The Xbox 360 was first released in North America on November 22, 2005, followed by Europe on December 2, 2005. The Xbox 360 was released in Japan on December 10, 2005, followed by all other territories throughout 2006. For more information on the Xbox 360 release, see Xbox 360 launch.

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 the general public.