X-Box Game Console to Be Launched in 2001

Bill Gates unveiled the much-rumored X-Box, Microsoft’s planned game console. The X-Box will help Microsoft stave off a competitive threat and grab a piece of a growing market—console game software—that it hasn’t touched before. To succeed, Microsoft will have to embrace a radically different business model, build a hardware product that’s nothing like a PC, and create games that appeal to a different type of customer than its PC titles.

Background: The Game Console Market

Game consoles are dedicated computers that run game software. Current game consoles are sealed boxes that ship with no monitor or keyboard; consoles get their input from game controllers (such as joysticks or gamepads) and display output on a user’s television. Inside the box is a powerful central processor with very high graphics performance. Game software ships on CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, or ROM cartridges manufactured solely by the game console vendor.

Consoles boot quickly and are much more reliable than PCs. While consoles have a small proprietary operating system kernel in onboard ROM, most of the operating system code ships with each game on its disc or cartridge. This arrangement makes games more reliable because a game ships with exactly the operating system it was tested on and will run on. Also, vendors keep their consoles on the market unchanged for four years or more; this allows game developers to test and optimize their software for a single, fixed hardware platform.