In that battle, PlayStation holds an early edge, if for no other reason than it has many more titles and a loyal group of gamers. The Xbox includes a 10GB hard drive. It boasts a graphics processor far speedier than the one in the PlayStation. Both boxes have a DVD player. The broadband connection suggests the box could be used for online gaming, for downloading new game levels, weapons and characters, or even for entirely new games.
Consumers seem ready to pounce on the new hardware.
On Yahoo Clubs, for instance, more than 60 sites are devoted to Xbox arcana and nearly as many for the Gamecube. PlayStation has attracted more clubs than the other two combined. Xbox, after all, won't contribute to Microsoft's bottom line for quite a while. Wall Street has plenty of ways to wager on the video game wars. Shares of the leading game publishers have been soaring at a time when most tech stocks have been pounded.