"We're taking the time today to announce the breakthrough game console known as Xbox," said Gates during the feed. "The Xbox provides performance better than twice that of any previous platform."
The feed was meant for news agencies to extract audio and video excerpts from, and as such it didn't reveal any concrete details behind the system, its capabilities or its lineup.
'Global product'
Microsoft stressed the importance of getting Xbox development kits into the hands of developers now in order to give them a year to create what Gates hopes will be "unbelievable games."
Executives from Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games, Infogrames, Midway, Acclaim, Konami, Sierra Studios and other game developers extolled the virtues of the Xbox, citing its universal hardware standard and powerful graphics as some of its outstanding features.
Activision executive VP Mitch Lasky revealed that an Xbox port of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is currently in the works.
Hardware muscle
"We're going to obviously bring many of our familiar hits ... to the Xbox and deliver an experience to the consumer with much more fluid animation and lots more polygons in the characters," Lasky said. "But what's particularly exciting are the kinds of things that we can't even imagine are going to be capable with this device."
The Xbox is rumored to ship with 64MB of system and video RAM, will have an 8GB hard drive, and will be powered by a 650MHz version of AMD's Athlon CPU.
Contrary to previous reports, however, the Xbox will not be using a GeForce 256 as its primary graphics processor. Instead, Microsoft has supposedly opted to use a future chip from Nvidia -- most likely the NV11 or NV15.
"With the level of semiconductor technology we can deploy, and the understanding of the 3-D research that we can bring to bear, we can provide all kinds of terrific value in the consumer electronics industry," said Nvidia President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang.
What about the PC?
Gates is expected to unveil the Xbox's complete specifications and give more details behind the console's developer support at the Game Developers Conference Friday morning in San Jose, California.
Unlike the previous PlayStation, Nintendo64 and Dreamcast versions of the game, Pro Skater on the Xbox will benefit from the console's additional hardware muscle and boast effects such as motion blur and true anti-aliasing.
And what of continued Microsoft support for the existing PC?
