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Xbox 360 launch

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The Xbox 360 launch marked the release of the first high-profile seventh generation video game console . It was Microsoft 's second foray in console development succeeding their 2001 launch of the original Xbox .

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147-614: The promotional campaign for the Xbox 360 began on March 30, 2005, with the opening of an alternate reality game called OurColony . Throughout March and April OurColony.net offered challenges to its community, rewarding solutions with cropped pictures of the console and game screenshots. On May 12, 2005, the ARG section of OurColony closed, visitors were instead greeted with a promotional video hosted by J. Allard . OurColony participants were allowed special access to insider info and previews before release to

294-454: A Halo 2 tournament and a competition to design a "Gamertile" ( an avatar icon ). 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. October 2005 saw the launch of "Hex168" ( 168 is 360 in hexadecimal ), another viral marketing campaign commissioned by Microsoft and executed by

441-643: A $ 200,000 prize to a player who found the game's missing cube. They planned to continue the ARG into a second "season" under the name Perplex City Stories without a large grand prize, but it was ultimately cancelled. In May 2007, 42 Entertainment launched Why So Serious , an ARG to promote the feature film The Dark Knight . It played out over 15 months, concluding in July 2008. Millions of players in 177 countries participated both online and taking part in live events, and it reached hundreds of millions through Internet buzz and exposure. Notably, Why So Serious prompted

588-604: 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. Since the release of Blue Dragon , the console has gained popularity. On October 19, 2006 all 10,000 Blue Dragon preorders bundled with a limited edition Xbox 360 Core system were sold-out in Japan. The Xbox 360 came to India with 100,000 pre bookings. Due to

735-473: A 5 francs coin; Rappe and Batze are specifically used for coin below 1 franc, but also figuratively for change in general The Swiss franc , or simply the franc , is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein . It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) issues banknotes and

882-497: A Faceplate, Wireless Controller, promotional DVD, and membership to the Xbox 360 VIP website. Purchased separately, the price of the items would add up to A$ 209.85. The Xbox 360 became the fastest-selling console in Australia, with 30,421 units sold in its first four days. The previous record was held by Sony, where the PSP was king with 27,055 units sold in the first four days. But the record

1029-563: A Russian-owned spread betting firm established in the UK, temporarily declared insolvency before announcing its desire to be acquired (and later denied rumours of an acquisition) by FXCM . FXCM was bailed out by its parent company. Saxo Bank of Denmark reported losses on 19 January 2015. New Zealand foreign exchange broker Global Brokers NZ announced it "could no longer meet New Zealand regulators' minimum capital requirements" and terminated its business. Coins before 1700 were based on either

1176-458: A Swiss bank account. This devaluation of the euro against the franc was expected to hurt Switzerland's large export industry. The Swatch Group , for example, saw its shares drop 15% (in Swiss franc terms) with the announcements so that the share price may have increased on that day in terms of other major currencies. The large and unexpected jump caused major losses for some currency traders. Alpari ,

1323-674: A better future." The game culminated at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif., August 9–11, 2013. Players participated over a six-week period, using social media, mobile devices, and apps, while visiting locations from the story in and around Los Angeles. An ARG accompanying the Kickstarter campaign for Frog Fractions 2 began in March 2014 and completed in 2016. Frog Fractions 2 will be the sequel to Twinbeard Studio's much acclaimed Frog Fractions , although

1470-498: A category in the British Academy Television Awards. Likewise, Year Zero was widely heralded following its release. Such acclaim is signified in the ARG's Grand Prix Cyber Lions award, viewed as "the most prestigious of all advertising awards," at Cannes. Adweek published a quote from the selection committee on the award decision, explaining that "42 Entertainment's [viral campaign for Nine Inch Nails] impressed

1617-474: A certain period of time, received large media attention. A few days later, another ARG by 42 Entertainment was released, for the release of the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero . In that ARG, fans discovered leaked songs on thumb drives in washrooms at concerts, as well as clues to websites that describe a dystopian future occurring in 2022. Perplex City concluded its first season by awarding

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1764-524: A chance to win one of three hundred sixty Xbox 360 console bundles six days before the official launch. 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). The official unveiling of the Xbox 360 occurred on May 12, 2005, on MTV in a program called MTV Presents Xbox: The Next Generation Revealed . The special

1911-472: A frequent confusion with the 100-franc note, and that the 10-franc note was changed from red to yellow. The size of the notes was changed as well, with all notes from the eighth series having the same height (74 mm), while the widths were changed as well, still increasing with the value of the notes. The new series contain many more security features than the previous ones; many of them are now visibly displayed and have been widely advertised, in contrast with

2058-757: A gold-selling program, the Swiss National Bank held 1,290 tonnes of gold in reserves, which equated to 20% of its assets. In November 2014, the referendum on the "Swiss Gold Initiative", which proposed a restoration of 20% gold backing for the Swiss franc, was voted down. The onset of the Greek sovereign debt crisis resulted in a strong appreciation in the value of the Swiss franc, past US$ 1.10 (CHF 0.91 per USD) in March 2011, to US$ 1.20 (CHF 0.833 per USD) in June 2011, and to US$ 1.30 (CHF 0.769 per USD) in August 2011. This prompted

2205-661: A great deal of collaborative organizing and action; players went to the streets campaigning for Harvey Dent and gathered in New York City as a part of gameplay. In March 2008, McDonald's and the IOC launched Find The Lost Ring , a global ARG promoting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The game was run simultaneously in six languages with new story lines developing in each, encouraging players to communicate with residents of other countries to facilitate sharing of clues and details of

2352-484: A highly anticipated hentai PC port of the PlayStation 2 game of the same name, was released one day prior to the Xbox 360's Japanese launch; this might also be a factor in the console's low launch sales. 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. He even added information that over 60% of his readers had planned to buy

2499-623: A hundredth of a franc, is a Rappen (Rp.) in German, centime (c.) in French, centesimo (ct.) in Italian, and rap (rp.) in Romansh. The official symbols Fr. (German symbol) and fr. (Latin languages) are widely used by businesses and advertisers, also for the English language. According to Art. 1 SR/RS 941.101 of the federal law collection the internationally official abbreviation – besides

2646-477: A long-standing variant on the genre). Overall, academics have been intrigued by ARGs' potential for effective organizing. Across the board, a diverse range of organizations, such as businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and schools "can learn from the best practices and lessons of ARGs to similarly take advantage of new media and collective problem–solving". As such, implementation of ARGs in these different settings involves finding best practices for honing

2793-512: A man's photograph and his first name, "Satoshi", asking players to locate him. In 2020, Tom-Lucas Säger used image recognition software and located Satoshi, reporting it to Laura E. Hall , who ran the website tracking information about the hunt. In 2006, the TV tie-in ARG began to come into its own when there was a surge of ARGs that extended the worlds of related television shows onto the Internet and into

2940-510: A missing friend. In February 2007, Microsoft published the game Vanishing Point to promote the launch of Windows Vista . The game was designed by 42 Entertainment and, due in part to many large-scale real-world events, such as a lavish show at the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas as well as a prizes of a trip into space and having a winner's name engraved on all AMD Athlon 64 FX chips for

3087-404: A monetary concordate , issuing standardised coins, the so-called Konkordanzbatzen , still carrying the coat of arms of the issuing canton, but interchangeable and identical in value. The reverse side of the coin displayed a Swiss cross with the letter C in the center. The Konkordanzbatzen among the Swiss cantons agreeing on an exclusive issue of currency in francs and batzen failed to replace

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3234-444: A more mainstream notice than its predecessor, finding its way onto television during a presidential debate, and becoming one of The New York Times ' catchphrases of 2004. As such, I Love Bees captivated enough fans to garner significant press attention, and partly because of this publicity, Halo 2 "sold $ 125 million in copies the first day of release." A slew of imitators fan tributes and parodies followed. In 2005,

3381-501: A much more expansive ARG called the Potato Sack was run, arranged by a number of independent developers working with Valve, to simulate the re-booting of GLaDOS . The ARG resulted in the game being released several hours earlier than scheduled, among other details. Also launched in March 2010, an ARG produced by David Varela at nDreams featured the 2008 Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton ; entitled Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life ,

3528-619: A pair of articles profiling 42 Entertainment appeared in Game Developer magazine and the East Bay Express , both of which tied into an ARG created by the journalist and his editors. The following spring, Audi launched The Art of the Heist , developed by Audi ad agency McKinney+Silver, Haxan Films (creators of The Blair Witch Project ), to promote its new A3. Roughly a year after I Love Bees , 42 Entertainment produced Last Call Poker,

3675-563: A promotion for Activision's video game Gun . Designed to help modern audiences connect with the Western genre, Last Call Poker centered on a working poker site, held games of "Tombstone Hold 'Em" in cemeteries around the United States—as well as in at least one digital venue, World of Warcraft ' s own virtual reality cemetery – and sent players to their own local cemeteries to clean up neglected grave sites and perform other tasks. At

3822-458: A second season beginning 1 March 2007. This model was delayed till 1 June, and has again, been delayed to an unspecified date. Mind Candy's acceptance of corporate sponsorship and venture capital suggests that the puzzle cards alone are not enough to fully fund the ARG at this time. In June 2006, Catching the Wish launched from an in-game website about comic books based on its predecessor, 2003's Chasing

3969-431: A significant degree of their power to the ARG's audience, problematizing traditional views of authorship. The majority of the scholarly review on ARGs analyzes their pedagogical advantages. Notably, in the classroom, ARGs can be effective tools for providing exigence on given topics and yield a collaborative and experiential learning environment. By the same token, weaknesses of classroom learning through ARGs include

4116-418: A single achievement, named "Transmission Received". The update added 26 portable radios placed throughout the game's levels, which played a default song until placed in a specific location in their respective maps. When placed in their location, the radio's lights changed from red to green, and they began to emit a string of Morse code , which revealed hidden images when decoded with Robot 36 . The numbers from

4263-552: A sphere of "chaotic fiction" that would include works such as the Uncyclopedia and street games like SF0 as well. Several experts, though, point to the use of transmedia, "the aggregate effect of multiple texts/media artifacts," as the defining attribute of ARGs. This prompts the unique collaboration emanating from ARGs as well; Sean Stewart , founder of 42 Entertainment , which has produced various successful ARGs, speaks to how this occurs, noting that "the key thing about an ARG

4410-519: A story that takes place in real time and evolves according to players' responses. It is shaped by characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by an AI as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and collaborate as a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally utilize multimedia , such as telephones and mail, but rely on

4557-442: A video game by Daniel Mullins based on a metafiction narrative, including a post-game ARG that involved real-world clues and references to Mullins' past games in conjunction with in-game materials, leading to additional narrative and endings for the game. In December 2020, a long-unsolved puzzle from Perplex City , Billion to One , was solved. The puzzle focused on exploring the concept of Six degrees of separation by presenting

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4704-413: A wireless gamepad. The launch date for Hong Kong and Singapore was March 16, 2006, delayed from original March 2, 2006 launch date. In Hong Kong, there are promotions include: free PGR3 faceplate with purchase of selected titles, DOA4 collectibles with purchase of an extra game, and reduced price when purchased with cross-promotional items. Microsoft has not released the Xbox 360 in mainland China. It

4851-573: A year's worth of teasers. The ARG offered a $ 200,000 prize to the first player to locate the buried Receda Cube and was funded by the sale of puzzle cards. The first season of the game ended in January 2007, when Andy Darley found the Receda Cube at Wakerly Great Wood in Northamptonshire, UK. Mind Candy, the production company, has also produced a board game related to the ARG and plans to continue it with

4998-500: Is estimated that perhaps over 2 million Xbox are in use in China with some of them being hacked. Some of them are still selling in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing and others. The Xbox 360 was released in Australia and New Zealand on March 23, 2006, three weeks after the initially projected release date. According to GfK , a German institute specializing in market research , the Xbox 360 launch was

5145-539: Is nothing to support this and Microsoft has said they released all units into supply chains as quickly as possible. Evidence indicates that Microsoft launched with all consoles available at the time, and was operating at maximum production capability (that is, they did not withhold produced consoles). They did not, however, build up a sufficient supply of consoles to satisfy the entire demand at launch. This allowed them to launch several months earlier than would otherwise be possible, but also led to shortages. Immediately after

5292-416: Is roughly equal to the number of Xbox units sold in Japan by November 2005. Microsoft Japan executive Yoshihiro Maruyama stated that he expects sales of Xbox 360 in Japan to hit one million units sometime next year. Maruyama is widely credited for attracting support from Japanese game developers. To entice people into buying the Xbox 360 some retailers are offering discounts on the system if they sign up for

5439-464: Is the best-selling hardware from the world's biggest software company. How can anyone not want to bring this in?", Javier stated dispelling speculation that Microsoft Philippines intentionally did not want to conduct a domestic Xbox 360 launch. The company sells the Asian edition Xbox 360 in the country. Still many people could only wonder how Microsoft Philippines will market the console and games considering

5586-483: Is the way it jumps off of all those platforms. It's a game that's social and comes at you across all the different ways that you connect to the world around you." Most ARGs do not have any fixed rules—players discover the rules and the boundaries of the game through trial and error—and do not require players to assume fictional identities or roleplay beyond feigning belief in the reality of the characters they interact with (even if games where players play 'themselves' are

5733-555: The florin petite monnaie , with 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 florins equal to the livre courant . After 1641, the Spanish dollar was worth 10 + 1 ⁄ 2 florins or 3 livres. Afterwards, the écu was valued at 12 + 3 ⁄ 4 florins or 3 + 9 ⁄ 14 livres, while the kronenthaler was valued at 12 + 3 ⁄ 8 florins or 3 + 15 ⁄ 28 livres. See also Geneva thaler and Geneva genevoise . Many currencies of central and eastern Switzerland originated from

5880-570: The American Art Museum hosted an alternate reality game, called Ghosts of a Chance , which was created by City Mystery. The game allowed patrons "a new way of engaging with the collection" in the Luce Foundation Center. The game ran for six weeks and attracted more than 6,000 participants. The first major attempt (other than EA's failed Majestic ) to create a self-supporting ARG was Perplex City , which launched in 2005 after

6027-460: The Bretton Woods system with its exchange rate to the dollar fixed until 1970. The Swiss franc has historically been considered a safe-haven currency , with a legal requirement that a minimum of 40% be backed by gold reserves . However, this link to gold, which dated from the 1920s, was terminated on 1 May 2000 following a referendum , making the franc fiat money . By March 2005, following

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6174-524: The Deutsche mark and maintained it, although at the cost of high inflation. Until mid-January 2015, the franc continued to trade below the target level set by the SNB, though the ceiling was broken at least once on 5 April 2012, albeit briefly. On 18 December 2014, the Swiss central bank introduced a negative interest rate on bank deposits to support its CHF ceiling. However, with the euro declining in value over

6321-514: The Federal Council (cabinet) and National Bank proposed in April 2017 to remove the time limit on exchanges for the sixth and future recalled series. As of 2020, this proposal was enacted, so old banknote series will not expire. The seventh series was printed in 1984, but kept as a "reserve series", ready to be used if, for example, wide counterfeiting of the current series suddenly happened. When

6468-527: The Mediation period (1803–1814). These 19 cantonal currencies were the Appenzell frank , Argovia frank , Basel frank , Berne frank , Fribourg frank , Geneva franc , Glarus frank , Graubünden frank , Luzern frank , St. Gallen frank , Schaffhausen frank , Schwyz frank , Solothurn frank , Thurgau frank , Ticino franco , Unterwalden frank , Uri frank , Vaud franc , and Zürich frank . After 1815,

6615-627: The PowerPC processor architecture that the machine shares with the Xbox 360. Microsoft claims that most of the games were running at 25–30% of full capacity because they were not running on actual systems. Microsoft first publicized the initial prices and configurations for the Xbox 360 on August 18, 2005 at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. £ 279.99 CHf 370.99 £ 209.99 CHf 350.99 Eighteen launch titles were available for customers in

6762-497: The South German gulden . It was divided into 40 schilling or 60 kreuzer , and the thaler was worth 2 gulden. After 1690, this gulden was worth 1 ⁄ 2 a Reichsthaler specie, or 12.992 g fine silver. After 1730, the different guilders of Southern Germany and Switzerland fragmented under varying rates of depreciation. The South German gulden , worth 1 ⁄ 24 a Cologne mark (233.856 g) of fine silver, also applied to

6909-537: The Swiss National Bank took over the issuance of banknotes from the cantons and various banks. It introduced denominations of 50, 100, 500 and 1000 francs. Twenty-franc notes were introduced in 1911, followed by 5-franc notes in 1913. In 1914, the Federal Treasury issued paper money in denominations of 5, 10 and 20 francs. These notes were issued in three different versions: French, German and Italian. The State Loan Bank also issued 25-franc notes that year. In 1952,

7056-681: The Xbox Live and the Kinect in Brazil. On October 5, 2011, the Xbox 360 S console made in Brazil is available, and retailed for R$ 799 (4GB version) (~ US $ 400). The Xbox 360 was released in South Korea on February 24, 2006. It was released in Taiwan on March 2, 2006. Promotions included one free limited edition PGR3 faceplate bundled for the initial shipment, and a gamepad-game combo pack containing Kameo and

7203-533: The franc or frank , modelled on the Bern livre worth 1 ⁄ 4 the écu, subdivided into 10 batzen or 100 rappen (centimes) . It contained 6 + 2 ⁄ 3 grams of fine silver and was initially worth 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 livres tournois or 1.48 French francs . This franc was issued until the end of the Helvetic Republic in 1803, but served as the model for the currencies of several cantons in

7350-462: The restored Swiss Confederacy attempted to simplify the system of currencies once again. As of 1820, a total of 8,000 distinct coins were current in Switzerland: those issued by cantons, cities, abbeys, and principalities or lordships, mixed with surviving coins of the Helvetic Republic and the pre-1798 Helvetic Republic. In 1825, the cantons of Bern, Basel, Fribourg, Solothurn, Aargau, and Vaud formed

7497-483: The "magic circle" as elaborated by Salen and Zimmerman is confounded. Ong's Hat / Incunabula was most likely started sometime around 1993, and also included most of the aforementioned design principles. Ong's Hat also incorporated elements of legend tripping into its design, as chronicled in a scholarly work titled "Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong's Hat". Some scholars disagree on

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7644-538: The 10-franc note (18 October 2017), the 200-franc note (15 August 2018), the 1000-franc note (5 March 2019), and the 100-franc note (12 September 2019). All banknotes from the eighth series were withdrawn on 30 April 2021, but, like banknotes of the sixth series withdrawn in 2000, remain indefinitely redeemable at the Swiss National Bank. The Swiss franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein and also legal tender in

7791-470: The 18th century after Swiss cantons did not follow the pace of depreciations which occurred in France and Germany. However, they mostly existed only in small change as they were little more than community currency , current in one canton but not in the other, and foreign coins like French francs and kronenthalers were more recognized as currency all over Switzerland. A high-level summary of existing currencies at

7938-581: The 23rd canton of the Swiss Confederation. The 10 centime coins from 1879 onwards (except the years 1918–19 and 1932–1939) have had the same composition, size, and design to present and are still legal tender and found in circulation. For this, the coin entered the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest original currency in circulation. All Swiss coins are language-neutral with respect to Switzerland's four national languages, featuring only numerals,

8085-453: The 25 cantons and half-cantons, 16 cities, and abbeys, resulting in about 860 different coins in circulation, with different values, denominations and monetary systems. However, the origins of a majority of these currencies can be traced to either the French livre tournois (the predecessor of the French franc ) or the South German gulden of the 17th century. The new Swiss currencies emerged in

8232-463: The 5 centime and 10 centime coins and by nickel in the 20 centime piece. Gold coins in denominations of 10, 20, and 100 francs, known as Vreneli , circulated until 1936. Both world wars only had a small effect on the Swiss coinage, with brass and zinc coins temporarily being issued. In 1931, the mass of the 5 franc coin was reduced from 25 grams to 15, with the silver content reduced to .835 fineness. The next year, nickel replaced cupronickel in

8379-404: The 5 centime and 10 centime coins. In the late 1960s, the prices of internationally traded commodities rose significantly. A silver coin's metal value exceeded its monetary value, and many were being sent abroad for melting, which prompted the federal government to make this practice illegal. The statute was of little effect, and the melting of francs only subsided when the collectible value of

8526-414: The 5 centimes, 10 centime and 20 centime in billon (with 5% to 15% silver content); and the 1 ⁄ 2 franc, 1 franc, 2 franc and 5 franc in .900 fine silver . Between 1860 and 1863, .800 fine silver was used, before the standard used in France of .835 fineness was adopted for all silver coins except the 5 francs (which remained .900 fineness) in 1875. In 1879, billon was replaced by cupronickel in

8673-457: The 5 francs coins in 1888, 1922, 1924 (minor), and 1931 (mostly just a size reduction). A new design for the bronze coins was used from 1948. Coins depicting a ring of stars (such as the 1 franc coin seen beside this paragraph) were altered from 22 stars to 23 stars in 1983; since the stars represent the Swiss cantons, the design was updated when in 1979 Jura seceded from the Canton of Bern and became

8820-583: The 59th Annual Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on September 8, 2007. In January 2008, BBC launched "Whack the Mole" for the CBBC show M.I. High , in which viewers are asked to become M.I. High field agents and complete tasks to capture a mole that has infiltrated the organization. On 16 March 2011, BitTorrent promoted an open licensed version of the feature film Zenith in the United States. Users who downloaded

8967-594: The ARG itself is often referred to as Frog Fractions 1.5 in reference to an in-ARG puzzle solution. The ARG took about two years to solve, involving clues buried in 23 independent games and real-life locations, allowing the game, secretly already uploaded under the guise of a different game, to become unlocked in December 2016. On the release of the expansion Afterbirth for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth in October 2015, players discover clues hinting towards an ARG related to

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9114-505: The BitTorrent client software were also encouraged to download and share Part One of three parts of the film. On 4 May 2011, Part Two of the film was made available on VODO . The episodic release of the film, supplemented by an ARG transmedia marketing campaign, created a viral effect and over a million users downloaded the movie. That same year, Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch conducted an ARG called Cipher Hunt . Hirsch started

9261-590: The Christmas' period. Xbox 360 reached six million units sold in the region. While other regions such as the United States or Europe enjoyed successful launches, sales in Japan have been very slow. In fact, only 103,990 units had been sold by the end of April 2, 2006. 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

9408-1246: The French livre tournois system (in Louis d'Argent, Louis d'Or and fractions) or the South German gulden system (in Reichsthalers , florins and fractions). After 1700 Swiss cantonal currencies diverged from the value of the French and German units. However, they mostly existed only in small change as they were a mere community currency, current in one canton but not in the other, and foreign coins like French francs and Brabant dollars were more recognized as currency all over Switzerland. Between 1798 and 1803, billon coins were issued in denominations of 1 centime, 1 ⁄ 2 batzen, and 1 batzen. Silver coins were issued for 10, 20 and 40 batzen (also denominated 4 francs), matching with French coins worth 1 ⁄ 4 , 1 ⁄ 2 and 1 écu. Gold 16- and 32-franc coins were issued in 1800, also matching with French coins worth 24 and 48 livres tournois. In 1850, coins were introduced in denominations of 1 centime , 2 centimes , 5 centimes , 10 centimes 20 centimes , 1 ⁄ 2 franc , 1 franc , 2 francs , and 5 francs . The 1 centime and 2 centime coins were struck in bronze;

9555-475: The Impact Award at IndieCade , presented to games which "have social message, shift the cultural perception of games as a medium, represent a new play paradigm, expand the audience, or influence culture." The Plan of Gauss was a game developed as a didactic strategy to enhance the learning and understanding of mathematics in university students. In this game, the players had to help characters (students) to find

9702-495: The Internet as the central binding medium. ARGs tend to be free to play, with costs absorbed either through supporting products (e.g., collectible puzzle cards fund Perplex City ) or through promotional relationships with existing products (for example, I Love Bees was a promotion for Halo 2 , and the Lost Experience and Find 815 promoted the television show Lost ). Pay-to-play models exist as well. Later games in

9849-579: The Marden-Kane advertising agency . On October 13, 2005, members of the TeamXbox forums were directed to the Hex168.com website through mysterious messages posted by someone called "Lutz". 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

9996-547: 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). Some of the games, like Viva Piñata , were entirely rewritten in Brazilian Portuguese since the launch of the console. Games are available at R$ 99~159 ( R$ 159 for new games, and R$ 99 for the rest). On August 31, 2007, Microsoft announced that

10143-453: The Secret War. The company behind Funcom's last 2 ARGs, Human Equation, a Montreal-based entertainment studio who also created an independent ARG called Qadhos , has even further purchased the rights to a special class of characters, The Black Watchmen, to create their own independent ARG. A spin-off of Human Equation, Alice & Smith , released the game in June 2015. After the success of

10290-401: The Swiss National Bank decided to develop new security features and to abandon the concept of a reserve series, the details of the seventh series were released and the printed notes were destroyed. The eighth series of banknotes was designed by Jörg Zintzmeyer  [ de ] around the theme of the arts and released starting in 1995. In addition to its new vertical design, this series

10437-406: The Swiss National Bank to boost the franc's liquidity to try to counter its "massive overvaluation ". The Economist argued that its Big Mac Index in July 2011 indicated an overvaluation of 98% over the dollar, and cited Swiss companies releasing profit warnings and threatening to move operations out of the country due to the strength of the franc. Demand for francs and franc-denominated assets

10584-409: The Swiss cantons of St. Gallen, Appenzell, Schaffhausen and Thurgau. The French écu was valued at 2.8 gulden, while the kronenthaler was valued at 2.7 gulden. See St. Gallen thaler . The cantons of Zurich, Schwyz and Glarus, however, maintained a stronger gulden worth 1 ⁄ 22 a Cologne mark of fine silver. The French écu was valued at 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 gulden, while the kronenthaler

10731-457: The TV movie The Fallen and produced in the autumn of 2007 by Xenophile Media Inc. was awarded a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for an Interactive Television Program. Xenophile Media Inc.'s ReGenesis Extended Reality Game won an International Interactive Emmy Award in 2007 and in April 2008 The Truth About Marika won the iEmmy for Best Interactive TV service. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognizes Interactivity as

10878-497: The TV series, and the game was promoted through television advertisements run during Lost episodes. The Fallen Alternate Reality Game was launched in tandem with the Fallen TV movie for ABC Family and was originally conceived by Matt Wolf and created by Matt Wolf (Double Twenty Productions) in association with Xenophile Media. Wolf accepted the Emmy for The Fallen Alternate Reality Game at

11025-413: The United States, Canada and Puerto Rico on November 22, 2005. The European countries had fifteen titles available for the launch date of December 2, 2005. Japanese customers, however, only had seven titles to choose from by the time the Xbox 360 was released on December 10, 2005. This discrepancy is partially accounted for by the time needed to localize the games. In North America, the best-selling title

11172-411: The Wish . 42 Entertainment released Cathy's Book , by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman , in October 2006, shifting the central medium of this ARG from the internet to the printed page. The young-adult novel contains an "evidence packet" and expands its universe through websites and working phone numbers, but is also a stand-alone novel that essentially functions as an individually playable ARG. Neither

11319-480: The Xbox 360 and all of them are Japanese originated consoles, indicating a nationalistic preference to game consoles. 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. It should also be noted that ToHeart2 XRATED ,

11466-498: The Xbox 360 being one of the first consoles to have been officially launched in the country, it initially found tough sales. However, its sales figures have reportedly been on the rise since the launch of the PlayStation 3 in the country. Though company executives have been reluctant to divulge the numbers and sales figures, industry insiders estimate that the console manages to move about 3000 units per month, thus accounting for 12.5% of

11613-497: The Xbox 360 on soft surfaces or in enclosed spaces to avoid heating problems. 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 minimal. Microsoft stated that they would look into the reports and offered assistance reachable by phone. The high demand for the Xbox 360 led to some owners almost immediately re-selling their console for vastly increased prices. eBay in particular

11760-408: The Xbox 360 was officially released on the same date as Mexico . With a price tag of $ 1,200,000 Colombian pesos (~US $ 520), the premium package pre-order was sold out almost immediately. 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. On July 7, 2006

11907-722: The abbreviation "Fr." for franc, and the Latin phrases Helvetia or Confœderatio Helvetica (depending on the denomination) or the inscription Libertas (Roman goddess of liberty) on the small coins. The name of the artist is present on the coins with the standing Helvetia and the herder. In addition to these general-circulation coins, numerous series of commemorative coins have been issued, as well as silver and gold coins. These coins are no longer legal tender, but can in theory be exchanged at face value at post offices, and at national and cantonal banks, although their metal or collectors' value equals or exceeds their face value. In 1907,

12054-433: The actual face value of the coin for many years. The coin fell into disuse in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but was only officially fully withdrawn from circulation and declared to be no longer legal tender on 1 January 2007. The long-forgotten 2 centime coin, not minted since 1974, was demonetized on 1 January 1978. The designs of the coins have changed very little since 1879. Among the notable changes were new designs for

12201-576: The classification of the Ong's Hat story. In 1997, a year prior to the release of Douglas Adams ' computer game Starship Titanic , The Digital Village launched a website purporting to be that of an intergalactic travel agency called Starlight Travel, which in the game is the Starship Titanic's parent company. The site combined copious amounts of Monty Python -esque writing (by Michael Bywater ) with ARG-type interactivity . In 2001, in order to market

12348-414: The close of trading that day, the franc was up 23% against the euro and 21% against the US dollar. The full daily appreciation of the franc was equivalent to $ 31,000 per single futures contract: more than the market had moved collectively in the previous thousand days. The key CHF interest rate was also lowered from −0.25% to −0.75%, meaning depositors would be paying an increased fee to keep their funds in

12495-517: The collaborative, transmedia elements of ARGs for these respective institutions. Much of this scholarly interest stems from the evolving media ecology with the rise of new media. In sustaining cooperative online communities, ARGs build on "an alignment of interest, where problems are presented in a fashion that assists game designers in their goal while intriguing and aiding players in their goals". This returns to ARGs' framework of transmedia storytelling, which necessitates that ARG designers relinquish

12642-404: The console, initially it was greeted with lukewarm response. However, now it has become one of the console's main selling points. As of September 2009, India is the only (Officially Launched) country not having Xbox 360 Elite in its selling lineup. 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. Heavy pricing

12789-438: The correct order, these numbers and letters formed a 32-bit MD5 hash of a BBS phone number. When traced, it was found to originate from Kirkland, Washington , where Valve was based before moving to Bellevue, Washington in 2003. Accessing the number as a bulletin board system yielded large ASCII art images, all leading towards the announcement of the game's sequel, Portal 2 . Later, prior to release of Portal 2 in 2011,

12936-416: The cost of creating the book nor sales figures are available (although it made both American and British bestseller lists) to determine whether the project was successfully self-funded. In a 2007 article, columnist Chris Dahlen (of Pitchfork Media) voiced a much-discussed ARG concept: if ARGs can spark players to solve very hard fictional problems, could the games be used to solve real-world problems? Dahlen

13083-507: The design to keep ahead of the player base. Somewhat unusual for a computer-based game, the production drew players from a wide spectrum of age groups and backgrounds. Although the Beast ran for only three months, it prompted the formation of a highly organized and intensely engaged community that remained active years after the game concluded. Perhaps more significantly, it inspired a number of its participants to create games adapting and expanding

13230-455: The end of 2005, Microsoft stated it sold roughly 23,000 units. As of January 1, 2008, the Xbox 360 has sold 9.15 million units in the US. Analysts believe Microsoft did not meet the original worldwide target of 2.75–3 million units sold in the first 90 days after launch, and Microsoft revised their initial 90-day estimate down to 2.5 million units, though their 6-month sales estimate remained unchanged at 4.5 to 5.5 million consoles. The Xbox 360

13377-534: The end of 2005, the International Game Developers Association ARG Special Interest Group was formed "to bring together those already designing, building, and running ARGs, in order to share knowledge, experience, and ideas for the future." More recently, an ARG was created by THQ for the game Frontlines: Fuel of War around peak oil theories where the world is in a crisis over diminishing oil resources. In 2008,

13524-495: The end of the 18th century is shown below, including their equivalents in terms of the French écu of 26.67 g fine silver, the South German kronenthaler of 25.71 g fine silver, and Swiss francs of 4.5 g fine silver. The livre of Bern and most western Swiss cantons like Basel, Aargau, Fribourg, Vaud, Valais, Lausanne, Neuchâtel and Solothurn originated from the French livre tournois . Geneva had its own currency,

13671-441: The fact that most game retailers and specialty stores around the country are already selling products with competitive prices. Alternate reality game An alternate reality game ( ARG ) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by intense player involvement with

13818-516: The federal mint Swissmint issues coins . It is also designated through currency signs Fr. (in German language ), fr. (in French , Italian , Romansh languages ), as well as in any other language, or internationally as CHF which stands for Confoederatio Helvetica Franc. This acronym also serves as the ISO 4217 currency code, used by banks and financial institutions. The smaller denomination,

13965-463: The first major entries in the nascent ARG genre, a number of large corporations looked to ARGs to both promote their products, and to enhance their companies' images by demonstrating their interest in innovative and fan-friendly marketing methods. To create buzz for the launch of the Xbox game Halo 2 , Microsoft hired the team that had created the Beast, now operating independently as 42 Entertainment . The result, I Love Bees , departed radically from

14112-406: The following weeks, in a move dubbed Francogeddon for its effect on markets, the Swiss National Bank abandoned the ceiling on 15 January 2015, and the franc promptly increased in value compared with the euro by 30%, although this only lasted a few minutes before part of the increase was reversed. The move was not announced in advance and resulted in "turmoil" in stock and currency markets. By

14259-409: The franc as the monetary unit of Switzerland. The Swiss franc was introduced at par with the French franc , at 4.5 g fine silver or 9 ⁄ 31 g = 0.29032 g fine gold (ratio 15.5). The currencies of the Swiss cantons were converted to Swiss francs by first restating their equivalents in German kronenthaler ( écu brabant ) of 25 + 5 ⁄ 7 grams fine silver, and then to Swiss francs at

14406-407: The franc fell against the euro from 1.11 to 1.20 CHF, against the U.S. dollar from 0.787 to 0.856 CHF, and against all 16 of the most active currencies on the same day. It was the largest plunge of the franc ever against the euro. The intervention stunned currency traders, since the franc had long been regarded as a safe haven. The SNB had previously set an exchange rate target in 1978 against

14553-591: The game as a whole. American track and field athlete Edwin Moses acted as a celebrity Game Master, and McDonald's Corporation promised to donate US$ 100,000 to Ronald McDonald House Charities China on behalf of the players. On 1 March 2010, Valve released an update via Steam to their game Portal , adding a nondescript new achievement and some .wav files hidden within the game GCFs. The .wav files actually contained morse code and SSTV encoded images, some including certain numbers and letters. When pieced together in

14700-454: The game ran throughout the 2010 Formula 1 season, in nine languages, with live events in a dozen cities around the world. In July 2013, Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development and The Walt Disney Studios launched The Optimist , built around "a story of Walt Disney, the Imagineers, and other visionary thinkers and their potential involvement in a secret project that sought to build

14847-447: The game with the posting of an initial clue on his Twitter account, followed by the rules. It lasted from July to August 2016, and its goal was to find the clues hidden in various places around the world leading to the location of a statue of Bill Cipher . Said statue could be seen briefly after the ending credits of the series finale . ARGs have been recognized by the mainstream entertainment world: The Ocular Effect, an ARG promoting

14994-465: The game, based on the community's previous attempts to hack the game to discover any secret characters. The ARG included location information near Santa Cruz, California, where the game's developer Edmund McMillen lived. The ARG was successfully completed in November 2015, with the community working together and enabling a new character and additional content to be unlocked for the game. Inscryption ,

15141-442: The general public. OrigenXbox360.com was the next viral marketing campaign from Microsoft. 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. New contests include

15288-430: The genre have shown an increasing amount of experimentation with new models and sub-genres. There is a great deal of debate surrounding the characteristics by which the term "alternate reality game" should be defined. Sean Stacey, the founder of the website Unfiction, has suggested that the best way to define the genre was not to define it, and instead locate each game on three axes (ruleset, authorship and coherence) in

15435-522: The group managed, after nine months of development, to create a viable game that was soon seized upon eagerly by the Cloudmakers group and featured in Wired magazine. Because of their similarities, video games and ARGs continued to be associated through many projects, In 2009, Funcom , a game development studio from Oslo , Norway, hid a gate on its corporate website, which led to an ARG which would be part of

15582-531: The images form the BBS phone number "(425) 822-5251" and when you dial into the BBS it will prompt the user asking for a login. Entering the username "backup" and the password "backup" (from the 12th audio file) will show text saying "Aperture Laboratories GLaDOS v3.11", followed by "Copyright (c) 1973–1997 Aperture – All Rights Reserved" then will proceed to show the user ASCII art images and paragraphs quoting Cave Johnson . If

15729-400: The jury because of its use of a variety of media, from outdoor to guerrilla to online, and how digital [media] can play a central role of a big idea campaign." Swiss franc Füfräppler for a 5 centimes coin; Zëhräppler for a 10 centimes coin; Zwänzgräppler for a 20 centimes coin; Stutz or Franke for a 1 franc coin or change in general; Füüfliiber for

15876-496: The launch, reports about the new machine's technical glitches started coming out. 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. 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. The manual contains warnings about not placing

16023-655: The low sales of game consoles in the country: Sony introduced the PlayStation console in 2004 (almost 10 years after launch date in Japan), and a few months after that, the PlayStation 2, both costing twice as much as the "bootleg" imports, available in the country for years. Also, the price of the games is far from what the average gamer can afford, in the order of 100 to US$ 180, while PC game prices are adjusted, costing between 20 and US$ 60. After months of promotions and speculation, on December 1, 2006, Xbox 360 finally arrived in Brazil . Only

16170-495: The model, extending it from an anomalous one-time occurrence to a new genre of entertainment and allowing the community to grow even after the Beast itself concluded. Members of the Cloudmakers group went on to form ARGN, the primary news source for the genre, and Unfiction, its central community hub, as well as designing the first successful and widely played indie ARGs, such as LockJaw and Metacortechs, and corporate efforts such as Perplex City. On March 1 and March 3 of 2010, Portal

16317-531: The monetary union faded away in the 1920s and officially ended in 1927, the Swiss franc remained on that standard until 27 September 1936, when it suffered its sole devaluation during the Great Depression . Following the devaluations of the British pound , U.S. dollar and French franc , the Swiss franc was devalued 30% to 0.20322 grams fine gold, equivalent to US$ 1 = CHF 4.37295. In 1945, Switzerland joined

16464-504: The monthly gaming hardware sales in India. Sales picked up briefly after the launch of Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV, though the launch of the latter seems to have benefited the PlayStation 3 in India more than the Xbox 360. It is currently estimated that the console has sold about 250,000 units in the country since its launch in September 2006. Xbox LIVE was launched in late 2006, and as with

16611-479: The most successful in Australia's history at that time, selling over 30,000 consoles in the first four days. This title now goes to the Wii, which sold about 2,000 more units. Microsoft elected not to package an Xbox Live headset with the premium system configuration; a Media Remote is included instead. In addition to the two system bundles, Microsoft released a "VIP Pack" priced at A$ 149.95, that contains Perfect Dark Zero ,

16758-596: The movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence directed by Steven Spielberg that finished Stanley Kubrick 's unfinished project to adapt Brian Aldiss 's short story " Supertoys Last All Summer Long ", and also a planned series of Microsoft computer games based on the film, Microsoft's Creative Director Jordan Weisman and another Microsoft game designer, Elan Lee , conceived of an elaborate murder mystery played out across hundreds of websites, email messages, faxes, fake ads, and voicemail messages. They hired Sean Stewart , an award-winning science fiction/ fantasy author, to write

16905-507: The much anticipated Tecmo fighting game. The 2-day 62,135 sales figure of the Xbox 360 is a little past half of the 123,334 units of the original Xbox that Microsoft sold in the first 3 days in Japan in February 2002. 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. Namco expects to sell 500,000 copies of Ridge Racer 6 in Japan. This number

17052-479: The national bank ceased issuing 5-franc notes but introduced 10-franc notes in 1955. In 1996, 200-franc notes were introduced whilst the 500-franc note was discontinued. Nine series of banknotes have been printed by the Swiss National Bank, seven of which have been released for use by the general public, the fourth and seventh being reserved and never issued. The sixth series from 1976, designed by Ernst and Ursula Hiestand  [ de ] , depicted persons from

17199-572: The national languages – however is CHF , also in English; respective guides also request to use the ISO ;4217 code. The use of SFr. for Swiss Franc and fr.sv. are outdated. As previously indicated Latinate "CH" stands for Confoederatio Helvetica ; given the different languages used in Switzerland , Latin is used for language-neutral inscriptions on its coins. Before 1798, about 75 entities were making coins in Switzerland, including

17346-503: The need for a flexible narrative conducive to collaborative learning in large groups and a sophisticated web design. In a contribution to a volume focusing on play and cities in Springer's Gaming Media and Social Effects series, Eddie Duggan (2017) provides an overview of pervasive games, and discusses characteristics in ARGs, LARPs, RPGs, assassination games and other games where the notion of

17493-448: The over 8,000 different coins and notes in circulation. Despite introduction of the first Swiss franc, the South German kronenthaler became the more desirable coin to use in the 19th century, and it was still quoted in pre-1798 currency equivalents. Furthermore, less than 15% of Swiss money in circulation was in local currency, since French and German gold and silver trade coins proved to be more desirable means of exchange. A final problem

17640-487: The person is idle for 4 minutes, the following text will say "Hey! Please login now. You have one minute left." and if left idle for one more minute the next text will say "Your login time (5 minutes) ran out. Goodbye", disconnecting the user. Portal was updated again on March 3, 2010, at 2:24 PST with the description "Added valuable asset retrieval", The game ending was retconned to add the Party Escort bot, who dragged

17787-500: The picture. The reverse has the other two languages. When the fifth series lost its validity at the end of April 2000, the banknotes that had not been exchanged represented a total value of 244.3 million Swiss francs; in accordance with Swiss law, this amount was transferred to the Swiss Fund for Emergency Losses in the Case of Non-insurable Natural Disasters. In February 2005, a competition

17934-477: The player back into the enrichment center rather than allowing them to escape. setting up the events of Portal 2 . Influenced heavily by the Beast and enthusiastic about the power of collaboration, several Cloudmakers came together with the idea that they could create a similar game. The first effort to make an independent Beast-like game, Ravenwatchers , failed, but another team soon assembled and met with greater success. With very little experience behind them,

18081-535: The point Bill was trying to make is that we're not just going to ship and not have great stuff coming up." Gates himself later clarified that "Halo 3 will ship when Bungie is ready." Microsoft chose a November 2005 release date not because they wanted to be first to market but because they thought Sony would ship their PlayStation 3 at that point. The system, along with some playable games, was shown off at E3 2005. The demos were running on "Xbox 360 Alpha Development Kits" which were Apple PowerMac G5s , chosen due to

18228-480: The pre-launch campaign for The Secret World , a game released in 2013. The gate was discovered only in 2013, therefore requiring the puppet-master to adapt the scenario to its actual setting. Funcom has done a total of 16 ARGs that tie in with The Secret World , with the first one starting in May 2007. The ARGs focussed on several different storylines, such as: The Expedition of Roald Amundsen, The Sanctuary of Secrets and

18375-400: The previous series for which most of the features were kept secret. All banknotes are quadrilingual, displaying all information in the four national languages. With the eighth series, the banknotes depicting a Germanophone person have German and Romansch on the same side as the picture, whereas banknotes depicting a Francophone or an Italophone person have French and Italian on the same side as

18522-636: The price of the Brazilian Xbox 360 Premium bundle price would be decreased to R$ 2,499 (~US $ 1,250). The price table for games remained untouched since the launch. 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. The blockbuster Halo 3 and Viva Piñata: Party Animals were also entirely rewritten in Brazilian Portuguese. At E3 2010 Microsoft launched in 2010

18669-421: The project contained 666 files, prompting the game's puppet-masters to dub it " the Beast ", a name which was later adopted by players. A large and extremely active fan community called the Cloudmakers formed to analyze and participate in solving the game, and the combined intellect, tenacity and engagement of the group soon forced the puppet-masters to create new subplots, devise new puzzles, and alter elements of

18816-486: The rate of 7 écu brabant = 40 Swiss francs. The first franc worth 1 ⁄ 4 th the French écu was converted at 1.4597 Swiss francs. In 1865, France , Belgium , Italy , and Switzerland formed the Latin Monetary Union , in which they agreed to value their national currencies to a standard of 4.5 grams of fine silver or 0.290322 grams fine gold, equivalent to US$ 1 = CHF 5.1826 until 1934. Even after

18963-404: The real world. As with Push, Nevada , ABC led the way, launching three TV tie-in ARGs in 2006: Kyle XY , Ocular Effect (for the show Fallen ) and The Lost Experience (for the show Lost ). ABC joined with Channel 4 in the UK and Australia's Channel 7 in promoting a revamped website for The Hanso Foundation . The site was focused on a fictitious company prevalent in the storyline of

19110-417: The remaining francs again exceeded their material value. The 1 centime coin was still produced until 2006, albeit in ever decreasing quantities, but its importance declined. Those who could justify the use of 1 centime coins for monetary purposes could obtain them at face value; any other user (such as collectors) had to pay an additional four centimes per coin to cover the production costs, which had exceeded

19257-456: The story and Pete Fenlon , an experienced adventure game " worldbuilder ", to serve as developer and content lead. The game, dubbed "the Citizen Kane of online entertainment" by Internet Life , was a runaway success that involved over three million active participants from all over the world during its run and would become the seminal example of the nascent ARG genre. An early asset list for

19404-483: The website-hunting and puzzle-solving that had been the focus of the Beast. I Love Bees wove together an interactive narrative set in 2004, and a War of the Worlds -style radio drama set in the future, the latter of which was broken into 30–60-second segments and broadcast over ringing payphones worldwide. The game pushed players outdoors to answer phones, create and submit content, and recruit others, and received as much or

19551-726: The world of science . This series was recalled on 1 May 2000 and is no longer legal tender, but notes can still be exchanged for valid ones of the same face value at any National Bank branch or authorized agent, or mailed in by post to the National Bank in exchange for a bank account deposit. The exchange program originally was due to end on 30 April 2020, after which sixth-series notes would lose all value. As of 2016, 1.1 billion francs' worth of sixth-series notes had not yet been exchanged, even though they had not been legal tender for 16 years and only 4 more years remained to exchange them. To avoid having to expire such large amounts of money in 2020,

19698-436: Was Call of Duty 2 , which had an attach rate of 77%, followed by Madden NFL 06 and Need for Speed Most Wanted . The most successful first-party title was Perfect Dark Zero . In Japan, the most successful titles were Ridge Racer 6 (29,891 copies), Perfect Dark Zero (14,897 copies), and Need for Speed Most Wanted (6,842 copies). Prelaunch reports assumed that Microsoft would intentionally restrict supply although there

19845-489: Was a popular location for such offers with thousands of consoles going up for auction, some selling for many times the original retail price. It was reported that 40,000 units appeared on eBay during the initial month of release, which would mean that 10% of the total supply was resold. According to the NDP Group, North American sales totaled 326,000 units in November. In Canada, all 32,100 units available for launch were sold. By

19992-424: Was announced for the design of the ninth series, then planned to be released around 2010 on the theme "Switzerland open to the world". The results were announced in November 2005. The National Bank selected the designs of Swiss graphic designer Manuela Pfrunder as the basis of the new series. The first denomination to be issued was the 50-franc note on 12 April 2016. It was followed by the 20-franc note (17 May 2017),

20139-419: Was different from the previous one on several counts. Probably the most important difference from a practical point of view was that the seldom-used 500-franc note was replaced by a new 200-franc note; this new note has indeed proved more successful than the old 500-franc note. The base colours of the new notes were kept similar to the old ones, except that the 20-franc note was changed from blue to red to prevent

20286-535: Was hosted by the actor Elijah Wood and featured a musical performance by the band The Killers . The Xbox 360 was also featured on the cover of TIME Magazine's May 23, 2005 issue with an article written by Lev Grossman . The cover shows Microsoft CEO Bill Gates holding up one of the units. In the article he says "It's perfect... The day Sony launches (PlayStation 3), and they walk right into Halo 3 ." Read more at wikiquote. Microsoft executive Robbie Bach later clarified this statement, saying "Philosophically

20433-676: Was officially released in Chile . With a price tag of $ 329.990 Chilean peso for the premium package and a price tag of $ 259.990 Chilean peso for the Core Package. The console was also announced in Argentina in mid-2005, with "100% probability" that sales will begin in December 2006. But a year later, in May 2006, Microsoft pushed the launch date to December 2007. Still, it's very unlikely that Microsoft will actually sell their product in Argentina, considering

20580-863: Was released in Mexico on February 2, 2006. Retailers such as Liverpool, Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, Sam's Club, CompuDabo, Game Planet, gdGames and Cyberbox started to sell consoles, games, and accessories. Some department stores were selling the console at 6,000 Mexican pesos (~US $ 550). Microsoft's confirmed that 300,000 units were available for the European launch. As in North America, thousands of Xbox 360 appeared on auction websites like eBay, selling for more than twice their retail price. The shortages led to some consumers criticising retailers, and others attacking Microsoft itself for failing to fill demand. In turn, some retailers blamed Microsoft for failing to provide enough consoles on

20727-464: Was so strong that nominal short-term Swiss interest rates became negative. On 6 September 2011, the day after the franc traded at 1.11 CHF/ € and appeared headed to parity with the euro , the SNB set a minimum exchange rate of 1.20 CHF to the euro ('capping' the franc's appreciation), saying "the value of the franc is a threat to the economy", and that it was "prepared to buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities". In response to this announcement

20874-637: Was soon broken by Nintendo which sold 32,901 Wiis in the first four days since its launch on December 7. Before the release of the Xbox 360 in New Zealand, the Xbox 360 bus toured New Zealand making 13 stops in cities around the country. Microsoft Philippines announced on May 8, 2006, that it will officially launch the Xbox 360 in the country. Although no details about pricing, launch games and Xbox Live were mentioned, Microsoft Philippines general manager Antonio "TJ" Javier stressed that his company intends to market Xbox 360 products and services to Filipinos. "This

21021-479: Was that the first Swiss franc was based on the French écu which was being phased out by France in the 19th century. To solve this problem, the new Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848 specified that the federal government would be the only entity allowed to issue money in Switzerland. This was followed two years later by the first Federal Coinage Act, passed by the Federal Assembly on 7 May 1850, which introduced

21168-467: Was the major reason behind this since the Elite System was priced at Rs. 34990/- (US$ 700) The Xbox 360 was released in Mexico on February 2, 2006. Retailers such as Liverpool, Walmart , Blockbuster , Sam's Club , CompuDabo, Game Planet, gdGames and Cyberbox started to sell consoles, games, and accessories. Some department stores are selling the console at 6,000 Mexican pesos (~US $ 550). In Colombia ,

21315-520: Was updated to include a promotional ARG for its then-upcoming sequel, Portal 2 . It was created by the Portal 2 development team, and while it was mostly made to discover the next entry in the Portal franchise, it also included a way to extend the Portal universe. Portal was updated at 2:33 PST, with the update's description reading "Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations". The update also added

21462-459: Was valued at 2 + 18 ⁄ 40 gulden; see Zürich thaler and Schwyz gulden . On the other hand, the central Swiss cantons of Luzern, Uri, Zug and Unterwalden maintained a weaker gulden vs the South German gulden . The French écu was valued at 3 gulden, while the kronenthaler was valued at 2 + 37 ⁄ 40 gulden (see Luzern gulden ). In 1798, the Helvetic Republic introduced

21609-514: Was writing about World Without Oil , the first ARG centered on a serious near-future scenario: a global oil shortage. In October 2008 The British Red Cross created a serious ARG called Traces of Hope to promote their campaign about civilians caught up in conflict. The USC School of Cinematic Arts has run a semester-long ARG called Reality Ends Here for incoming freshmen since 2011. The game involves players collaborating and competing to produce media artifacts. In 2012, Reality Ends Here won

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