Microsoft hat gestern AMD die kalte Schulter gezeigt und bekanntgegeben, daß die X-Box mit Intel Chipsätzen bestückt wird. Das Resultat (-10%) ist allerdings übertrieben. Genaueres unten im letzten Abschnitt:
Al grüßt
X-Box the anti-device?
By Ryan Tate
March 11, 2000
Get-rich tip: Be ready to abandon your old stregnths in new markets.
Microsoft (MSFT) hopes this device thing is just a fad. A few years ago, it and the rest of the computer industry took for granted that Windows CE would come to dominate handheld computers. After all, CE could leverage the existing installed base of Wintel PCs and offer easier rewriting of applications between Windows CE and desktop Windows. Then handheld-optimized Palm (PALM) came along and utterly stole the show.
It's quite possible that Microsoft is about to relive that catastrophe with X-Box, the video game console it unveiled Friday and said would be ready by Christmas 2001, about a year-and-a-half behind Sony's (SNE) PlayStation 2. The thing about the X-box is, it could leverage the existing installed base of Wintel PCs and offer easier rewriting of games ... sound familiar?
There are some pluses: Microsoft's Direct-X programming software is widely used to develop video games for the PC, and X-Box hardware will be culled from the robust PC hardware market. Both of these factors help the company leverage existing hardware and software resources, to realize economies of scale.
But Sony (SNE), too, has some scale. It facilitated the development of hundreds of games for its original PlayStation and sold millions of the consoles at low prices. What's more, the X-Box will use a new processor, the Nvidia, that won't be available until next year. (The company will use the much more common Pentium III for the X-Box's central processor, however.) Using the hot new Nvidia will give Micorosft an edge over the PlayStation 2 in horsepower, but could seriously undercut its economies-of-scale goal.
PlayStation not playing: Confirming earlier bug reports, Sony said some of its PlayStation 2 video game consoles cannot play games or DVDs because of a faulty memory card. The company has already sold 980,000 of the machines in Japan. It is offering replacements but has not issued a recall.
X-box chip deal to Intel: AMD (AMD) stock dropped 11 percent after Microsoft said it would use Intel's (INTC) Pentium III chip for the X-Box gaming system. Analysts said that the deal won't be that lucrative for Intel, anyway. In the video console market, money is lost on the hardware and made up in game licensing.
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