Microsoft to spend $ 500 million Xbox Launch March 10, 2000 Redmond expected Wash.-Microsoft to spen...

1. Microsoft spend 500 million Dollars On Xbox Start
Microsoft to spend $ 500 million Xbox Launch
March 10, 2000
Redmond expected Wash.-Microsoft to spend $ 500 million to market and sell its next Xbox video
game console that most of the money the software giant has ever issued a new product on the
market today said a Microsoft Manager.
"We have to build the demand for this to be successful," Robbie Bach, senior vice president of
Microsoft's games division, said during an analysts' conference at the headquarters of the company
today. "This will be the largest ever made to market. You can see half a billion dollars (spent) in the
first 18 months of the project."
The investment includes marketing, promotion and support for retailers and third-party software
makers, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer said the marketing costs also include Xbox subsidies. Game console manufacturers routinely
subsidize the cost of hardware, with consoles sold for about half the cost. The difference is made by
software sales and royalties.
Microsoft's decision to a game console that includes a DVD drive and Internet access to create, is
part of the company's broad strategy to move beyond the PC market.
The Xbox is the first large-scale hardware project of the company and is strong competition from
Sony, Nintendo, Sega and other established gaming system facing policy-makers, analysts say. For
years, Microsoft mice, keyboards, joysticks, and other accessories, but never a complete computer
system sold.
Bach said that the Xbox has to be sent on its way in the fall of next year. Microsoft developed 30
video games in-house and the approval of projects play third-party software makers, he said. The
company has a design for the game console and finished as 1000 Developer kits for around 200
programmers shipped develop video games, he said.
"In terms of the success, the number 1 key great games" is running on powerful hardware, Bach,
who said that the Xbox will have three times the performance of Sony PlayStation2 said.
As previously reported, the Xbox will use a Pentium III processor from Intel and a custom 3D-graphics
processor from Nvidia. It is about 64 MB of memory, an 8-GB hard drive, a DVD drive and
an Ethernet port for high-speed Internet access.
Microsoft, however, to face challenges in the market. At the time, Xbox is released PlayStation 2 and
Sega Cast, for example, is on the market for more than a year.
Bach added that Microsoft is not new to the gaming community, shipping an average of 20 to 25
games a year for PCs.
"In the last four years we have not gone to a serious player in the games market primarily from in

2. the in the games business," he said. "To accelerate success, we need to be more than just the PC
market."
The Xbox is just a piece of Microsoft's plan to market for devices that entertainment on television
and the Internet, and one of the four areas of the company invested tap to combine in the future. The
company is the money in interactive television, wireless technology and its bCentral website, a web
portal provides software and services for small businesses must manage its affairs.
Bach said Microsoft's games strategy fits well with its interactive TV strategy
Xbox will bind in Microsoft WebTV service, which consists sold by TV consoles and Internet access
service to consumers and MSN, the company's consumer portal site.
"Online gaming could help the online environment at home and can be used with MSN and WebTV
too," Bach said.
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