Meanwhile, Microsoft Taiwan's Chou stressed that her company had been communicating with major Japanese software companies, hoping that major games could have both PS2 and XBOX versions. Microsoft itself would also develop games, Chou said, and the company was planning to have over 160 Chinese XBOX games available before June next year.
So far KOEI from Japan has released an XBOX version of its best selling Shin Sangokumusou, Romance of the Three Kindoms, and Nobunaga's Ambition.
Besides better graphic performance, the other advantages XBOX holds over PS2 are the multimedia functions which offer a built-in hard drive for users to edit music, expand peripherals and retrieve vocals on-line.
But when XBOX was first released in 2001, the online function it promoted was still not widely available. Last year North America and Japan set up XBOX servers, and now Taiwan is testing local servers with 150 users. Local XBOX users are expected to be able to go on-line by next year.
"XBOX has already gained a firm place in the TV game console market, but in the past few years, on-line gaming has become the fad in Taiwan, so the real decisive moment between XBOX and PS2 will only come when XBOX starts to offer online services," Chou said.
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