In a news feed released Thursday afternoon, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates officially announced the existence of the long-rumored X-Box. Scheduled to release in the fall of 2001, the console will be supported by a number of video and computer game developers and boast performance greater than any previous game system.

　　"We're taking the time today to announce the breakthrough game console known as X-Box," said Gates during the feed. "The X-box 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, didn't reveal any concrete details behind the system, its capabilities, or its lineup. Microsoft did manage to line up a number of console and PC game developers to praise the machine's abilities, however.

　　"X-Box is a global product so we'll be selling it worldwide," continued Gates. "…We're very anxious to have software developers throughout the world contributing to the platform." Microsoft stressed the importance of getting X-Box development kits into the hands of developers now in order to give them a year's worth of time to create what Gates hopes to 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 X-Box, citing its universal hardware standard and powerful graphics as some of its many outstanding features.

　　Activision executive VP Mitch Lasky revealed that an X-Box port of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is currently in the works. Unlike the previous PlayStation, Nintendo64, and Dreamcast versions of the game, Pro Skater on the X-Box will benefit from the console's additional hardware muscle and boast effects such as motion blur and true anti-aliasing.

　　"We're going to obviously bring many of our familiar hits ... to the X-Box, and deliver an experience to the consumer with much more fluid animation and lots more polygons in the characters," noted Lasky. "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 X-Box will ship with 64MB of system and video RAM, will have an 8GB hard drive, and will be powered by an Intel Pentium III 600MHz CPU. Contrary to previous reports, however, the X-Box will not be using a GeForce 256 as its primary graphics processor. Instead, Microsoft has supposedly opted to use a custom chip from Nvidia.

　　"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.

　　And what of continued Microsoft support for the existing PC? "It's important to know that the X-Box complements the PC, and we see the X-Box in the living room," said Gates. "The PC will continue to grow in the other parts of the house and we're going to make sure that developers can target both of these products very easily."

　　Gates is expected to unveil the X-Box's complete specifications, and give more details behind the console's developer support at the Game Developers Conference Friday morning in San Jose.