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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: johnd who wrote (39068)	3/6/2000 3:27:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 74651

MSFT's `X-Box':600 MHz or faster, 128 MB of memory, a port for connecting to the Internet and a new version of the Win OS Microsoft Corp. has decided to take games very seriously. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is expected to divulge details Friday about a secret project code-named ``X-Box' -- the console Microsoft hopes will give it the supremacy in video games that it has achieved in the PC industry. mercurycenter.com Excerpts follow: Microsoft has so far kept quiet about the X-Box project, and has asked game developers to do the same. But the video game community is still buzzing in anticipation of the annual Game Developers Conference this week in San Jose, where Gates is scheduled to make a presentation Friday. One source said that Microsoft demonstrated the power of the X-Box by having it display a scene in which pingpong balls bounce wildly in a room full of mouse traps. He said the level of speed and detail is ``dramatically better' than the PlayStation 2, the most advanced system on the market today. The X-Box console has the innards of a high-performance computer, say people close to Microsoft. It has a processor that's 600 MHz or faster, 128 MB of memory, a port for connecting to the Internet and a new version of the Windows operating system outfitted specifically for a game console (it boots up in just a couple of seconds, rather than minutes). And Microsoft's MSN Gaming Zone site, launched in 1996, is the largest online PC gaming site on the Internet, boasting 10 million members. Hard-core gamers pay a $9.95 monthly fee to compete against each other in the premium games, which include Asheron's Call and Fighter Ace. What's more, visitors use the site for an average approaching 40 minutes per day, a rate second only to America Online, according to online measurement firm Media Metrix. But perhaps most important for Microsoft, it has lots of experience working with video game developers, the artist/programmers whose work can make or break a console in the marketplace. Each console has a set of tools that developers use to create games, a process that has grown more complicated and expensive as consoles handle more stunning graphics. By one estimate, developing a strong title for the PlayStation 2 will cost at least $3 million. ``The biggest cost is people. It's definitely people,' said Yves Blehaut, senior vice president for business development at Infogrames Entertainment Inc., a leading game developer based in Lyon, France, with offices in San Jose. ``If you sell under 400,000 units worldwide, it's difficult to make money on a product.' So part of Microsoft's X-Box strategy involves updating the tools game developers already use for Windows PC games, and thus speeding development time, said one source close to Microsoft. Games that would otherwise take months to convert from one platform to another can be outfitted for the X-Box in a little more than a week. Blehaut said that kind of functionality would be great news for developers, either allowing them to produce games faster or to spend more time improving the product. Add in the prospect of multi-player action via the Internet, and you have a whole new landscape in gaming and entertainment -- due sometime around the end of 2001, when the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Nintendo Dolphin and X-Box could all be competing on store shelves. ``I think the console that is a mix of off- and online will be the winner. And I cannot tell you if it will be Sony, Microsoft, Sega or Nintendo,' Blehaut said. ``Infogrames supports and develops for any hardware manufacturer that supports their own hardware. It's important that they have good technology, reputation, marketing and tools that allow the developer to do a good job. Sony, when they entered the market in 1994, was pretty good at that. Microsoft, if they want to have their software publishers behind them, they will have to do the same. So it's not a coincidence that Bill Gates is speaking. It's a clear sign.'