On January 6, Microsoft officially unveiled it’s 128 bit video game console, dubbed Xbox, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This marks the first entrance of a United States based company into the 128 bit console wars.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was the keynote speaker at CES. “The graphics power is three times what has been available before, and the ability for developers to achieve high-level theoretical performance is very simple. We achieved that by leveraging some PC architecture.” Gates said during his keynote speech.

The Xbox looks much like the Playstation 2. It is covered with cooling fins, but has a large X embossed on the top with a green jewel in the center. There are four controller ports, a USB port, and an Ethernet port. The console will be shipped with an eight-gigabyte hard disk that will make it easier for players to save game data, create and edit levels, and download files from the Internet. The system will not ship with a 56k modem since Microsoft is bypassing narrowband Internet accessibility. The Dreamcast will be the only 128-bit console able to connect to the Internet right out of the box.

At first glance the Xbox controller looks surprisingly like the Sega Dreamcast controller with slight variations. The directional pad is eight-way rather than the four way cruciform style (Sega Saturn owners are familiar with this design). There are two analog sticks located in the same areas as the Gamecube controller. There are four main buttons in a diamond pattern in the same place, and same colors as Dreamcast, along with two other unidentified buttons. Like Dreamcast controllers there are two trigger buttons. There is a large green jewel in the center that serves only aesthetic purposes. “We wanted to be innovative, but our number one priority was comfort, and our number two priority was function. At some point you get something comfortable that works really well, and with game controllers there’s been a lot of convergence. We’ve tried to take the best of all worlds.” Says J. Allard, general manager of Microsoft’s Xbox team.

The power of the Xbox is unparalleled by any other upcoming system, but many gamers will tell you it is the games that count. Take the 32-64-bit war fought mainly between Sony’s Playstation and the Nintendo 64. Nintendo’s machine out muscled the Playstation, but Sony’s third party game manufacturers that migrated from Nintendo gave Playstation the edge.

The Xbox will not play DVD movies out of the box; instead, consumers will have to purchase a separate remote control peripheral that will activate DVD playback functions. This could be an easy way for Microsoft to circumvent the DVD forum’s mandatory $20 fee for all DVD players sold. The DVD Forum is a consortium of DVD player manufacturers that have joined to help promote DVD movies and players. It charges each DVD manufacturer $20 for every DVD player sold. If Xbox does not play DVD’s out of the box, then Microsoft may have found a way o get around the forum.

Following Gates’ unveiling of the console, Seamus Blackley, director of advanced technology at Microsoft came up to the stage to demonstrate and discuss two of the third party games in development: Oddworld: Munch’s Odyssey; and Malice, developed by Argonaut. Both were slow moving platform games that showed off the systems graphics ability, but none of its speed. The graphics in both games were very smooth and clean. The environments in Oddworld rival those on any system, and the game is not even near completion. Two other games were shown: Neversoft’s hugely popular Tony Hawk series will make an appearance with Tony Hawk 2x. THQ has confirmed WWF Raw is War for the console. Malice was the only games shown that was specifically designed for Xbox.

Not only will the Xbox be the most powerful console, it will also be the most marketed. During its annual financial analysts’ meeting last July, Microsoft announced that it plans to spend $500 million on marketing for the launch of the system in Fall 2001. That’s nearly ten percent of the $7 billion a year industry. “You can’t do this halfhearted. It’s a long-term investment and one we take very seriously.” Said Robbie Bach, senior vice president for Microstoft’s Games Division.


Xbox specifications:
CPU: 733 MHz Intel
Graphics Processor: 300MHz custom Xchip, developed by Microsoft and nVIDIA
Total Memory: 64 MB
Memory Bandwidth: 6.4 GB/sec
Polygon Performance: 300 M/sec
Sustained Polygon Performance: 150+ M/sec (transformed and lighted polygons per second)
Micropolygons/particles per second: 300 M/sec
Particle Performance: 300 M/sec
Simultaneous Textures: 4
Pixel Fill Rate - No Texture: 4.8 G/Sec (anti-aliased)
Pixel Fill Rate - 1 Texture: 4.8 G/Sec (anti-aliased)
Compressed Textures: Yes (8:1)
Full Screen Anti-Alias: Yes
Micro Polygon Support: Yes
Storage Medium: 4x DVD, 8GB hard disk, 8MB memory card
I/0: 4x DVD, 8GB hard disk, 8MB memory card
Audio Channels: 64 (up to 256 stereo voices)
3D Audio Support: Yes
MIDI DLS2 Support: Yes
AC3 Encoded Game Audio: Yes
Broadband Enabled: Yes
Modem Enabled: Future upgrade
DVD Movie Playback: Built in
Game Pad Included: No
Maximum Resolution: 1920x1080
Maximum Resolution (2x32bpp frame buffers +Z): 1920x1080
HDTV Support: Yes

Name: Grant
Year: Senior
Major: English
Comments:
Way to go Don! Got the head story I see... can't wait to see more of your stuff on here.