Microsoft Corp. said Monday it will offer 18 Xbox 360 games when the new version of its video game console hits store shelves in North America next week.
Standard editions of launch titles, including “Kameo: Elements of Power” and “Project Gotham Racing 3,” will sell for $50 — the same as most games for the original Xbox.
The Redmond-based software company will also offer 13 Xbox accessories, including faceplates that can be tacked on to the front of a console to personalize it.
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Other accessories, like a wireless controller and a 20-gigabyte hard drive, come standard in the fully loaded $400 console and are sold separately for a scaled-back version that will sell for $300.
Over the weekend, Microsoft announced that Xbox 360 users will be able to play “Halo,” “Halo 2” and about 200 other games designed for the original Xbox, which came out in the fall of 2001.
Microsoft has said it expects to sell up to 3 million Xbox 360 consoles within 90 days of its North American launch Nov. 22.
The North American debut will be followed by a Dec. 2 launch in Europe and a Dec. 10 launch in Japan.
Sony’s PlayStation 2 has slightly more than half of the worldwide market for the most recently available consoles, compared with about 34 percent for the first Xbox and 15 percent for Nintendo Co.’s GameCube, according to Gartner Inc., an industry research group.