X-Box - Video Games - http://maxpages.com/superguy911/The_X

The addition of a significant hard drive will also set the X-Box far apart from anything currently available. As Gates stated in the keynote, "You can't, during an interactive game, ask a player to wait while you go to the DVD" for data access. The hard drive will go a long way towards eliminating any slow down here. The drive will also work in tandem with the unit's internet capabilities to open up avenues for distribution that have been previously unavailable for console owners. "When you're using X-Box," Bill explained, "and think 'Hey, there's a new game that I've heard about,' you'll be able to jump out to the Internet and grab a trial version." In addition to downloading demos, hard drive offers a convenient way to store new levels and other resources downloaded from the internet.

The entire keynote was addresses not to consumers, but more to developers, giving them a jump-start on development for the system. Gates repeated again the system's artistic rather than technically driven development tools including a familiarity with Win 32, Direct X 8, X86 and other formats that PC game manufacturers have already been using for years. This will allow developers to "share work between the X-Box and PC." The disks for the two systems, however, will not be interchangeble. So you're not going to save any cash by buying one game and hoping it will work on your PC and the X-Box. Gates did state that Microsoft is still "very committed to continually evolving Windows as a great gaming platform." Gates made sure to point out that the X-Box will possess the same strengths that all consoles have - namely, no boot time, no game installation and a stable platform for developers that won't ever change.

This last demo was the one that really turned our heads. Those of you who have been scared by this experience in physic'c class are already familiar with the concept. Basically you take a room whose floor is covered with mousetraps. Each mousetrap has a ping pong ball on top of it. Seamus threw another ping pong ball into the room, setting off a chain reaction that sent all of the ping pong balls and the mouse traps flying into the air. The effect was spectacular. Seamus even slowed down the action and showed us the motion blur on each of the objects. We were simply amazed by all of the animation that was happening on-screen.

Gates then showed a short film in which several key developers and game publishers extolled the virtues of this upcoming system. Among those companies featured in the presentation (a sure sign that they are working on projects for the game) were: Acclaim, Sierra, Infogrames, Konami, Midway, Activision, Take 2, Hasbro. Other sponsors mentioned in the presentation were: Eidos, EA, UbiSoft, Bungie, Capcom, Hudson, THQ, Fox, Titus and Lionhead. The X-Box is due out in the Fall of 2001 at an undisclosed price point.

Bill Gates announced today at the annual Game Developers Conference that Microsoft Corp. is entering the video game world with the introduction of a future-generation dedicated video game console, currently code-named X-Box, designed to deliver intense, action-packed games and is scheduled to release in the Fall of 2000.

Building on the companys software expertise and advances in PC technology such as 3-D graphics and Internet connectivity Microsoft is developing a high-performance, easy-to-use platform that will enable developers to create better games, faster.

"Building on our strengths as a software company, X-Box will offer game developers a powerful platform and game enthusiasts an incredible experience," said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect at Microsoft. "We want X-Box to be the platform of choice for the best and most creative game developers in the world."

Unlocking New Gameplay Experiences
Familiar tools such as the Microsoft DirectX API will inspire movie-quality rendering, enhanced Internet gaming, and superior audio in future-generation games. X-Box will catapult gameplay quality to new heights by delivering the following:

* Pentium III 600 MHz CPU
* Custom 3-D NVIDIA design graphics processor
* Windows 2000 based Operating System Architecture
* 64 MB of RAM (Unified Memory Architecture)
* Custom 3-D Voice I3 DL2 Audio processor
* 8GB hard drive
* 4X DVD drive with movie playback
* Four game controller ports
* Expansion port
* Proprietary A/V connector
* 100 MBps Ethernet

Notables:

* More than three times the graphics performance of the newest-generation game consoles with Photo-Realistic quality.

* The custom AV Connector with an expected resolution beyond HD-TV.

* Co-developed with experts at nVidia Corp., the custom-designed graphics chip will deliver more than 300 million polygons per second.

* Rich, fast-action and realistic experiences enabled by the X-Box hard drive. With no load times users can incorperate audio realism into the gaming experience for example by adding live commentary while playing a sports title.

* Broadband Internet connectivity that extends the game experience
Combining the power of PC technology with the accessibility of its cutting-edge DirectX development tools, Microsoft is providing game developers with a maximum-performance creative medium to deliver better games. Users will have full access to any and all game updates, add-ins, patches and just about anything you can think at a click of a button.

"The PC has always been the design center for high-end entertainment because of the unlimited graphics power and the great tools that make programming easier," said Robbie Bach, vice president of the Games Division at Microsoft. "Our developer partners are excited to apply Hollywood design techniques to creating superior X-Box games."

Developer Enthusiasm
Microsoft is allocating significant resources in technology, developer support and marketing to make X-Box and its developer partners successful. X-Box is slated to launch in 2001, and numerous developers and publishers have already expressed their enthusiasm for it, including industry leaders Electronic Arts Inc., Konami Company Ltd., Acclaim Entertainment Inc. and Eidos Interactive.

Well we knew that it would happen eventually. Today at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Bill Gates officially announced the X-Box. That's right, the largest and most powerful computer software and technology company in the world has now entered the game console business. And let me tell you, looking at the specs on this thing make it look like Microsoft will burst onto the scene and make a lot of funky noise doing it.

After months and months of speculation on what exactly the X-Box will entail in terms of speed, Internet connectivity, and hardware, we finally have some numbers for you on this incredible looking machine. As most of you probably know, the console was being constructed based on computer architecture and hardware.

Well now it's official as it will run on a 600MHz x86 compatible CPU, have a custom Nvidia 3-D graphics processor, 64 MB of RAM, an 8GB hard drive, a custom 3D audio processor, 4X DVD drive with movie playback, four game controller ports, and expansion port, proprietary A/V connector, and a 100MBps Ethernet card. Sadly, this puts an end to our guess that it would be running on one of the new 1GHz processors. Too bad, but it's a small thing.

So what does all of this mean in terms that we can maybe understand a little more to shed some light on what kind of games this thing will be capable of running? Well that means that this thing will be about three times faster than the newest next-gen consoles and will be able to deliver a whopping 300 million polygons per second. Wow.

Gates praised the PC in his introduction, but was quick to point out that "this is not simply taking the PC experience and putting it on a console." It's all about giving the developers the opportunity to approach development from an artistic rather than technical standpoint. He then proceeded to unveil the stats of the new system which included an Intel (sorry, AMD) PIII processor that would be, "over 600MHz," a Windows 2000 kernel with Direct X as an operating system and an 8GB hard drive (for full details, see the story above). e also unveiled the graphics processor, a joint Microsoft/NVidia effort capable of 1 trillion operations per second that Gates described as, "three generations beyond the best graphics cards that are available for the PC right now."
The addition of a significant hard drive will also set the X-Box far apart from anything currently available.

As Gates stated in the keynote, "You can't, during an interactive game, ask a player to wait while you go to the DVD" for data access. The hard drive will go a long way towards eliminating any slow down here. The drive will also work in tandem with the unit's internet capabilities to open up avenues for distribution that have been previously unavailable for console owners. "When you're using X-Box," Bill explained, "and think 'Hey, there's a new game that I've heard about,' you'll be able to jump out to the Internet and grab a trial version." In addition to downloading demos, hard drive offers a convenient way to store new levels and other resources downloaded from the internet.

Gates did state that Microsoft is still "very committed to continually evolving Windows as a great gaming platform." Gates made sure to point out that the X-Box will possess the same strengths that all consoles have - namely, no boot time, no game installation and a stable platform for developers that won't ever change.

To showcase the system's performance, Gates turned the floor over to Seamus Blackley, the Director of X-Box Advanced Technology who showed off what the system will be able to do with several short demos. In addition to the Spark demo (a shower of brightly lit particles that shows off colored lighting and particle motion effects) that most developers have already seen, Blackley also showed a pool demo with some of the finest water effects we've ever seen, a desktop filled with toys that showed off the systems advanced lighting and shadowing abilities, a Japanese garden that showed hundreds of butterflies flying around (each leaving their own shadow and reflecting in the pool) and an unbelievable processor demo in the form of a ping pong ball/mousetrap chain reaction.

This last demo was the one that really turned our heads. Those of you who have been scared by this experience in physic'c class are already familiar with the concept. Basically you take a room whose floor is covered with mousetraps. Each mousetrap has a ping pong ball on top of it. Seamus threw another ping pong ball into the room, setting off a chain reaction that sent all of the ping pong balls and the mouse traps flying into the air. The effect was spectacular. Seamus even slowed down the action and showed us the motion blur on each of the objects. We were simply amazed by all of the animation that was happening on-screen.

The X-Box is due out in the Fall of 2001 at an undisclosed price point.
"We view Microsofts entry into the console business as an important and positive event for our industry. Electronic Arts is intrigued by the opportunity to develop exciting new games for X-Box," said Larry Probst, chairman and CEO of Electronic Arts.

"We welcome the development of the new X-Box platform because we expect it will help the home game console industry to expand," said Kagemasa Kozuki, chief executive officer of KonamiCo., Ltd. "We plan to organize an X-Box development team and release new titles for the platform before anyone else. We hope that the X-Box will be a successful platform and will help the game console industry grow further."

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software for
New Games Division
To advance future-generation PC and X-Box games, Microsoft has formed a new dedicated games division comprising world-renowned software engineers and designers in the industry. Robbie Bach, vice president of the Home and Retail Division, will oversee the Games Division. Further directing the divisions efforts are Vice President Rick Thompson, and General Manager Ed Fries, who will oversee first-party software development.
personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software any time, any place and on any device.

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