Microsoft Announces Xbox Details

Microsoft held a press conference today to announce "significant worldwide Xbox developments." Gamasutra has just arrived back from the media event, held concurrently in San Francisco and London, and now have official word that the console, heretofore "code-named" Xbox, will henceforth be known as Xbox. Discerning eyes will note in forthcoming Xbox promotional material that whereas Microsoft's previous logo for Xbox was in all lowercase letters, the logo now features all uppercase letters. Xbox general manager J Allard presented a list of more than 150 confirmed Xbox developers, a broad swath of U.S., European, and Japanese companies both big and small. The most notable companies were those conspicuously absent from the list, namely Square and Electronic Arts. Lacking any hardware to brandish to the media, the real star of Microsoft's show was a reel of what appeared to be predominantly real-time movies demonstrating a few of the 100 Xbox titles currently in development, although no titles were officially announced at today's event. Nestled amid the usual litany of fighting, racing, sports, action, and traditional-looking platform games, there was one unspecified title shown that truly looked different: a highly stylized, cartoonish-looking game with whimsical colors and characters, and "Batman"-style visible sound effects. This looked presumably like a preliminary effort to deliver on Microsoft's promise that the Xbox will offer both the kinds of games that people have come to expect on consoles, plus yet-undefined "new" kinds of gaming experiences, brands, and concepts that people have never seen before. Said Allard, "We are not confused" about the importance of content to a console's success in a crowded, competitive market.