Is it TRUE? RAMBUS in XBOX....
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Monday January 8, 10:25 am Eastern Time
Forbes.com
Ten O'Clock Tech: Microsoft In The Living Room
By Arik Hesseldahl
Intel's doing it. 3Com is doing it. Now Microsoft is doing it too.
All are companies heavily involved with the personal computer. And all used the platform of
the Consumer Electronics Show to unveil devices that were not PCs.
Last week Intel (Nasdaq: INTC - news) joined the ranks of dozens of companies to offer an MP3 digital music player. With its
Audrey Internet appliance, 3Com (NYSE: COMS - news) has started to reinvent itself from a networking gear maker to a
home Internet device company. Now Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) is sounding its own charge with products that
de-emphasize the PC.
The most eagerly awaited had to be the X-Box home videogame console, which has had the gaming community buzzing since
Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates first talked about the idea last year. Its success is such a foregone
conclusion that several semiconductor companies went to great lengths to try and get their chips or chip designs into the box.
Among the successful parties were Intel, which makes the 733 Mhz central processing chip, Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA - news),
which makes X-Box's graphics chips, and Rambus (Nasdaq: RMBS - news), which designed the technology that will connect
the CPU to the main memory.
Bill Gates took the wraps off the X-Box design. When it hits the market this fall, it will boast four Universal Serial Bus (USB)
connections for the game controllers, which will be great for multiplayer games. The choice of using the USB-style connection,
which is common on PCs, is an interesting one. There will probably be plenty of add-on controller devices for X-Box games
much as there are for PCs now. Driving games could have steering-wheel controllers. Flight simulator games could have
realistic-looking joysticks.
X-Box will have an 8 GB hard drive, meaning it will be able to store all kinds of game-related information. And it will have an
Ethernet connection on the back, so that if you have a cable modem or digital subscriber line, you'll be able to connect it to the
Internet to play games against faraway opponents. It will also connect HDTV sets.
The one company that should be concerned about X-Box is Sony (NYSE: SNE - news). After a parts shortage caused a
deficit of PlayStation 2 units in North America, Microsoft may have a sudden advantage. If X-Box ships on schedule and
without any comparable shortage issues, it will likely have the marketing buzz behind it among consumers, while the PlayStation
2 will be last year's bad news. The loyalty of Sony's 75 million PlayStation owners may be severely tested.
But the X-Box is not the only new Microsoft-made gadget that is aimed at the living room. The software giant also took the
wraps off its UltimateTV device, a set-top box that combines a DirecTV satellite subscription box, with an Internet TV box that
will let you surf the Web while watching TV, and a personal digital video recorder that can record up to 35 hours of TV shows
with only one touch. And it will let you record two live shows at once. With a single box you'll be able to do things that until
recently took three separate devices. It is hoped that Microsoft has plans for a cable version of the box as well.
If nothing else can be said about the upcoming year of consumer electronics devices, it is that entertainment devices that
previously had only a token amount of computing power will be getting much smarter, and much more network- and
Internet-friendly. And it appears that Microsoft wants to be right in the middle of it.
But the company needs a little good news, and it won't be finding any in its PC-based businesses. Microsoft warned on Dec.
14 that earnings and revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 will be off by between 5% and 6%, while reducing expectations for
the rest of the year. Could its salvation be in that new plastic box?
Related Item: News Scan P.M.: Jan. 5, 2001
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