It just happens like clockwork - one company sees the market, makes a best selling gaming console, and others follow suit. While Microsoft Xbox 360 may not be able to claim to be a pioneer over its competitors - Nintendo, Microsoft, and the-then viable Sega - there could be no doubt that the gaming industry would have been a much different landscape without the Xbox.
The Xbox's hardware resembles more of a personal computer than a traditional gaming console, and it's not that big of a mystery considering that the Xbox itself is based on common personal computer hardware architecture.
First, to clarify: the Microsoft Xbox 360 is not the same as the just the Microsoft Xbox as both consoles have different hardware architectures. The original Xbox console was discontinued in late 2006, just in time for the 360 to take up its slack as early as May 2005. The original Xbox was the first video game console to use an internal hard disk for saving game progress and content download from the Xbox Live, an online service accessible to Xbox players where they can download update patches, media and other content, legacy, homebrew and paid downloadable games and most importantly, the technology to allow players to play with as well as against each other online.
This online service is probably one of Microsoft's most important legacy to the console industry: the ability for players to compete online was something that had opened a whole new floodgate in the console gaming community, and general reception was very well received. And although the concept had been replicated, it was the Xbox that had set the standard for all gaming consoles to follow.
The aurally sensitive might also note that the Xbox was one of the first to use Dolby Interactive Encoding technology, which meshed very well with the multimedia capability of the Xbox (being able to play DVD's as well as other popular formats such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV). It also pioneered the "breakaway cables" safety feature to prevent the console from being accidentally pulled by its controller and come toppling down the floor.
Even the Xbox 360 itself has undergone several editions, with its current incarnation called the Microsoft Xbox 360 S, although commercially it's still being marketed as just plain moniker "Microsoft Xbox 360".
The Xbox 360 marks noticeable improvements from its Xbox predecessor, most noticeably with more powerful processors and exponentially larger hard disk capacities with every version, but the really noticeable changes come from the inclusion of the wireless controller on their 2007 pro versions and above, and the much anticipated recent release of the Kinect accessory add-on just late 2010.
The Kinect was supposedly Microsoft's answer to Nintendo's Wii. Like the Wii, the Kinect enables the player to interface with the 360 and its games with motion sensitive gestures. Unlike the Wii, the Kinect can also read spoken commands, as well as recognize certain objects and images, and the whole Kinect supposedly more sensitive to motion than the Wii.
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