X-Box Promises Glittering Graphics

Developers Embrace Microsoft's Foray Into Games

While Gates emphasizes the X-Box is a gaming platform, he also commented only loosely on the fact that X-Box is, basically, a PC. Because it runs on a Windows 2000 kernel with DirectX, developers will be able to create a game as one piece of software for the bulk of their development. They will need to make only minor modifications to port the program to each platform, the X-Box and PC. However, you can't run existing PC games on the X-Box.

Game developers like Zac Southard, a programmer for Alpha Squadron, see a lot of potential with X-Box for PC gaming.

"There are so many games developed for Windows, it'd be great if it's easy to port a game [to X-Box,]" Southard says.

Graphics board developer 3dfx Interactive doesn't make the graphics hardware for the X-Box, but the company considers the X-Box a breakthrough for PC gaming. It's not simply a new console, representatives say.

"The more [X-Box] is identical to Windows, the better for the PC platform," says Peter Wicher, director of product marketing at 3dfx Interactive. "We could now have an abundance of new content."

NVidia codeveloped the graphics chip, and executives say they're excited by Microsoft's understanding of consumers.

"They're software guys, and they do more than anyone else to enable mass-market multimedia," says Michael Hara, Nvidia's vice president of corporate marketing.

Hurry Up and Wait

Still, after the flash of the demonstrations wore off, some expressed doubt that Microsoft can really deliver a quality hardware device with a stable platform. And others note that graphics for a low-resolution television are very different from that of the PC.

"Microsoft brings a lot of money and muscle to gaming," Wicher says. "We'll see how well it does this time with hardware."

Microsoft says developer information will be posted on an X-Box Web site soon. In April the company will release a beta version of DirectX 8, which game developers will use to prepare software for the new platform. But the company didn't say how soon anyone outside of Microsoft could take the controls of an X-Box, even in a prototype version.