For the first time, Microsoft has highlighted details of its second-generation Xbox gaming console. Microsoft describes the platform as a balance of hardware, services and software to meet the demands of the high definition (HD) era of gaming.

Customers that purchase the new console can expect to encounter a revamped Xbox guide where they create their own profiles, have in-game playlists, and can access the Xbox Live service, as well as a "marketplace" to purchase custom add-ons for games. Software and services will be coupled with more than a teraflop of computing power for gaming and entertainment purposes.

Profiles called "Gamer Cards" are at-a-glance contact cards for Xbox Live that share information about skills, interests and lifestyles to build up a community around the Xbox.

The community will have its own system of commerce with a browseable micro-transaction service that will permit users to scour through a catalog of user-created bonus levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, skins and more. Users can also personalize their gaming experience free of cost with a playlist system for setting custom music in games.

Whether or not gamers choose to swap tracks, customization is the watchword at Redmond. Microsoft has tailored the new Xbox for HD gaming with a custom-designed graphics processor co-developed with ATI Technologies and worked with IBM to design a multi-core processor architecture with "developer headroom" for the HD era.

Multi-core processors can segregate tasks, making the Xbox's resources available to more than one user at any given time. For instance, Intel's new Pentium D processor supports simultaneous game play and digital media playback.

Another standard Xbox feature will be multi-channel, positional audio fidelity for true surround sound.

"In the HD Era the platform is bigger than the processor," said Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Chief XNA Architect J Allard. "New technology and emerging consumer forces will come together to enable the rock stars of game development to shake up the old establishment and redefine entertainment as we know it."

Despite all the front-end work, Microsoft did not forget the developers. The company recently announced a new software development kit called XNA Studio to streamline game development. The SDK uses familiar collaboration tools that are found in Visual Studio. Xbox developers may create games using DirectX, PIX, XACT technologies.