dramatic redesigns throughout the system's lifetime. The Dashboard cannot be downgraded once updated to a new version through official means, but there's always workarounds.

"Blades" (2005-2008)

The Dashboard version that launched with the console, used from 2005 to 2008. The community has named this version "Blades".

Version numbers range from 2.0.1888.0 to 2.0.6717.0.

Small Revisions

Several smaller changes to this dashboard had been introduced, such as the addition of a Marketplace blade, as well as making the blades' fonts smaller.

2.0.1888.0 – 2.0.4552.0	2.0.5759.0 – 2.0.5787.0	2.0.6683.0 – 2.0.6717.0

New Xbox Experience (2008-2010)

A complete overhaul of the Dashboard, used from 2008 to 2010. The GUI design resembles Windows Media Center from Windows Vista. The "JTAG" hardware hack was patched during this era.

New features included Xbox Avatars, the ability to queue downloads from Xbox.com, Xbox Live Parties, and the ability to install disc games to the hard drive.

Version numbers range from 2.0.7357.0 to 2.0.9199.0.

Dashboard

Kinect (2010-2011)

A rework of the NXE interface to include elements of Microsoft's Metro design language, used from 2010 to 2011.

New features include a new boot animation, Kinect support, improved avatars, and improved social features.

Version numbers range from 2.0.12611.0 to 2.0.13604.0.

Dashboard

Startup Animation

Originally, the startup animation was an orb that lights up an X-shape. This was changed in the Kinect dashboard to an animation with swirling effects.

2005-2010	Current

Metro (2011-Present)

The current version of the Dashboard, designed after Windows 8.x and Xbox One's UI.

Features included far more advertisements, Internet Explorer, Bing Search, USB external drive support up to 2TB, and the replacement of Microsoft Points with real currency.

The advertisements were removed from the Dashboard in a serverside update in 2020.

Version numbers range from 2.0.14699.0 to 2.0.17559.0.

Redesign

In October 16, 2012, starting from build 2.0.16197.0, the Metro dashboard received a redesign.

2.0.14699.0 – 2.0.15574.0	2.0.16197.0 – 2.0.17559.0

Marketplace Shutdown

If the Xbox 360 is connected to the internet after July 29, 2024 when the Xbox Live Marketplace was shut down, the dashboard will receive a few server-side changes, removing all the elements related to it.

As such the dashboard only has 3 pages, and looks very barebones compared to the earlier dashboards. Setting the locale to "Other" strips the dashboard down even further. Going offline reverts these changes.

Offline	Online (Regular)
Online ("Other" locale)