Yesterday, at the 2001 International CES, Bill Gates revealed to the world the highly anticipated Xbox video game console during his keynote address. As the finale of his keynote, Gates showed off the Xbox console and game controller and demonstrated two exclusive Xbox games that highlight the future-generation console's rich and realistic graphics capabilities.
"Xbox is the future of video gaming," Gates said. "With its breakthrough technology and incredible graphics capabilities, Xbox will set the standard in gaming for years to come. It enables game designers to create a whole new world of gameplaying experiences that will captivate the imagination and competitive spirit of gamers like no other console."
"Xbox is on track for an awesome launch in fall 2001," said Robbie Bach, senior vice president and chief Xbox officer at Microsoft. "With more than 200 game companies around the world creating Xbox games for launch and beyond, the unveiling of the Xbox design is just the start of great things to come."
To emphasize the power of Xbox, Gates called on The Rock, World Wrestling Federation (WWF) superstar and star of the popular THQ Inc. and JAKKS Pacific Inc. video game "WWF Smackdown! 2," to help unveil Microsoft's new future-generation console.
The Xbox console includes the following:
Four game controller ports that allow easy multiplayer gaming and enable other peripherals, ranging from game pads to voice-activated headsets
A front-loading DVD tray
A multisignal audio-video connector that allows for easy hookup to televisions and home theater systems
An Ethernet port for rich, fast-action online gaming via a broadband connection
An NVIDIA graphics processing unit (GPU), delivering more than three times the graphics performance of other consoles
An Intel 733MHz processor, the most powerful CPU of any console
An 8GB hard drive, for massive storage of game information -- a first in the console gaming industry
CPU: 733 MHz
Graphics Processor: 250Mhz custom-designed chip, developed by Microsoft and nVidia
Total Memory: 64MB
Memory Bandwidth: 6.4GB/sec
Polygon Performance: 125 M/sec
Simultaneous Textures: 4
Pixel Fill Rate - No texture: 4.0 G/Sec
Pixel Fill Rate - 1 Textures: 4.0 G/Sec
Pixel Fill Rate - 2 Textures: 4.0 G/Sec
Compressed Textures: Yes (6:1)
Storage Medium: 2-5x DVD, Hard disk 8GB, 8MB Memory card
I/O: Game controller x4, Ethernet (10/100)
Audio Channels: 256
3D Audio Support in Hardware:Yes (64 3D channels)
MIDI+DLS Support: Yes
Hardware audio filtering and EQ: Yes
Broadband enabled: Yes
DVD Movie playback: Remote control accessory required
HDTV Movie support: Yes
HDTV Game support: Yes
Maximum resolution: 1920x1080
Maximum resolution: (2 x 32bpp frame buffers + Z) 1920x1080
US Launch Date: Fall 2001