X-CITING, X-TRAORDINARY, X-CELLENT?

I can see the Department of Justice lawyers laughing themselves to death right now. After years of unsuccessful attempts to bust Microsoft for monopolistic practices, they are handed the proverbial head on a silver platter. Splattered over every games magazine was a reporters dream story: "Microsoft to 'shake up consoles' with super machine". "X-Box console from Microsoft to rival PlayStation 2". "Microsoft moves into new arena". Ouch. But the following missives seemed to be highly unsure as to what this thing was at first. The rather ungainly term X-Box was coined for the project, scant, but exciting details were known (they want it to run every PC game ever made) but nothing was concrete. Slowly, more rumours have climbed out of the primordial soup of the industry, but (until now!) no cohesive attempt to draw everything together has been made. And it seems that slightly unfair that Microsoft has been nailed. As you look at it, this is more of an unholy alliance between many major PC-related companies, rather than just a Microsoft "Skunk Works" initiative. It's just that Microsoft are a bigger name than all the others involved. Summarised below, without a Microsoft bias, are the facts we (think we) know so far (ones in bold are more concrete than others):

· Will run a Windows (CE?)-variant operating system, through which you will be able to run just about all PC games ever made. It will come with a 4GB hard drive for installing on (though this is unsubstantiated as it would take up space, produce heat etc. Though this writer can't see any other way!). · Will have a DVD-based drive. This is almost certain as it will need to have DVD-compatibility to rival PS2, and this would also give it full backward-compatibility over any CD-based PC game. · Will have a 500mHz processor made by (probably) Intel or maybe AMD. This would give it sufficient power to run up-to-date games through which it will compete with PS2, Dolphin (the next Nintendo console) and Dreamcast 2. This will give developers the huge advantage of capturing two markets (PC and X-Box) on one development budget. · Will come with a modem. I

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