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Technology Stocks : LSI Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel My Brother who wrote (17266)	3/2/1999 4:56:00 PM
From: patrick tang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

At the last Comdec in Nov., LSI demonstrated some kind of "advanced gaming platform" or something. Hard to believe they will build one prototype just to "show technology". Any idea to whom that whole setup is for? patrick

To: Daniel My Brother who wrote (17266)	3/3/1999 4:00:00 PM
From: Moonray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

PlayStation 2 Likely To Have Impact Beyond Video Game Market Tuesday, March 2, 1999 TOKYO (Nikkei)--Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is still working on the development of PlayStation 2, planning a launch date sometime before spring 2000. However, the project is already attracting a lot of attention as it has the potential to revolutionize home entertainment computers and change the balance of power in the digital consumer electronics market. PlayStation 2 will be the successor to the PlayStation home video game machine, which has been a huge hit around the world with total sales of more than 50 million units. The Sony subsidiary, however, appears to be aiming for an even bigger success with PlayStation 2. Ken Kutaragi, vice president of SCE, emphasized that PlayStation 2 will not merely be an updated version of the original PlayStation. While ensuring the new machine will be compatible with existing PlayStation CD-ROM games, the company is believed to be working on equipping it with a DVD playback function. The price has yet to be announced, but an official at a Japanese software maker estimates it will be 50,000 yen or less, given the 15,000 yen price of PlayStation. According to a survey by Dentsu Institute for Human Studies, the Japanese home video game market in fiscal 1997 is estimated at 760 billion yen, combined with hardware and software. But when music and other related products are added, the domestic market for digital entertainment products is likely to surpass 1.5 trillion yen, approaching the value of the personal computer market, at just below 2 trillion yen. With its ability to play games, movies and music, PlayStation 2 may be able to dominate the huge digital entertainment market as the most popular all-in-one home entertainment unit. In terms of hardware, the 128-bit home video game machine will be no match for current 32-bit PCs in regard to data processing power and graphics handling capabilities. But it will have a new central processing unit that SCE developed with Toshiba Corp. (6502). According to information revealed by the company, the CPU's processing speed is 4-5 times faster than the Pentium III, Intel Corp.'s latest micro- processing unit. In addition, the new CPU is expected to have sharply enhanced 3D graphics handling capabilities and allow software-based decompression of encoded DVD-ROM images. SCE spent 10 billion yen to develop the new CPU. Many analysts believe the large investment is a testament to the company's fear that it will lose the emerging consumer electronics market to products based on Wintel technology (a combination of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and Intel Corp's microchips) unless it can exert influence on the market with powerful advanced technologies. The market will be closely watching sales of PlayStation 2 once it is released since the product's success may open up a way for Sony Computer Entertainment to become a major supplier of CPUs for home entertainment computers. o~~~ O