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Microsoft have announced today that after a stellar run of over 10 years, they've ended production of the Xbox 360.

After being officially revealed via a 22-minute television special - MTV Presents Xbox: The Next Generation Revealed - hosted by Elijah Wood and featuring The Killers back on May 12th, 2005, the Xbox 360 would officially launch in the US on November 22nd of the same year. Europe would have to wait until December 2nd, with Japan getting a whole extra 8 days in which to prepare to ignore the machine when it launched on December 10th.

We all got to play Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero for the first time on launch day, which were arguably the pick of the initial lineup, which otherwise featured Amped 3, Call of Duty 2, Condemned, FIFA 06, Gun, Kameo, Madden NFL 06, NBA 2k6, NBA Live 06, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, NHL 2k6, Quake 4, Ridge Racer 6, Tetris, Tiger Woods 06, and Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.

Of course, the Xbox 360 played host to a number of new franchises, including Gears of War. Franchises from Microsoft's original Xbox carried over to the new machine, solidifying their position in the market as they did so. Halo and Forza Motorsport are two that come to mind off the top of the head. It also revolutionized the way we think about multiplayer gaming on consoles, with the expansion of the Xbox Live service that was initially available on the original Xbox, and brought digital distribution to the fore with the growth of Xbox Live Arcade.

Since launch, Xbox 360 gamers have racked up over 78 billion hours of gaming on Xbox 360, picking up some 486 billion in Gamerscore across 27 billion achievements. Apps were strong too, of course, with users rolling in some 25 billion hours of app usage. Though about 23 billion of that was probably spent watching Netflix.

But now, the sun is setting on the 360.

Microsoft have been quick to point out that while no new Xbox 360 consoles are being manufactured, Xbox 360 owners will still have full access to Xbox Live as they do today and recently-purchased hardware will still - obviously - be supported by Microsoft via http://xbox.com/support.

Despite the ups and downs and the whole "Red Ring of Death" kerfuffle, the Xbox 360 has served gamers well. And who can forget the first time they powered up their 360 on launch day...?

We're welling up.

It's time to pour one out for our departed hero.

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