Throughout March and April OurColony.net offered challenges to its community, rewarding solutions with cropped pictures of the console and game screenshots.
Unveiled on September 27, 2005, the website, hosted by talking rabbits Boss and Didier, offers visitors an opportunity to enter in various contests.
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.
The 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.
[1] This website hosted a number of images that appeared to perpetuate obscure conspiracy theories, but sometimes contained oblique references to Xbox 360.
The campaign was later revealed to be a U.S. contest that offered participants a chance to win one of three hundred sixty Xbox 360 console bundles six days before the official launch.
[2] Winners from Hex168 were invited to attend the Xbox 360 launch party in Palmdale, CA, and given VIP access to games, food, and special areas (all free of charge).
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.
In North America, the best-selling title was Call of Duty 2, which had an attach rate of 77%, followed by Madden NFL 06 and Need for Speed Most Wanted.
[21] Due to the issues caused by overheating of the first consoles, Microsoft extended the Xbox 360 warranty by 3 years, which cost more than 1 billion US dollars.
[22] The manual contains warnings about not placing the Xbox 360 on soft surfaces or in enclosed spaces to avoid heating problems.
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.
Others have 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.
For his part, Famitsu Xbox 360 editor-in-chief Munetatsu Matsui pointed to Dead or Alive 4's absence as the main factor behind the slow start.
[17] 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.
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.
On the day of the launch, Capcom unveiled their Xbox 360-exclusive science fiction game Lost Planet, which features South Korean actor Lee Byung-hun in the lead role.
On October 19, 2006 all 10,000 Blue Dragon preorders bundled with a limited edition Xbox 360 Core system were sold-out in Japan.
Although The Elite Model was launched officially in 2007 as a Limited Edition, It was quickly vanished due to the lack of movement in sales.
Retailers such as Almacenes Éxito, Panamericana, Blockbuster, Pepe Ganga, K-Tronix, Carrefour, La 14, Vivero, and Hiperbodega Alkosto have since started selling the console, games, and accessories.
[42] Only the Premium package (with the games Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo: Elements of Power and Project Gotham Racing 3 included) was available, and retailed for R$ 2,999 (~US $1,500).
Halo 3 was launched at the country in the same day as the rest of world (usually the games arrive a week or a month later), with the Legendary, Collector and Standard versions, as the U.S. market.
Promotions included one free limited edition PGR3 faceplate bundled for the initial shipment, and a gamepad-game combo pack containing Kameo and a wireless gamepad.
According to GfK, a German institute specializing in market research, the Xbox 360 launch was the most successful in Australia's history at that time, selling over 30,000 consoles in the first four days.
[45][46] Microsoft elected not to package an Xbox Live headset with the premium system configuration; a Media Remote is included instead.
", Javier stated dispelling speculation that Microsoft Philippines intentionally did not want to conduct a domestic Xbox 360 launch.
Lazada is currently the authorized distributor of the Xbox 360 in the Philippines, although other popular shops, like Toy Kingdom,[48] as well as smaller store chains, are also selling units.
The lone package available during launch includes the Xbox 360 Premium system with an additional wireless controller, Halo 2, and Dead or Alive 4 for 28,500 pesos ($568).