Or, as I like to call it, the joke of the day.
http://www.1up.com/article2/0,4364,1426821,00.asp Apex Digital To Launch Game Console At CES DVD giant Apex Digital Inc. will announce an entry into the video-game console market at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas with a Microsoft Xbox-like console.
Apex, whose low-cost DVD players quietly pushed Sony Electronics Inc. off its perch as the top DVD player vendor in the U.S. market beginning in 2001, will launch the ApeXtreme in conjunction with Via Technologies Inc., which will supply the processor and the chipset, Via representatives said late Monday night.
The console will essentially be a stripped-down PC designed for the living room. Executives will answer the question of how the box will compete with dedicated consoles and more flexible PCs this Thursday, when the device launches.
Apex will sell two versions of its ApeXtreme console, according to Via executives, for $399 and $299, respectively. The more expensive version will contain dedicated DeltaChrome graphics designed by Via subsidiary Via Graphics, while the $299 box will contain integrated graphics powered by the forthcoming onboard Via CN400 chipset. The console' s ship date has not been announced, however.
Representatives at Apex Digital, Ontario, Calif., could not be reached for comment at press time.
Other console makers have tried and failed to crack the console market, owned by Nintendo Ltd., Sony Electronics Inc., and newcomer Microsoft Corp. Most notable among them was Indrema Corp., which announced it would take on Nintendo, Sony and Sega Enterprises with its own console with an open-source console. However, the company ran out of funding and died quietly in 2001.
The ApeXtreme will not require specially-designed software, as Microsoft' s Xbox does. Instead, the console will be powered by an embedded version of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system stored on a built-in hard disk, according to Richard Brown, associate vice president of marketing for Taiwan-based Via. Microsoft' s Xbox uses similar SDKs as the PC, but Xbox and PC software are not interchangeable. Hackers have been able to port certain Linux applications to the Xbox, but in almost all cases they have required hardware modifications to be made, which voids the Xbox warranty. It was unknown at press time whether the ApeXtreme will include digital-rights management software.
Brown said the Windows XP Embedded OS, an included gamepad, and little else would differentiate the console from a PC. Microsoft' s Xbox, by contrast, includes digital-rights-management software and other safeguards to prevent the software from being modified.
" We believe it will be fully compatible (with PC software)," Brown said. " Just to be sure, we' ve engaged in extensive testing, and all that' s going well." In addition, both versions of the console will be able to run DVDs and display pictures out of the box, Brown said.
The ApeXtreme will be powered by a 1.4-GHz C3 processor, Brown said, in addition to the CN400 chipset. At press time, although the amount of RAM the console will contain was not known, the CN400 chipset will reportedly use a 200-MHz front-side bus and DDR-400 memory. Six USB ports will also be included, Brown said.
Software will be loaded on a DVD drive and stored on the hard disk, Brown said.
For all the latest news from the Consumer Electronics Show this week, stay tuned to PC Magazine' s CES Site.
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Now c' mon kiddies and laugh with lotusson.
