Bill Gates has unveiled the XBox at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. With many arcade manufacturers joining their list of game developers, we are expecting many changes this year.
Microsoft is claiming that the XBox will set the standard in game play with the best graphics, sound and overall game play. As we all know, consoles are only as good as the software which is where Microsoft have done their homework and signed up leading companies such as Electronic Arts, Namco, Konami, Midway and a host of others. To read the full list of companies, please follow this
link.
The market leader in the home market industry is Sony, with a reported 75 million consoles worldwide. Gartner Group research firm, report that more than a quarter of American households have a Sony Playstation, compared to Nintendo's 14 percent penetration and Sega's 6 percent. Microsoft is planning to spend over $500 million on marketing alone, just to gain a stake to the very lucrative home game market which is now estimated to be worth over $15 billion dollars each year.
It is a sign of a changing industry as many coin operated software developers are looking to create software on these systems. Haruhiro Tsujimoto, Managing Director of Capcom Co. Ltd. is prominently shown on Microsoft's website as saying, "The game console industry is constantly changing. Our creativity must also progress in accord with these changes. The birth of the Xbox allows us this opportunity." Shinichi Nakamoto, Executive Vice President of Hudson Soft. Co. Ltd., "We are very excited to be developing the contents of the new superior Xbox platform. We plan to do our utmost to ensure that the Xbox will further activate the family game console industry."
The problem which continues to face amusement operators is, with the growing pressure to release new product for the home market, the time given to arcade people to recoup (and also make a profit) their investment of buying games for the arcades is now almost non existent with many games being released in the arcades at the same time as they are released in the home market. This continues to add pressure to an already fragile industry.
