LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Attendees at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show on Saturday were given the first public viewing of Xbox, the new 128-bit video game console being developed by computer software giant Microsoft.
Video games are big business. In recent years, Americans have been buying them to the tune of $7 billion a year. With the game business becoming that big, few people were surprised last March when Bill Gates officially announced that he had decided to enter it, just one week after the highly touted Japanese launch of Sony's PlayStation2.
In some ways, the Las Vegas unveiling served as a chance for Gates and company to remind people about what they announced last year -- that Xbox features a 128-bit processor, plays games on DVD-ROM, features built-in broadband support, and draws polygons at twice the speed of any other home game machine on the market today.